Saturday Magazine

2 Sep 2024

Saturday 31st, August, 2024; Overdose Rates Doubling Traffic Deaths Opioid Laced Legal Drugs, Ruth Limkin, Founder of The Banyans Healthcare

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Saturday 31st, August, 2024; Overdose Rates Doubling Traffic Deaths Opioid Laced Legal Drugs, Ruth Limkin, Founder of The Banyans Healthcare

Macca and Nevena talk to Ruth Limkin, Founder of The Banyans Healthcare, Overdose Rates Doubling Traffic Deaths Opioid Laced Legal Drugs.

Ruth is the Founder of The Banyans Healthcare, and considers it a privilege to lead a team who embody the values of care, respect and joy.

Ruth is passionate about creating a better tomorrow. Her experience in business, government, community and media provides Ruth with a breadth of leadership experience and an understanding of the various environments experienced by professionals and public figures.

Her interest in health and holistic wellbeing springs from many years of working with those experiencing a need for support. Having researched and written about community and social health, personal wellbeing, nutrition and food security, Ruth has also worked with those experiencing stress, substance misuse or searching for a greater sense of meaning and purpose.

Ahead of International Overdose Awareness Day (31 August), healthcare professionals are warning
Australians of the dangers of recreational and party drugs, with government data revealing illicit drug use is at an all-time high
nationwide.

Concerningly, rates of drug induced deaths have continued to climb in tandem with growing usage rates, with drug related deaths
nearly doubling the rate of road traffic deaths in the last 12-month reporting period (2,356 vs 1,276)2

Alarmingly, despite being only the fourth most used drug type nationally, opioids lie at the heart of Australia’s tragic, growing
overdose rates, with over three fifths (60%) of overdoses involving this class of drug– alongside a staggering 40% rise in heroin
overdoses.

However, with a rise in imports of deadly synthetic opioid, nitazene, in the past 12 months, drug and addiction experts fear that
opioid overdoses will only continue to rise, amid a concerning wave of synthetic-opioid laced drug hospitalisations this year.

Data from The Banyans Healthcare corroborates these findings, with a staggering 206% increase in opioid condition presentations over
the past three years.

Dr Sampath Arvapalli, Psychiatrist at The Banyans Healthcare, says the increased appearance of nitazenes in other drugs across
the country is a nationwide health crisis.

“Nitazenes are a synthetic opioid, similar to fentanyl. However, while fentanyl is a prescription opioid, used in the treatment of acute
and chronic pain, nitazenes are not approved for therapeutic uses due to their exceptionally high potency, which outpaces morphine
and other opioids by factors of hundreds to thousands.”

“Nitazenes can take a variety of forms, and so are often marketed as other drugs such as cocaine, heroin, MDMA or even vape liquids,
as well as found as a contaminant in these drugs. However, the effects of nitazenes on the body can be catastrophic, and they carry
with them an extremely high risk of overdose, especially when used alongside other substances,” says Dr Arvapalli.