Mixmag Drugs Survey 2012 - recruiting global sample!

Tronica

Tronica

Executive Director
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I'm in contact with Dr Adam Winstock who is running this survey and is happy to answer any questions you have about it. Apparently they already have 1000s of responses, probably due to the great advertising in The Guardian. MixMag survey has traditionally targeted UK only but now they are keen to gather a worldwide sample. So, please check out the survey as described below.

Survey URL: www.globaldrugsurvey.com/mixmag2012

Note - results will be published in April 2012.

Quote below is from The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/nov/23/mixmag-drugs-survey-2012

Drug use survey: tell us what you take

Mixmag's annual survey identifies trends in recreational drug use. The Guardian and Global Drug Survey are partners for 2011-12.

Why do people take drugs, how often do they take them, and what are the medical, social and legal consequences of their drug use?

Mixmag – the dance music magazine – has been providing robust answers to these questions with its annual drug survey. Largely – though not exclusively – focused on young people, it has identified important trends in the way people consume drugs over the past decade.

The survey detected the use of ketamine as a recreational drug by clubbers long before official agencies picked it up. It was one of the first studies to identify the appearance of mephedrone and, a year later, to document the impact of legislation on its availability and displacement to the illicit drug market.

Last year, it supported the largest study ever of cannabis withdrawal conducted, and uncovered the truth about what happens when you get arrested in possession of drugs in the UK.

Using the anonymised online reports of thousands of people in the UK and the US, it has become a vital tool for policy makers and academics – the "place where the world goes to find out real people's attitudes and experience of drugs."

For 2011-12, the Guardian is partnering with Mixmag and Global Drug Survey to help produce what we hope will be the biggest, most comprehensive survey of its kind in the world.

You can respond to the survey at www.globaldrugsurvey.com/mixmag2012. The results will be published exclusively by Mixmag and the Guardian in March 2012.

We are asking participants a range of questions about their use of specific drugs (amount taken, frequency, quality and how they were used), their experiences if they have been caught with drugs by the authorities; and the consequences of their drug use (medical and social side effects). Drugs covered by the survey include cocaine, ecstasy, cannabis, ketamine, mephedrone, alcohol, tobacco, "legal highs", and prescription medicines such as temazepam, Viagra and opioid painkillers.

This year, the survey will be exploring how synthetic cannabis drugs compare with normal cannabis and the role of the internet in drug distribution.

The survey, which is conducted by Global Drug Survey, is anonymous and takes about 20-25 minutes to complete.

Global Drug Survey is an independent, self-funded data mapping agency founded by Dr Adam Winstock, a consultant addictions psychiatrist in London. The survey has received ethical approval from the joint Institute of Psychiatry and Maudsley trust ethics committee. Global Drug Survey does not receive government funding.
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Wow, it's a very involved survey. But I really like it and can imagine how useful the data will be on a worldwide level :)
 
Anyone else tick practically every single "ever used" box as yes? Only had 12 not used drugs by the end.

And what on earth is C1C ? Heard of all the others but not that one, cant find a IUPAC name for it or anything.
 
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How did you go, DistyBoi - did it take an hour?
 
Yeah! About an hour in total. I doubt most people will be anywhere near that time however. A lot of the follow-up questions were specifically targetted at specific users of specific drugs, and being a rather indulgent and curious user of a rather large group of drugs and research chemicals in my university years I seemed to flag up nearly all the extra pages for extra questioning.

Seemed like a very well thought out survey though, props to the person that designed the tests. I hope I get an email for further questioning as they offered, I really appreciate this sort of scientific study into areas of non clinical drug use.
 
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I enjoyed this survey. I didn't feel like it was judging me like some other surveys.
 
Thanks DistyBoi and New :)

Yes. The group at Global Drug Surveys are very much against 'judgemental' surveys - comes across, doesn't it?

I should mention that they just appointed me to their advisory group. I'm very impressed with their approach!
 
Oh, congrats.

Yeah, I actually liked filling out this survey. It's more motivating when the questions aren't biased.
 
Taken. It took me about an hour. When it asked how I sourced some drugs, there was no option for me!... I am a Physician and source some the controlled RX products myself from work. I answered (other doctor) but that is probably not what they expect I mean. Oh well, I am just drop in the bucket and will not skew it very much!
 
