Global Drug Survey 2014 - with added harm reduction modules!

Tronica

Tronica

Executive Director
Staff member
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Mar 12, 2002
Messages
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Drugs are a funny thing. Lots of people take them, lots of people talk about them – often not knowing much at all about what they are talking about. The media sometimes does a fantastic reporting on drug issues, other times it’s just not useful or accurate. Sometimes it’s just plain rubbish. Researchers do some interesting stuff but most of it‘s focused on the harm that drugs cause – not the pleasure they can bring to people’s lives. Global Drug Survey hopes to change that.

Collaborating with over 20 media partners and host of researchers and harm reduction networks across the world, translated into 10 languages and running with hubs in 17 countries we are about to under take the biggest survey of everyday drug use (inducing alcohol, tobacco and of course prescription medication – they are drugs to!) that the world, has ever seen.

From what would be the perfect cannabis and life after the Silk Road, to what happened when you’re caught with drugs or being drug-tested in work place; from nitrous oxide balloons and ecstasy pill testing to value for money and finding out what people do to keep themselves safe while high – this is going to be huge and relevant for people who use drugs, who drink, drop, get high, get low, gets scripts, grow their own or are just curious about the world around them.

If you are interested in drugs help us get the best information out to everyone. Our results will be published exclusively with our global media partners in March and April 2014.

Take part in Global Drug Survey 2014 at http://www.globaldrugsurvey.com/GDS2014

Everything is anonymous and confidential.

(GDS is headed up by Dr Adam Winstock, email [email protected]. The survey has ethics approval. N.B. I have had a role in designing parts of the survey!)
 
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damn that's a pretty long survey, kind of makes you want to just lie about stuff half way through tbh. Not saying I did because I'm on uppers right now but like gl getting someone nodding out to finish that
 
it is long but you can always skip questions. and its length entirely depends upon your experiences - for some people it is short because they don't use many drugs. So, rather than lie (not that you did, but if others are thinking of it) all you need to do is move onto the next section if some section is annoying you due to its length.

Having said that we have reduced the size of the harm reduction sections significantly after feedback from participants.
 
I just spent over an hour filling it out, submitted and got a "temporarily unavailable" page. Hope this gets fixed soon because I'd like to participate but don't want to risk wasting my time again.
 
hypnagogic said:
I just spent over an hour filling it out, submitted and got a "temporarily unavailable" page. Hope this gets fixed soon because I'd like to participate but don't want to risk wasting my time again.
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Ugh that sucks. I'll bring this to the attention of the database manager and see if he knows what the problem is.
 
hypnagogic said:
I just spent over an hour filling it out, submitted and got a "temporarily unavailable" page. Hope this gets fixed soon because I'd like to participate but don't want to risk wasting my time again.
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Hey hypnagogic. Adam tells me that "The site was down for half an hour as we migrated to a faster server with bigger capacity". Unfortunately you must have begun the survey just before that switch. Sorry about wasting your time, but looks like that won't be an issue from now on.
 
Thanks for the update, I'll give it another shot some time over the next few days.
 
I've just got to ask a question. I'm on the first page. What the hell is "Xenorap"? Is that just a nonsense substance put in there to catch people just randomly answering or making up answers, like to help de-skew the results? I pride myself on being well informed on substances in general, and I've never heard of it. Google is of no help either, other than telling me that Xenorap is a Russian guy's alias. Please, inform me.
 
SeenSoFar said:
I've just got to ask a question. I'm on the first page. What the hell is "Xenorap"? Is that just a nonsense substance put in there to catch people just randomly answering or making up answers, like to help de-skew the results? I pride myself on being well informed on substances in general, and I've never heard of it. Google is of no help either, other than telling me that Xenorap is a Russian guy's alias. Please, inform me.
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LOL I wondered about that one too but just iggied it and went on taking the rest of the survey
 
SeenSoFar said:
What the hell is "Xenorap"? Is that just a nonsense substance put in there to catch people just randomly answering or making up answers, like to help de-skew the results?
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You are absolutely right. If we get people who say they have used it, well, we can discount their results - it's likely they were just ticking randomly, or that they wanted to appear knowledgeable.
 
I thought it was shite how they only asked, "Would you like to stop using XXX next yeat?" No, motherfucker, I am FINE with my drug usage. I don't want to reduce how often I use XXX; I would like to use it more.

My only complaint is that the survey only askes if I would want to decrease my use, never asked if I was OK with my use of drug X.
 
Bob Loblaw said:
My only complaint is that the survey only askes if I would want to decrease my use, never asked if I was OK with my use of drug X.
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Just wanted to comment on your complaint.

I piloted a survey last year with some cannabis growers who had similar reactions. If we asked them a question, yes/no, about a negative effect of the drug or a stigmatised behaviour (e.g. other criminal activity), people felt as though they were being expected to say 'yes' -that as researchers, we were assuming that most/all cannabis growers were also involved in criminal activity, etc. When as researchers we expected 90-95% of people to say 'no' to these questions. And of course this statistic, that 95% of growers do not also commit criminal activity, is a positive finding that we can and do report to media when the study is done.

Similarly with the questions you mention, Bob Loblaw. Most people do not want to use less of a substance. Last year the substances with the highest proportion of people who wanted to use less were alcohol and tobacco - by far. These are the sorts of results we are likely to get again this year. We assume that if you say 'no' to this question, that you are fine with your drug use, that you have no desire to reduce it. And this is perfectly fine and normal, and is what most people say.

Perhaps people interpret these questions as biased because there is so much bias around us regarding drugs, so many stereotypes that don't allow for people to just be happy with their use. But let me assure you that the folks running GDS assume that the vast majority of drug use is normal and fine and that those people involved are happy to continue - of course we are keen to understand when and why it goes wrong, but certainly don't assume that it will or does for the majority.

Hope that helps :)
 
Absolutely, Tron. I just feel like like I speak for a large percentage of users when I say that there is no desire to curtial usage. I just think that if they had added an option for 'No, I wish I could continue using the same drug for the same frequency I would be OK' the survey would be more realistic than if we all just an all out "No" if that makes sense heh.
 
Will definitely send your comment to Adam - we are very keen to avoid sending an erroneous measure to people that we don't expect them to be perfectly ok with their drug use :)
 
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