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The information-seeking behaviour of non-problematic illicit substance users: a study

C Webster

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Joined
Jun 16, 2005
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9
My name is C. Webster and I am undertaking my Honours year at the University of Newcastle, Australia. My project for this year will be a study of the information seeking behaviour of illicit substance users, with the aim of assessing current drug education policy.

The way I will be exploring this is by examining existing drug and health information websites, both official and unofficial. This will include Erowid (http://www.erowid.org) and key governmental drug education websites, such as “The National Drugs Campaign/Where’s Your head At?” (http://www.drugs.health.gov.au/). This will be followed by a study of the archives of this forum. No emphasis or mention in my study will be placed on individuals in this forum; the only thing I am interested in is the type of information sought and given, and the attitudes towards available information. Where messages are quoted code names will be used, and actual screen names will not be used. No personal or identifying information will be recorded.

My study will be conducted in the two months spanning 4th of July to the 22nd of August.

If any member of this forum for any reason does not wish their postings to be part of the study, please let me know and I will completely ignore any submission that member has made to this forum.

I can be contacted at [email protected]. My supervisor, Dr Marjorie Kibby, can be contacted at [email protected]. Any queries regarding the ethics of this research can be directed to the Arts and Social Science Research Ethics Committee at The University of Newcastle.

Any other comments, suggestions or queries are welcomed. The results of the research will be published on the web, and made available to forum members in December 2005.

Thank you for your time.

C. Webster

NB: Should you have concerns about your rights as a participant in this research, or you have a complaint about the manner in which the research is conducted, it may be given to the researcher, or, if an independent person is preferred, to the Human Research Ethics Officer, Research Office, The Chancellery, The University of Newcastle, University Drive, Callaghan NSW 2308, telephone (02 49216333, email [email protected].
 
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How the fuck did you get ethics clearance to do this? Well done! My ethics committee exploded violently at the mere mention of drug users. I can't believe they're letting you use opt-out, rather than opt-in, consent. I'm not saying you shouldn't use the data here, there's just obviously a lot of inconsistency across universities. I couldn't get past the issue of misrepresentation with my committee, so I gave up and did something safe instead (I'll be honest, it meant an easier ride to 1st class Hons).

As you might have guessed I wanted to do an Hons paper on a similar topic so I've got a little bit of literature that might be useful. Also there are a number of government and non-government bodies that have collected data on this recently and it's publically available, let me know if you want the details.

One thing I think you'll have fun establishing is the concept of "non-problematic" drug use, as it's a value-laden term at best. The thing is, most of your thesis markers will probably have a preconception of all drug use as being problematic, so you'd need to be careful to establish a definition upfront.

My other thought is that covering all illicit substance use is more a PhD than an Hons paper. Perhaps you could focus on one drug, especially one that is associated more strongly with non-problematic use (I'm thinking MDMA here). This would probably make it easier to get your study published too, since the narrower context lends itself to journal articles.

Good luck! Look forward to seeing your thesis in December :)
 
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thanks for the words of encouragment.

obviously i didnt divulge all the particulars of the study - and you are right, im focusing more on "party drugs", such as ecstasy and lsd.

ethics clearance was not technically a problem, as im not using human participants for this study; instead, im using the archives of this forum.

not sure if i need more resources - no doubt i will, but as ive only just started with the actual thesis after finishing the class coursework, i guess only time will tell.
 
aunty: any chance you could drop a few refs or a bibliography in this thread?

BigTrancer :)
 
aunty establishment said:

One thing I think you'll have fun establishing is the concept of "non-problematic" drug use, as it's a value-laden term at best. The thing is, most of your thesis markers will probably have a preconception of all drug use as being problematic, so you'd need to be careful to establish a definition upfront.


i believe this is going to take alot of work to get this right, im sure if you need to bounce ideas off this forum im sure we'll all help in whatever way we can :)
 
this is what i had for my Reserach Proposal that i submitted about 2 weeks ago . . .

Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing, Population Health Division. (2005) “National Drugs Campaign/Where’s Your Head At?”. Available Online at: http://www.drugs.health.gov.au/

Bluelight. (2005). “The New Bluelight”. Available Online at: http://www.bluelight.ru

Brush, DE., Bird, SB., Boyer, EW. (2004) “Monoamine Oxidase Inhibitor Poisoning resulting from Internet Misinformation on Illicit Substances”. Journal of Toxicology. 42(2):191-5

Elkind, D. (1985) “Egocentrism redux”. Developmental Review 5:218-226.

