{"id":77473,"date":"2026-08-21T14:07:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T14:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/77473\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T14:07:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T14:07:17","slug":"five-people-die-from-suspected-overdoses-in-canberra-in-a-fortnight-prompting-warning-from-health-authorities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/77473\/","title":{"rendered":"Five people die from suspected overdoses in Canberra in a fortnight, prompting warning from health authorities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five people in the ACT have died from suspected drug overdoses in the past fortnight alone, prompting a warning from health and emergency services about the presence of potentially lethal drugs circulating the territory.<\/p>\n

Another two people survived reported drug overdoses in the last week, ACT Policing said.<\/p>\n

Officers suspect opioids were involved in all cases.<\/p>\n

“Opioids obviously carry a high level of addiction, and our message to drug users and those around them is to be aware of the signs of an overdose,” Detective Superintendent Peta Lankester said.<\/p>\n

“Obviously we are investigating each of the incidents and the coroner will determine the outcome for each of those.”\"A<\/p>\n

Directions Health Services CEO Bronwyn Hendry held a press conference after a concerning number of deaths due to suspected overdose. (ABC News: Jade Toomey)<\/p>\n

‘Not realising what they can do’<\/p>\n

In the past year, 25 people in Canberra have died from suspected drug overdoses, police said.<\/p>\n

Health officials said some drug overdoses could be attributed to online purchases of imitation prescription drugs by unsuspecting users.<\/p>\n

“They’re tainted, or they’re just not realising what they can do; they’re often not what they purport to be,” Bronwyn Hendry from Directions Health Services said.<\/p>\n

“They’re buying oxycodone or they’re buying benzodiazepine in some form or another \u2026 and the drug doesn’t turn out to be that.<\/p>\n

“We know very little about a lot of those things that turn up.”\"A<\/p>\n

Bronwyn Hendry was joined by ACT Policing North District Detective Superintendent Peta Lankester and paramedic Sam Perillo to warn the public about opioids. (ABC News: Jade Toomey)<\/p>\n

Directions Health Services, the agency behind CanTEST, is the only publicly available drug-testing clinic in the country, located in Canberra.<\/p>\n

Recent test results have triggered serious concern.<\/p>\n

“We found heroin in cocaine a couple of times recently,” Ms Hendry said.<\/p>\n

“But, unfortunately, now we’ve got nitazenes that have crept into the illicit drug market, and they’re worse than fentanyl.<\/p>\n

“It can be up to a thousand times stronger than morphine, for example.”<\/p>\n

Nitazenes, a strong synthetic opioid, are not a prescribed pharmaceutical drug but could potentially be imported from overseas markets, Ms Hendry warned.<\/p>\n

Public warned to intervene early<\/p>\n

ACT Ambulance said while the recent cluster of deaths was concerning, they had not resulted in an increased workload for paramedics.<\/p>\n

“If you are concerned, don’t wait, intervene early and call us as soon as you can,” paramedic Sam Perillo from the Clinical Governance Unit said.<\/p>\n

“Use naloxone if you have it, that’s the best way to intervene early.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Naloxone can be used as part of the emergency treatment of an overdose. (ABC News: Jade Toomey)<\/p>\n

Naloxone is a nasal spray administered up someone’s nostrils and can rapidly reverse the effects of an overdose.<\/p>\n

It is free at CanTEST, CAHMA, Woden Needle and Syringe Programs and select pharmacies.<\/p>\n

The ACT Coroner will investigate the cause of the five recent deaths.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five people in the ACT have died from suspected drug overdoses in the past fortnight alone, prompting a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4817,22,21,2184,116187,38042,2717,8672,1849,5116,116185,116186,12289,116188,5716],"class_list":["post-77473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-act","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-canberra","tag-cantest","tag-concerns","tag-death","tag-drugs","tag-health","tag-local-stories","tag-naloxone","tag-opiods","tag-overdoses","tag-pill-testing","tag-warning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}