Grim drug figures

Middle-aged men – not young homeless heroin users – are more likely to die of a drug overdose in Australia, according to a new report. In 2014, people aged 30-59 accounted for 78 per cent of all overdose deaths. Australia’s Annual Overdose Report 2016 – released by the Penington Institute – challenges the stereotype that it’s the young most at risk of dying of overdose, says the institutes’s chief executive John Ryan. Australians aged 40-49 are the most likely to die of a drug overdose. He said the statistics were ‘‘grim’’.