I liked this survey, it's a shame they didn't list more in the way of actual drugs taken - since it might have been preferable if rather than say "Magic Mushrooms, LSD, 2C-B, 2C-I" etc they gave one psychedelics option, maybe with a please specify box. The results would suggest that I've never indulged in psychedelics, because none of the psychedelics I've tried were on there ;)

Great survey though, only took me about half an hour to complete :)
 
tambourine-man said:
Which qualified body gave this ethical approval???
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Good point actually, I've sometimes seen mixmag surveys quoted as a reference in journals but am not sure of the board/body that supports this research, or where the results are published in academia.

superfluous questions.
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Which ones?

"May wish to feed back some of the comments in this thread: http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/598984"

Just post them here.
 
This is what I posted in the other thread and which applies to all of you here too... any specific criticisms will be directly relayed back to the team running the survey and I know they are keen to improve it.

Just thought I'd chime in here. We have a thread for this study in Drug Studies at http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/599027-Mixmag-Drugs-Survey-2012-recruiting-global-sample

The MixMag drug survey has been conducted annually for 10 years now - beginning with simply a few pages in the MixMag hardcopy magazine, then evolving into the online version and attracting a global (rather than UK only) sample.

The people running the survey are keen to improve the next one based on the comments you have. Some of you have been specific but many of you have just said pretty general (negative) stuff. If you can be bothered, specifics would be great as it means the survey can actually be improved for next time. I'll ensure your comments get passed on. :)
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tambourine-man - I agree that quoting 10-20 minutes is not accurate for most people. It certainly took me longer and most people here longer, although the mainsteam audience (Guardian readers) may have indeed only taken 15 minutes. Still, a more accurate statement on time taken would definitely be an improvement worth mentioning.

As to the 'superfluous questions', I'm not sure how who would judge whether questions are superfluous - from who's perspective? I know they will write many papers based on the questions so they aren't just asking them for 'fun'.

Re ethics, I will get back to you with that info - good question to ask.
 
The reason I ask about ethics committees is because most of the good ones (rather than the inane ones that bureaucratise the research process to justify their own existence) would want to know why particular questions are being asked and how they relate to a specific research question and associated analyses.

It kinda grates on me when researchers ask hundreds of questions without knowing in advance how they will use the results or, worse still, ask hundreds of questions with the intention of fishing the results for something interesting for publication. You will know the implications on test significance should that occur. Good ethics committees should smell that a mile away and question it.

I might be being harsh. Apologies if I am.
 
The ethics information is actually in the original post (damn, I should have re-read it!):
Global Drug Survey is an independent, self-funded data mapping agency founded by Dr Adam Winstock, a consultant addictions psychiatrist in London. The survey has received ethical approval from the joint Institute of Psychiatry and Maudsley trust ethics committee. Global Drug Survey does not receive government funding.
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The reason I ask about ethics committees is because most of the good ones (rather than the inane ones that bureaucratise the research process to justify their own existence) would want to know why particular questions are being asked and how they relate to a specific research question and associated analyses.

It kinda grates on me when researchers ask hundreds of questions without knowing in advance how they will use the results or, worse still, ask hundreds of questions with the intention of fishing the results for something interesting for publication. You will know the implications on test significance should that occur. Good ethics committees should smell that a mile away and question it.
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Thanks for this comment. I agree with you to an extent. I think it depends on what kind of study we are talking about. In the case of a study where the underlying model is the measurement of latent constructs and the aim is to relate them to each other, such studies should indeed begin with a theoretical framework and set hypotheses. However, in the case of the MixMag Survey, the researchers are doing something different - they are taking a convenience sample of drug users from year to year and describing their use patterns and harms. There will likely be some planned analyses where questions are repeated year to year, but also some additional questions specific to this sample that will simply be exploratory/descriptive.

One of the concerns with large surveys using convenience sampling is that people will be wowed by the numbers without considering the sample frame is still convenience. So we cannot 'know' anything statistically about the 'wider population' from a convenience sample. Still, year to year, we can get a general sense of trends, and for this application, it is good enough in my opinion. You also have to ask what other option do researchers have? Probability sampling is very expensive and even the gold standard examples only tend to get 50% response rate, which means half of the sample frame is absent from the data. Drug researchers, or anyone researching a hidden population, has to make the best of what they have while being acutely aware of the limitations of their methods.

I should insert a caveat here that I am not running this survey - these are simply my opinions on how I think the process would occur.
 
It really makes us see how bad the market prices are in Australia when the maximum options for "how much do you usually pay for a gram of <x>" are in most cases half or less than the average price here.
 
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