Recruiting Experiences & Risk Awareness of Addictive Behaviours and Psychoactive Substances Use in Post Covid-19: An International Survey 🌍📊

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UHDrugSurvey

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Jul 23, 2024
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Dear All,

Welcome! We are excited to share a unique opportunity to participate in an important study conducted by the University of Hertfordshire UK.
📈 🍄We are investigating patterns, experiences and risk awareness of addictive behaviours and drugs use in post Covid-19 era.
🏠 Reflecting on lockdown & post pandemic drug use 🏠
⌛️ The survey is completed anonymously ~ takes approx. 10 min.

How to Participate:
📝⬇️ The link of our survey to complete is here:
https://app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.u...l-tobacco-and-novel-psychoactive-substance-np

🔍 Contribute to important research
💡Your participation is crucial, and the information provided will enable our team to inform, educate public, design better interventions & reduce potential harmful behaviours in the future.

Spread the Word!
Please support our research efforts by sharing our survey link with your contacts and friends. Your support in spreading the word is invaluable!
🌐 To find out more about our Psychopharmacology, Drug Misuse and Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS) Research Unit and what we do you could visit our website:
https://www.herts.ac.uk/research/ce...drug-misuse-and-novel-psychoactive-substances

Further details about our study
  • Aim: To indicate how the consumption, patterns, experience, and risk awareness of drugs has changed in the post Covid-19 era.
  • Ethics Approval: This study is approved by the Human Research Ethics Committees at the University of Hertfordshire (protocol number aLMS/SF/UH/02951(5)).
  • Duration: The survey started in May and will run until October of 2024.
  • Eligibility of Participation: Open to anyone aged 18 or over.
  • Anonymity & Data Security: The survey is completed anonymously, ensuring your privacy. All data collected will be held anonymously and securely. No personal data is asked for or retained.
Why Participate & Research Outcomes
  • Inform and Educate: Your input will help our team inform and educate the public, potentially reducing harmful behaviors associated with addictive behaviours and psychoactive substances use.
  • Academic Contributions: The results will be analyzed and distributed via academic papers and conference presentations. We will share the outcomes on Bluelight for all participants to stay informed and updated of our research work.
If you have any questions or need further information, feel free to contact us at [email protected] or via Bluelight messages.
Many thanks for your time and contribution to our study. Looking forward to your participation and sharing with you the outcomes!

Best regards,
The NPS Research Unit Team,
University of Hertfordshire

​
Keep an eye on Bluelight for updates of our study outcomes. We value your participation and will ensure you are keeping posted about the progress and results of our research!
 
Just a note that anyone is eligible to complete this survey - from any country and any levels of experience with drug use.
 
I filled out the survey. One critique is that there are questions where you fill out different drugs you have taken, but the questions following often seem to be talking about a single drug. I felt some of my answers were less precise due to that.
 
Skorpio said:
I filled out the survey. One critique is that there are questions where you fill out different drugs you have taken, but the questions following often seem to be talking about a single drug. I felt some of my answers were less precise due to that.
Click to expand...
Thanks Skorpio.

I also completed the survey and had similar concerns.

I think the concept of NPS is nebulous- actually an article I really like in this area makes a critique of NPS, calling them Not Particularly Special.

As in, researchers have created this category of drugs but what actually makes something an NPS and when is it not an NPS? Some researchers include GHB and ketamine as NPS but they are hardly new or novel these days right?

And then there’s the issue of cognitively trying to combine effects of quite different substances in one’s mind if questions are about this ‘NPS’ category.

I think it’s still an important topic to research (it’s one that I research myself) but these days I’ve moved more towards looking at substances that are unexpected and identifying them through drug checking/testing with harm reduction response. Although of course some ppl do intentionally use newer drugs - but seems like the worst harms are when ppl unintentionally end up taking unknown/new substances due to unregulated drug supply.
 
UHDrugSurvey said:
Dear All,
Click to expand...

I completed the survey. I would not describe Etizolam as an NPS it is a licensed prescription medication available in several countries. Similarly many of the Russian drugs I mentioned are probably considered novel due to the lack of western scientific literature available but are prescription drugs in Russia and Eastern Europe prescribed by GPs and mental health practitioners.

When talking about "reducing harmful behaviours" I agree this is a laudable goal. However, used responsibly I have found many of these substances to have been beneficial to my anxiety, depression and alcohol intake. In many cases my quality of life has been substantially improved by such substances taken in moderation. Some drugs once painted as highly dangerous (ketamine) are now being used in prescription settings for depression.

