Fatal overdoses are soaring in this regional centre. A coroner says it needs a safe injecting room

A coroner is calling for a safe injecting room in Geelong after new data revealed the regional city is on track to become Victoria’s top hotspot for fatal drug overdoses.

The recommendation comes from a damning finding into the December death of a 33-year-old Geelong woman, whose mother found her unresponsive in her bedroom following a drug overdose involving heroin.

More than 45 drug overdose deaths took place in the regional city last year, up from 35 the year before, according to figures from the Coroners Prevention Unit.

While 2025 data for other local government areas has not yet been published, the City of Melbourne recorded the most overdose deaths in Victoria in 2024 with 42 fatalities.

Sector sources, who are not authorised to speak publicly, are concerned that Geelong is now the state’s deadliest local government area for overdoses.

The calls for a safe injecting room in Geelong – in addition to the existing facility in North Richmond – come as overdose deaths from heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine skyrocket to record levels nationwide.

In 2025, Victoria recorded 261 heroin-related fatal overdoses, the highest annual total since the turn of the century and 74 more deaths than the previous year.

Victorian Coroner Simon McGregor urged the health minister and attorney general to change a state law that prevents more than one medically supervised injecting site from operating at once.

“I have been unable to identify any public health grounds to justify limiting Victoria to one medically supervised injecting centre at a time,” he said.

He highlighted a growing divide between Melbourne and regional Victoria when it comes to accessing evidence-based drug harm reduction services.

“I consider these numbers to be an urgent call to action, being acutely aware that behind every number is a person, their loved ones and the community impacted by their loss,” he said.

But a state government spokeswoman rejected the coroner’s call.

“There are no plans to open a medically supervised injecting room in Geelong,” she said.

“People seeking care for addiction deserve access to high-quality care – that’s why we have invested more than $3 billion to expand drug treatment, supports and harm minimisation services,” she said.

However, Penington Institute research director Dr Jake Dizard backed calls for another safe injecting room.

Dizard said these facilities prevent fatal overdoses, especially for people who would otherwise consume drugs alone, which is a major risk factor for drug-related deaths.

“There are also opportunities for people who use other drugs, not just opioids, to use the safe injecting room, and that includes those who use methamphetamine,” he said.

Dizard said safe injecting rooms can also be used as a gateway for referrals to other health services, which can reduce drug harm.

He said Australia continued to be plagued by high numbers of heroin deaths despite interventions including naloxone, a life-saving medicine that temporarily reverses an opioid overdose, and opioid pharmacotherapy such as methadone.

Chris Christoforou, the chief executive of the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association, said Geelong residents needed the same access to life-saving harm reduction services as Melburnians.

“Illicit substances, including potentially adulterated substances, now have an entrenched presence in regional Victoria, necessitating an immediate uplift in support,” he said.

He said Geelong services were overwhelmed, with 438 people waiting for drug treatment.

“Victoria has never experienced these levels of substance-related harm before.”

Victoria’s only medically supervised injecting room is located in North Richmond. The contentious service was opened in 2018 as part of a five-year trial and made permanent by state government legislation in 2023.

Former premier Daniel Andrews had committed to opening a second injecting room in Melbourne’s CBD, but his successor Jacinta Allan dumped the plan in 2024.

In his finding on the death of a Geelong woman referred to as BP, the coroner said a medically supervised injecting clinic could have provided “opportunities for care and support”.

BP, who lived in the Geelong suburb of St Albans Park, started using recreational drugs as a teenager. She experienced many traumatic relationships during adulthood and developed a long-term addiction to substances including alcohol, amphetamines, benzodiazepines, heroin and marijuana. She had previously attempted treatment through a methadone program.

On the evening of December 5 last year, BP’s mother went to check on her daughter in her bedroom and found her unresponsive, with blue legs.

Her mother called an ambulance and paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene. She died from combined drug toxicity, with heroin, benzodiazepines and methamphetamine among the substances involved.

The findings into her death come as new research from the Penington Institute shows cocaine-related unintentional deaths have also hit an all-time high nationwide, surging by more than 28 per cent in a year from 110 deaths in 2023 to 141 deaths in 2024.

Unintentional deaths involving amphetamine-type stimulants, dominated by methamphetamine, also hit historic levels, rising by more than 25 per cent.

There were 772 accidental fatal overdoses linked to amphetamines across Australia in 2024, up from 617 the previous year. During the same period, the number of heroin overdoses hit a 24-year high with 488 deaths.

Dizard said the rise in overdoses was linked to Australia’s “toxic and unpredictable” illicit drug market.

Victorian health authorities recently put out an urgent alert that batches of cocaine and methamphetamine were contaminated with heroin.

“Often when you’re purchasing drugs in the illicit drug market you may not be getting what you intended to purchase or it may have other things mixed in,” Dizard said.

Almost 90 per cent of Australians who died from cocaine overdoses were men, and more than 65 per cent were under 40 and living in wealthier suburbs.

More than 88 per cent of the accidental cocaine overdoses involved other substances including sedatives such as benzodiazepines, which users often take to ease the “comedown” of the drug.

Melbourne woman Iliana was 19 when she tried methamphetamine for the first time with a friend.

“I thought, ‘wow, my anxiety’s gone, my depression is gone. I’m feeling so good and happy to be alive’,” said the mother-of-four, who lives with bipolar and asked that her last name be withheld for privacy reasons.

But her addiction increased during her depressive episodes and intensified during her 30s, before she finally got clean after undergoing intensive rehabilitation.

Iliana, who now shares her story to help others through her work at a community service organisation, Uniting Vic.Tas, backed calls by the coroner for a safe injecting room in Geelong.

“It is so important to have those services for people to be able to access and to be linked up to the right places to get help,” she said.

National Alcohol and Other Drug hotline 1800 250 015

Family Drug Support Australia 24/7 Support Line – 1300 368 186

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