Erowid. (2005). “Documenting the Complex Relationship Between Humans and Psychoactives”. Available Online at: http://www.erowid.org

Gans, J., Blyth D., Elster, A., Gaveras, LL. (1990) “America's Adolescents: How Healthy Are They?”. American Medical Association. Vol. 1

Gray, N., Klein, J., Noyce, P., Sesselber, T. and Cantrill, J. (2004) “Health Information-Seeking Behaviour in Adolescence: The Place of the Internet”. Social Science and Medicine. Volume 60, Issue 7 , April, p.1467-1478

Harris, K., Duncan, G. and Boisjoly, J. (2002). “Evaluating the Role of “Nothing to Lose”: Attitudes on Risky Behaviour in Adolescence”. Social Forces, 80.3, 1005-1039

Jessor, R., and Jessor, SL. (1977). Problem Behavior and Adolescent Development. Academic Press.

Luke, A. (1997). Theory and practice in critical science discourse. In L. Saha (Ed.), International encyclopedia of the sociology of education. Accessed March 6, 2003. http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/Luke/SAHA6.html

Pillreports. (2005). “Pillreports.com – Database for Measuring Global Quality of Ecstasy Pills”. Available Online at: http://www.pillreports.com

Rideout, V. (2001). “Generation Rx.com: How young people use the internet for health information”. Kaiser Family Foundation, CA

Rolison, M., Scherman, A. (2003). “College student risk-taking from three perspectives.” Adolescence. Winter 2003 v38 i152 p689(16)

Turner, JW., Grube, JA., Meyers, J. (2001). “Developing an Optimal Match within Online Communities; An Exploration of CMC”. Journal of Communication. Jun; 51, 2; p. 231

van Dijk, T. A. (1988). News as discourse. Hillside, NJ: Erlbaum

Wax, P. M. (2002). "Just a Click Away: Recreational Drug Web Sites on the Internet." Pediatrics 109(6): e96-.

Walther, J. (1996). “Computer-mediated communication: impersonal, interpersonal and hyperpersonal interaction”. Communication Research, 23, 3-43

Warren, CW., Kann, L., Small, ML., Santelli, JS., Collins, JL., Kolbe, LJ. (1997). “Age of Initiating Selected Health-Risk Behaviors among High School Students in the United States.” Journal of Adolescent Health 21:225-31.

Wilson, S., Peterson, L. (2002). “The Anthropology of Online Communities”. Annual Review of Anthropology. Vol.31 p.449, 19

Zuckerman, M. (1994). Behavioral expressions and biosocial bases of sensation seeking. New York: Cambridge University Press.

. . . and this is what i have for my thesis bibliogrphy so far . . .

Bogenschutz, M. P. (2001). "Drugs on the Internet." Am J Psychiatry 158(12): 2094-a-2095.

Brush DE, B. S., Boyer EW. (2004). "Monoamine oxidase inhibitor poisoning resulting from Internet misinformation on illicit substances." Journal of Toxicology - Clinical Toxicology 42(2): 191-5.

Copeland, J. and G. Martin (2004). "Web-based interventions for substance use disorders: A qualitative review." Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment 26(2): 109-116.

Duncan DF, W. J., Nicholson T. (2003). "
Using Internet-based surveys to reach hidden populations: case of nonabusive illicit drug users." American Journal of Health Behaviour 27(3): 208-18.

Halpern, J. H. (2004). "Hallucinogens and dissociative agents naturally growing in the United States." Pharmacology & Therapeutics 102(2): 131-138.

Halpern, J. H. and H. G. Pope, Jr. (2001). "Hallucinogens on the Internet: A Vast New Source of Underground Drug Information." Am J Psychiatry 158(3): 481-483.

Hansen DL, D. H., Resnick PJ, Richardson CR (2003). "Adolescents Searching for Health Information on the Internet: An Observational Study." Journal of Medical Internet Research 5(4): e25.

Lindsay F., M. R., Cooper M. (2002). "Researching drug information needs in Australia." drug and Alcohol Review 21(3): 287 - 294.

