One Nation is concerned about subsidised, prescription medicines being sold on the black market, one of several examples of what it says are Medicare “rorts”.

We’ve known for years that some types of medicines on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) can be misused this way.

But it’s hard to know exactly how big an issue this is today, whether this is becoming more common, or how much it costs taxpayers.

Here’s what we know about the black market for PBS drugs.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare says in 2022–23 around one in 20 people in Australia aged 14 and over reported using a medicine for non-medical purposes in the past 12 months.

This could mean using a prescription or over-the-counter medicine to get high, or to build muscle at the gym, for instance.

These were most often opioids (such as oxycodone and morphine), steroids, pharmaceutical stimulants (such as ones to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or ADHD), and sedatives (such as benzodiazepines).

But these statistics don’t tell us how these medicines were obtained. People might have bought them on the street, been prescribed them by multiple doctors, or by an individual doctor prescribing inappropriately. These stats also don’t tell us if people obtained these just for their own personal use or if they sold any extra to others.

People can pay a significant mark-up for those drugs on the street, and the price........

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