Alcohol is the really dangerous product I use and its had a significant impact on my life (and probably my life expectancy). Tobacco is also a potentially deadly but legal product. On the other hand I have used NPS to attend social/family gatherings I would be far too anxious to attend without, to face dental appointments, to kill panic attacks that are utterly debilitating in nature, in one case use of an NPS brought me out of a very deep depression, and in another case I used an what you call an NPS (Etizolam) to completely quit heavy drinking (until a relapse 6 months later) with just 8 days of use of the NPS and zero alcohol intake.

Like many on this forum I believe drugs should be available to people as a matter of their personal choice, that users shouldn't be punished or lectured to and that harm reduction should center around responsible usage, personal safety, help with addiction, and the promotion of drug testing services like WEDINOS so that consumers can make informed choices about what they put in their body. I hope the study considers there are some very different sets of users for NPS:

* Those who take them to get high and may take them in incredibly large doses and are putting themselves in high risk situations, especially poly drug abuse. And echoing Tronica many of those users may be using NPS without even knowing, because of a polluted drug supply.

* Those who self prescribe and use such substances to provide them relief from mental health conditions that their health service is failing to cover and be allowed to live a more fulfilling life as a result.

* Those who are curious to try new substances to assess their potential medicinal value because they are interested in pharmacology and
possible benefits such compounds may have.

In the UK admitting even casual, medicinal use of some prescription drugs not prescribed to you or an NPS is considered by default "abuse" regardless of dose, frequency etc. You will labelled as such and it can affect medications the NHS is willing to prescribe as a result. This needs to stop. Nobody considers someone who drinks a glass of wine each night a drug abuser. Drugs education should not stigmatize drug use, it is counter productive.

I agree wholly with Tronica's sentiments also.

Sorry for the rant but its a subject I feel passionately about.
 
Last edited:
sadasaulna said:
I completed the survey. I would not describe Etizolam as an NPS it is a licensed prescription medication available in several countries. Similarly many of the Russian drugs I mentioned are probably considered novel due to the lack of western scientific literature available but are prescription drugs in Russia and Eastern Europe prescribed by GPs and mental health practitioners.

When talking about "reducing harmful behaviours" I agree this is a laudable goal. However, used responsibly I have found many of these substances to have been beneficial to my anxiety, depression and alcohol intake. In many cases my quality of life has been substantially improved by such substances taken in moderation. Some drugs once painted as highly dangerous (ketamine) are now being used in prescription settings for depression.

Alcohol is the really dangerous product I use and its had a significant impact on my life (and probably my life expectancy). Tobacco is also a potentially deadly but legal product. On the other hand I have used NPS to attend social/family gatherings I would be far too anxious to attend without, to face dental appointments, to kill panic attacks that are utterly debilitating in nature, in one case use of an NPS brought me out of a very deep depression, and in another case I used an what you call an NPS (Etizolam) to completely quit heavy drinking (until a relapse 6 months later) with just 8 days of use of the NPS and zero alcohol intake.

Like many on this forum I believe drugs should be available to people as a matter of their personal choice, that users shouldn't be punished or lectured to and that harm reduction should center around responsible usage, personal safety, help with addiction, and the promotion of drug testing services like WEDINOS so that consumers can make informed choices about what they put in their body. I hope the study considers there are some very different sets of users for NPS:

* Those who take them to get high and may take them in incredibly large doses and are putting themselves in high risk situations, especially poly drug abuse. And echoing Tronica many of those users may be using NPS without even knowing, because of a polluted drug supply.

* Those who self prescribe and use such substances to provide them relief from mental health conditions that their health service is failing to cover and be allowed to live a more fulfilling life as a result.

* Those who are curious to try new substances to assess their potential medicinal value because they are interested in pharmacology and
possible benefits such compounds may have.

In the UK admitting even casual, medicinal use of some prescription drugs no prescribed to you or an NPS is considered by default "abuse" regardless of dose, frequency etc. You will labelled as such and it can affect medications the NHS is willing to prescribe as a result. This needs to stop. Nobody considers someone who drinks a glass of wine each night a drug abuser. Drugs education should not stigmatize drug use, it is counter productive.

I agree wholly with Tronica's sentiments also.

Sorry for the rant but its a subject I feel passionately about.
Click to expand...

Alcohol is worse than any illegal drug IMO.
I've been dependant on or addicted to MANNNYYYY different drugs, but ONLY alcohol made me lose all my family, lose all my friends, had me end up homeless, caused brain damage due to seizures, ruined my life in every way, made every bad thing in my life so much worse and also destroyed my pancreas causing me to become an insulin-dependant diabetic.
 
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