Alcohol and other drug treatment services in Australia annual report 2024–25

Cannabis: client demographics and treatment

In 2024–25, of the 214,662 treatment episodes provided for a client’s own drug use, cannabis was reported as a drug of concern (either principal or additional) in 1 in 4 treatment episodes (26%, 56,503) (Table Drg.5).

In 2024–25:

• Cannabis was the third most common principal drug of concern (14%, 30,287 episodes) (Drg.4).
• 1 in 3 (35%, 10,519) cannabis-related treatment episodes reported at least 1 additional drug of concern(Table Drg.2). The most common additional drugs of concern were:
  • Alcohol (31%, 4,823 episodes)
  • Nicotine (26%, 4,010)
  • Methamphetamine (18%, 2,798) (Table Drg.3).

Clients can nominate up to 5 additional drugs of concern, these drugs may not have been the subject of any treatment within the episode.

Figure CANNABIS: Closed treatment episodes for own alcohol or drug use by cannabis as a principal drug of concern and top 5 additional drugs of concern, 2024–25

Note: Diagram presents the top 5 additional drugs of concern for a principal drug of concern by closed treatment episodes. Totals do not add to 100%.

Client demographics

In 2024–25, 17,863 clients received treatment for cannabis as the principal drug of concern.

Of these clients:

• 3 in 5 were male (59%) (Table SC.9).
• 3 in 5 people were aged either 10–19 (27%) or 20–29 years (34%) (Table SC.10).
  • This was consistent for both males and females (Figure 1).
• 1 in 4 people were Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (First Nations) people (26%) (Table SC.11).
  • This represents a rate of 657 First Nations clients per 100,000 people (crude rate for clients aged 10 and over) (Table SCR.26).

Treatment

In 2024–25, 30,287 treatment episodes were provided to clients for cannabis as the principal drug of concern (Table Drg.4).

Of these episodes:

• The most common referrals were from self or family (31%) followed by health services (31%) and diversion referrals from the criminal justice system (12%) (Figure 2, Table Drg.13).
• The most common main treatment types were counselling (39%) and assessment only(18%) (Figure 2, Table Drg.27).
  • Counselling remained the most common main treatment type between 2015–16 and 2024–25.
• The most common treatment settings were non-residential treatment settings (67%) and outreach settings (13%) (Table Drg.29).
• The median duration of treatment episodes was over 4 weeks (30 days) (Table Drg.30).
• The most common reasons treatment ended were planned completion (63%) and unplanned completion (20%) (Table Drg.29).

Clients referred via diversion programs

In 2024–25, 1 in 10 clients receiving treatment for their own drug use were referred into treatment via police or court diversion programs (9.7%, 11,401 clients) (Table SC.13).

Of these clients:

• 1 in 4 reported cannabis as the principal drug of concern (24%) (SC.13).
  • 1 in 6 treatment episodes for cannabis as the principal drug of concern were provided to clients who had been referred via diversion programs (12%, 3,586) (Table Drg.13).

Of the clients referred to AOD treatment via diversion episodes, 25% received further treatment through other sources of referral, such as from a health service, self or family (Table OV.14).

Diversion clients by selected principal drug of concern

In 2024–25, treatment referrals via drug diversion programs accounted for a substantial proportion of treatment episodes for clients with a principal drug of concern of cannabis.

In 2024–25, of the total 23,379 diversion-related treatment episodes:

• Cannabis (24%) was the most common principal drug of concern for diversion referral episodes into treatment, followed by methamphetamine (22%).
  • Since 2023–24, the proportion of diversion referral episodes into treatment for cannabis fell from 40%.
  • Due to the Cannabis Expiation Notice legislation in South Australia, adult simple cannabis offences are not diverted to treatment and so are not included in the data (see the Data Quality Statement for further information).
• Methamphetamine (29%) was the most common principal drug of concern for diversion clients who also received non-diversion treatment episodes (Figure 3, Table OV.14).
  • For clients with no diversion-related referrals, alcohol was the principal drug of concern for nearly half (44%) of the episodes.