^Yeah, pretty much. From what I understand (please correct me if I am wrong), Drug Studies is looking to really progress and become a valuable resource for legitimate researchers, and from what I can see, hosting market research for organisations with such intimate relationships with RC vendors doesn't really fit with the new direction of that forum. Obviously, that's your job, I leave it in your capable hands, I just wanted to draw it to your attention.
Easy tiger.
My opinions on the usefulness of that survey are well-documented in that thread, along with the EADD thread that ran parallel to it.
It's poorly designed, badly-conceived and was only ever going to produce negative headlines and draw unhelpful attention to usage patterns that, frankly, from a harm-reduction perspective, are often better off remaining hidden (or at the very least, kept within an academic environment, rather than in a hysteria-fuelled news publication).
The fact that there is an overt relationship with the Grauniad/Mixmag to promote recruitment was enough to make me (and others) nervous about how the results will/would be used. I generally encourage people to avoid any contact with the media when they're looking to speak to us - whether that be done under the guise of research, 'sympathetic investigation' or wanting to 'hear both sides of the story'. They're
just not capable of behaving responsibly. Ever. It falls outside of their remit.
Regarding the proposed link between the Mixmag article author and this vendor... I haven't read the article (as that would mean I would have to buy it, knowing I was spending my money on utter shit). If the article uses a slang term for a substance that only one vendor has used, I must admit, it does look suspicious. However, I can't decide whether that is indicative of:
- an unpleasant business relationship between journalist and vendor
- a journalist who simply used a single/limited number of sources to write the article
- a journalist who bought some 'Roflcoptr' from said vendor, then decided to write a drivellingly unsubstantiated article on it at 3AM while peaking his tits off
Given application of Occam's Razor, I'd go with the second or third option.
I still have concerns over the Global Drug Survey, but this story doesn't really change the nature of them. Knowing that the Global Drugs Survey used the advertising power of a publication that also happens to employ dimwit journalists is just more grist to my mill of cynicism.
Apologies if I've misunderstood anything.
All I wanted to do was to make sure you were aware of issues that you clearly are familiar with, so I'll pipe down.
