[AUS] Online drug discussion

Tronica

Tronica

Executive Director
Staff member
Joined
Mar 12, 2002
Messages
5,236
Location
Castlemaine, Australia
Monica Barratt (PhD student from the National Drug Research Institute at Curtin University, otherwise known as Tronica) invites you to complete a 15 minute survey about online drug discussion, drug information sources, online forums and pill testing.

You are eligible to complete the survey if you:
(1) have ever used ecstasy/MDMA,
(2) have ever used online forums,
(3) usually live in Australia, and
(4) are at least 16 years old.

Yes, this means pretty much all Australian Bluelighters are eligible ;)

Survey Link!

This survey is part of a larger research project I'm doing (my PhD) which is described in more detail on the project website.

As well as being interested in online forums and drug discussion, I wanted to make sure that some of the people who tend not to be surveyed in Australia were included, namely people who (1) use drugs occasionally, and (2) people who don't live in the big capital cities. So, you are all welcome!

Thanks so much,
Monica
 
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Thanks willow11!

Would love to get a few more Bluelighters completing this. And I'm interested in any comments you have on the project itself.

Yes it does appear I put DMT in the wrong drug category (research chemicals). In fact, comments / improvements to the drug categories I put together would be appreciated. Here they are:

Alcohol
Tobacco
Cannabis (marijuana, hash)
Ecstasy (MDMA, MDEA, MDA, ‘pills’)
Meth/dex/amphetamine (eg. speed, base, crystal/ice, dexies)
Cocaine
GHB (G, fantasy, juice), 1,4-B, GBL
Ketamine (K)
LSD
Magic mushrooms
Other psychoactive plants (eg. salvia, peyote, khat)
Research chemicals (eg. 2CB, 2CI, 5-MeO-DIPT, DMT)
‘Legal’ highs/party pills (eg. BZP, funk pills, neorganics)
Nitrous oxide and/or amyl nitrate
Benzodiazepines and sedatives (eg. Valium™, Stilnox™)
Antidepressants (eg. Prozac™, Aropax™)
Heroin
Other opioids (eg. methadone, buprenorphine, OxyContin™, morphine, codeine)
Steroids
Other

(Note: these are fashioned for an Australian audience - some drug names and types are absent due to the idiosyncrasies of the Australian drug market)
 
Hello & Happy 2008!

A feature article, "Connect and stay safe?", has just been published which explains a bit more about the project and the ideas behind it.

Thanks to all those who have done the survey, I'm really grateful for your efforts and humbled by the numbers of people prepared to donate their time to this cause!

For those interested in the online interview, if there's one lesson I've learnt in this PhD process is that 'everything takes twice as long as you expect'. I've only just gotten around to starting the interviewing, and I apologise for the delay :)

What's this survey, you say? Check it out here. I'd love to get your input too. By reading this forum, you've already met one of the selection criteria ;)

As always, comments-questions-critiques are welcome.
 
Yes, thanks - it's all coming along well. I have a steady trickle of BL respondents (so Google analytics tells me) which is fantastic, so thanks for the support :)

I'm going to submit an abstract from this survey to the Club Health conference in June this year, in Ibiza/Spain :) Just putting it together now based on prelim results then will update when survey complete. I'll put everyone informed on that!
 
...DMT shoukd properly be with other psychoactive plants, but as its extracted and largely sold as an "RC" thats probably the right spot.. lol, answering something 3 months later. Better late then never.
 
Thanks guys :)

Almost up to 1000 responses, though not all are eligible. So... thanks for your part in that!

I've also begun conducting the online interviews, which I've had a massive response to. Going well so far!
 
i was about to go and complete this.
then i realised i'd done it back in november last year.

hahaha.

ah well glad i could help you anyways =)
 
I just found out that I've been accepted to present a paper at the Club Health 2008 conference in Ibiza/Spain in June. It will be the first from the PhD results. Its title is: "Ecstasy/MDMA content and purity information in Australia: results from a web survey of online forum participants".

Abstract:
‘Ecstasy’ pills may contain varying quantities of MDMA and its derivatives, and other drugs such as amphetamine, ketamine, 2CB/2CI and PMA. Ecstasy users may seek information about the content/purity of their drugs in an attempt to avoid adulterated or non-active pills. In this paper, I will describe the chosen research methodology and present a selection of findings from a web survey of Australian ecstasy users who also use online discussion forums. The responses collected to date (N=517; data collection still underway) suggest that the most common approaches to obtaining pill content/purity information were asking friends and dealers, and searching online pill report databases. Pill testing was the least popular approach. The preliminary findings indicate that younger/novice ecstasy users were more likely to report trying to find out the content/purity of any of the last 3 batches of pills that they had used, compared with older/experienced users. Ecstasy users who rated the internet as very important to them in learning about drugs were more likely to check online pill report databases. Respondents also expressed their desire for access to a funded online illicit tablet database backed by government, scientists or police. Further research into how pill testing and online pill report databases may influence drug use is required to inform the development of evidence-based responses. This process is likely to involve political, legal and public health challenges. This project also illustrates the utility of web surveys and online forum presence as research tools for accessing and engaging this target group.
Click to expand...

Currently the survey has 729 valid responses from 1103 which is a great effort. Thanks to everyone who has helped out! I've also recently completed 8 online interviews with forum users. I'm resting that for the moment to do a little of the analysis of these transcripts and then I'll do some more. People have been really enthusiastic about the interviews, which has been great for me to see.

I'll keep the survey open a little longer. So please take this chance to be involved, the more the merrier. Thanks again to the forum moderators and admins for your support of this project :)
 
Thanks for your support for my project and your contributions through the survey and interviews - I really appreciate it, there's so much for me to write about now in my PhD! This topic has been really interesting to talk to people about, and I've been amazed at how enthusiastic people are to tell me about their experiences.

I will be closing the survey on Wed April 2nd (next week). I'll post a summary of results soon after.

If you haven't already done the survey, now is your last chance - click here: https://drugsonforums.turningpoint.org.au/index.php?sid=24 -- No need to do it twice though!

all the best,
monica
 
As some of you may have noticed, I have closed the survey now. I'm now busy with interviewing and trying to put together something useful as a first lot of results. Looking forward to putting that up when done!
 
I just wanted to let you all know that the data collection for the Drugs on Forums online survey has finished. Over the 6-month period it was online (2/10/07 to 3/4/08 ), 1322 responses were received.

I set out to reach a large group across the country and I’m pleased to report that my targets were met. The main sample of 915 represents respondents who were located in Australia and had read or participated in online drug discussion in the past 6 months.

I’d like to thank you all for your support of the project and for the time spent completing my survey. I thought I’d share some of the characteristics of the sample.

See the project website for a few preliminary results: http://www.ndri.curtin.edu.au/drugsonforums/project/progress.html

Given the size of the whole project, it will take some time to complete the full analysis. I will keep you informed as the story unfolds.

Thanks again for your support and I look forward to presenting more at a later date. As always, feel free to comment on the project in this thread or directly to me: http://www.ndri.curtin.edu.au/drugsonforums/home/contact.html

PS. I have also just completed 29 online interviews. I was only able to interview a small proportion of those who were interested (all 298 of you), so I’m sorry if you missed out. Thanks to all those who took the time to share their stories with me!
 
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