Rising cocaine use in Australia

Australia has one of the highest rates of cocaine use in the world. This fact surprises most Australians, because the public conversation about cocaine tends to lag well behind the reality of who is using it and how much.

The data on Australian cocaine use has been improving steadily over the past decade, partly because of a monitoring programme that doesn't rely on self-report at all.

What wastewater tells us

Since 2016, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission has run the National Wastewater Drug Monitoring Programme , a twice-yearly analysis of sewage from treatment plants across capital cities and regional areas. By measuring the concentration of drug metabolites in wastewater, it produces population-level estimates of drug consumption that are independent of survey participation, stigma, or recall bias.

The cocaine findings are unambiguous. Consumption has increased substantially in most capital cities over the monitoring period. Sydney and Melbourne consistently show the highest per-capita cocaine loads in the country, and both have trended upward. The most recent available data shows cocaine as the second most detected stimulant in Australian wastewater after methamphetamine in capital cities , and in some Sydney catchments, the most detected stimulant of all.

The 2022–23 report showed that cocaine detections in capital cities had more than doubled from 2016 baseline levels in several catchments. Weekend consumption is substantially higher than weekday consumption , a pattern consistent with recreational rather than dependent use.

What surveys show

The National Drug Strategy Household Survey, conducted every three years by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, provides self-reported data on drug use across the population. The most recent available data shows cocaine use among Australians aged 14 and over at around 4.5% in the past 12 months , roughly 900,000 people. This represents a significant increase from a decade ago.

Among 20–29 year olds, use is substantially higher. In some urban demographic groups, the prevalence approaches 15–20% past-year use.

The AIHW data also tracks demographic patterns. Cocaine use is notably concentrated in higher-income groups, professional occupations, and urban centres , a distribution quite different from methamphetamine, which shows a more even spread across socioeconomic groups and stronger representation in regional areas. This demographic profile matters because it describes a population that is largely invisible in treatment statistics: people who are using regularly but functioning well enough that they never appear in emergency departments or AOD services.

Why supply matters

Use trends don't happen in a vacuum. The sharp increase in Australian cocaine consumption over the past decade correlates with dramatic changes in supply.

Border seizure data from the Australian Border Force shows a substantial increase in cocaine import attempts and seizures over the same period. The street price of cocaine in Australia has historically been among the highest in the world , a consequence of distance from South American supply chains. That price premium has moderated somewhat as supply networks have matured, making cocaine more accessible to a broader population than the elite-drug framing of previous decades suggested.

Purity has also increased. Testing data from pill and powder testing services and from forensic analysis of seized product shows average purity levels substantially higher than historical norms , meaning the actual dose in a typical purchase is higher than it was ten years ago.

Who is actually using

The picture that emerges from combining wastewater, survey, and demographic data is not the stereotyped portrait of cocaine as an elite party drug or an inner-city problem. It is a substance being used regularly by a broad cross-section of urban Australians: professionals, tradespeople, hospitality workers, university students, parents.

Most of these people do not appear in treatment data. They do not identify as having a problem. Many would describe their use as recreational, controlled, and manageable , and for many of them, at least in the short term, this description is accurate.

The concern is less about acute crisis , explored in detail in our piece on cocaine and mental health , than about patterns that are difficult to see clearly from the inside. Cocaine use is highly dose-dependent in its effects on mood, sleep, and anxiety. Regular weekend use produces a consistent cycle of stimulation and comedown that affects the working week in ways users often attribute to stress, poor sleep, or general anxiety rather than to the substance. Financial cost accumulates rapidly. Tolerance develops, subtly increasing the quantities used over time.

None of this is the dramatic version of cocaine's effects. It is the ordinary, incremental version , which is also the most common version, and the hardest to notice.

The monitoring gap

Treatment services in Australia report that cocaine-related presentations have increased over the same period that use has risen. But treatment presentations represent a small fraction of total users , the end point of a trajectory that passes through years of use without clinical contact.

Between the person who uses cocaine occasionally at a party and the person presenting to a treatment service, there is a large and largely unaddressed population of regular users who are not in crisis, not seeking help, and not tracked by any system other than the wastewater monitor.

Self-monitoring tools designed for this population , tracking use, mood, sleep, and spending without requiring a clinical framing , address a gap that currently has no other occupant.

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