Martin-Facklam M, K. M., Martin P, Haefeli WE. (2004). "Quality of drug information on the World Wide Web and strategies to improve pages with poor information quality. An intervention study on pages about sildenafil." British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology 57(1): 80-5.

McCabe, S. (2004). "Comparison of web and mail surveys in collecting illicit drug use data: a randomized experiment." Journal of Drug Education 34(1): 61-72.

Schifano F, L. M., Martinotti G, Rawaf S, Rovetto F. (2003). "Importance of cyberspace for the assessment of the drug abuse market: preliminary results from the Psychonaut 2002 project." CyberPsychology & Behavior 6(4): 405-10.

Scholey, A. B., A. C. Parrott, et al. (2004). "Increased intensity of Ecstasy and polydrug usage in the more experienced recreational Ecstasy/MDMA users: A WWW study." Addictive Behaviors 29(4): 743-752.

Topp, L., B. Barker, et al. (2004). "The external validity of results derived from ecstasy users recruited using purposive sampling strategies." Drug and Alcohol Dependence 73(1): 33-40.

Wax, P. M. (2002). "Just a Click Away: Recreational Drug Web Sites on the Internet." Pediatrics 109(6): e96-.

im also guessing, BT, that you were cool with the whole idea, or else you wouldve PM'ed me back ;) . . .
 
madmick19 said:
i believe this is going to take alot of work to get this right, im sure if you need to bounce ideas off this forum im sure we'll all help in whatever way we can :)

thanks :) . . .

i wouldnt dwell on the whole "non-problematic illicit substance users" issue too much, it was simply a term i came up with to determine difference between problematic recreational drug users and those who dont appear to display any problematic behaviour with their use . . .

btw, im C Webster, as you can probably tell . . . i had to start this thread under my proper name to make it legitimate . . .
 
Sounds like an interesting if not massive project to dive into the archives. Good luck with it all and keep us all informed of anything interesting you turn up :)
 
if anyone is interested i just categorised every thread dating from the past 60 days, as of 29/06/05 . . .

turns out this forum is used primarily for ecstasy pill information requests (59 threads); drugs in the media stories (40 threads); messages regarding law enforcement and the legailty of substances (21 threads); broad ecstasy related questions (29 threads); and, broad illicit substance questions (81 threads) . . .

seems like the aim of this forum (an avenue of harm minimisation for illicit substance users) is being fulfilled . . .

mods/admins: i think i asked BT if he had access to forum statistics such as average number of users per day, total number of message users, but he never got back to me . . . would i be able to recieve this information if it was too much trouble? . . .

thanks everyone . . .
 
C Webster said:
obviously i didnt divulge all the particulars of the study - and you are right, im focusing more on "party drugs", such as ecstasy and lsd.

ethics clearance was not technically a problem, as im not using human participants for this study; instead, im using the archives of this forum.

It's not like the uni can afford an ethics committee anyhow ;)

Sounds like a very interesting study - shall be interesting to see how it comes out.
 
C Webster: I have been meaning to reply - posting stats are distributed quarterly, so currently I have 2-months-out-of-date info for you. But, there is a fresh batch coming soon (this week or thereabouts). I will be in touch.

BigTrancer :)
 
hey everyone . . .

just thought id let you all know if youre interested that ive finished the thesis and i handed it in today . . . Paul Dillon from National Drug and Alcohol Research is one of the two people who will be marking it . . .

i will be submitting it to Erowid as soon as i contact the media department of my university to ask permission to publish my work outside of the university (stupid, i know, but thats how these things work) . . .

the thesis turned out well and i discovered a lot from studying this place . . .

hopefully i'll get a good mark . . .

thanks . . .

crow011 . . .
 
it ended up being close to 30,000 . . .

it was just for Honours, not Masters or PhD . . .
 
four months is heaps of time for a thesis if you have an attention span and don't work full time!!! I did an A standard 10000 worder in 3 days...
 
yer i'd try and seek a balance somewhere by saying that the internet has helped alot of people who are concious about their health use illicit substances in the safest way possible e.g a user learning how to pre/post load.
but the internet has also allowed ignorant users access to knowledge they barely understand e.g your average highschool bong smoker taking drugs like dxm or dramamine because their easy to purchase but not taking the proper doses for a beginner

a good resource would be the experience vaults on erowid

i'll probably end up doing something like this in my spare time one day just wondering can i do this without being in uni and still be able to get the paper recognized?
 
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