That's the number of lives lost to unintentional drug overdoses in the Bathurst region in just a five-year period from 2013-2017.

Every death represents years of unfulfilled potential and every death represents countless friends and relatives left behind to mourn their loved one.

Every death was avoidable and every death was a tragedy.

And every one of those deaths should strike fear into the heart of every parent in our city.

Even more terrifying, though, is the alarming spike in local drug overdoses when compared to just 10 years earlier.

Between 2003 and 2007, according to the Penington Institute report released on Tuesday, there were seven unintentional overdose deaths in Bathurst. That's seven too many, but the figure pales in comparison to the 24 lives lost from 2013-2017.

And Bathurst is not alone with a spike in overdose deaths right across regional Australia.

"Ten years ago, people were more likely to die of an unintentional overdose in Sydney than regional NSW. Today that has completely turned around," Penington Institute CEO John Ryan said.

"That points to a massive failure to provide the kind of services and interventions that we know save lives."

It's hard to argue with that.

And while there has been an increase in unintentional deaths as a result of the improper use of prescription drugs such as pharmaceutical opioids and benzodiazepines, the impact of the rise of the drug ice cannot be underestimated.

From all reports the drug is cheap, powerful, readily available and potentially lethal. That's a horrendous mix and it's the responsibility of governments and communities to work together to find an answer.

And we must find it now.

Another decade of overdose deaths rising at the current rate would see the five-year death toll approaching 100 by 2027. If it's not a crisis now, it certainly will be by then.

As with tackling the road toll, tackling drug deaths will not take a single campaign but, rather, years and decades of education and message reinforcement.

And it will take money, lots of money, but what better to spend our money on than saving young lives?