Help Bluelight

[ScotchMist]

Hi all, in case you haven't noticed the big green banner up there ^^^^

I'd like to draw your attention to this thread. It's a short survey about drug use, specifically opiate/oids this year. If you could find the time to fill it out it would be much appreciated and it will benefit Bluelight with running costs. It's completely anonymous and no IPs are logged.

There are two surveys, here is a direct link to them.

Survey 1

Survey 2

Thank You

 

[lurching]

Survey seems mostly USA-oriented. I was asked if I was prescribed opioids (yes) such as oxymorphone, oxycodone, hydro (no), and there was no option for codeine, morphine or tramadol? (which are the most common analgesics here in the Netherlans)

Then it asked me if I'd be interested in generic versions of Opana, Exalgo, Nucynta, and Zohydro. I've never seen any of those prescribed here ever.

 

[ScotchMist]

I know what you mean, I completed it myself.

Just fill it out as best you can...

 

[maxalfie]

Have completed the form but my knowledge of most of the pills mentioned is extremely limited

 

[curious_24]

Written entirely for US Bluelighters. No point me even attempting it.

 

[felix]

Fuck sake. I was prepared to give it a go (despite the above comments), and things were going well, then this happened:

Imagine sitting at a table with the prescription opioids listed below before you. Each drug consists of enough dose to produce a recreational effect (i.e., get you high, help you relax, etc).

Regardless of whether you have used these drugs in the past, if you were to select each drug, one by one, starting with your most desired drug and ending with the one you desire least, which drug would you choose first? Which would you choose second? And so forth.

Please drag and drop each drug from the column on the left into the column on the right in the order you would choose them (1 = your first choice; 2 = your second choice, and so on).

All the 12 drugs listed were ones most familiar to US people, and I doubt anyone is prescribed much (if any) of them here in the UK. None for me, that's for sure. You're forced to answer the above exercise before moving to the next question, which is an even more tedious and irrelevant "rating" of the same damn 12 drugs.

I'm all for doing these to help Bluelight (and for the wider research benefit), but a UK person filling this out is just gonna give the researchers bad data.
If they'd just given the option to "skip this question", on most pages, they could have gathered at least some useful data, albeit incomplete. I abandoned it about 20% through. Shame.

 

[Shambles]

I concur. These surveys just seem like fodder to fuel the US WoD to be honest. I'd happily fill in surveys for BL but not these things.

 

[felix]

I let them know about our experiences with it, btw

 

[pinkpapaver]

done em.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I concur. These surveys just seem like fodder to fuel the US WoD to be honest. I'd happily fill in surveys for BL but not these things.

Can you explain why you might think that? I want to make sure and address the concern if there's a legitimate basis behind it, or quash it if there isn't. For the record, this survey is about prescription drug use. It's not paid for by the US gov. nor are they using the data. If you wanted to really read conspiracy into it, you could just as easily argue that the government protects the pharma industry. In the words of Dennis McKenna (Terrance Mckenna's brother):

It's not that they (the US government) doesn't want you to be on drugs... They want you to be on drugs, but they want you to be on CORPORATE drugs.

We really appreciate you guys filing out the surveys and we understand that many of them may seem US-centric. This is a function of where Inflexxion is based, and the data sets they are attempting to assemble. We are in talks with other research orgs in Europe and Australia, and continue working with folks outside of the USA.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Fuck sake. I was prepared to give it a go (despite the above comments), and things were going well, then this happened:

All the 12 drugs listed were ones most familiar to US people, and I doubt anyone is prescribed much (if any) of them here in the UK. None for me, that's for sure. You're forced to answer the above exercise before moving to the next question, which is an even more tedious and irrelevant "rating" of the same damn 12 drugs.

I'm all for doing these to help Bluelight (and for the wider research benefit), but a UK person filling this out is just gonna give the researchers bad data.
If they'd just given the option to "skip this question", on most pages, they could have gathered at least some useful data, albeit incomplete. I abandoned it about 20% through. Shame.

I understand and appreciate your concern, Felix. But aren't you improperly assuming that someone outside of America has ZERO access to these medications? As for whether this would necessarily result in "bad data," it's not fair (or correct) to jump to that conclusion without a full understanding of their methodology. If you really think your going to give them "bad data" why don't you pose the question to Inflexxion directly in the Drug Studies thread corresponding to this survey? I'm sure they would be happy to clarify one way or the other.

All we are asking is for you guys to answer truthfully. The data is what the data is. It would be a shame if others are reading comments like these and decide not to complete the survey based merely on conjecture that the data might be "bad." What is 100% clear, however, is that by completing these surveys, you are helping Bluelight stay viable and directly furthering the work we all do in harm reduction.

I get that there are going to be questions and/or concerns, but let's address them constructively rather than make negative assumptions without having all the information.

Thanks all,

SG

 

[felix]

I understand and appreciate your concern, Felix. But aren't you improperly assuming that someone outside of America has ZERO access to these medications? As for whether this would necessarily result in "bad data," it's not fair (or correct) to jump to that conclusion without a full understanding of their methodology. If you really think your going to give them "bad data" why don't you pose the question to Inflexxion directly in the Drug Studies thread corresponding to this survey? I'm sure they would be happy to clarify one way or the other.

All we are asking is for you guys to answer truthfully. The data is what the data is. It would be a shame if others are reading comments like these and decide not to complete the survey based merely on conjecture that the data might be "bad." What is 100% clear, however, is that by completing these surveys, you are helping Bluelight stay viable and directly furthering the work we all do in harm reduction.

I get that there are going to be questions and/or concerns, but let's address them constructively rather than make negative assumptions without having all the information.

Thanks all,

SG

That is the most stupid post you've ever made on Bluelight.

Did you even read or understand a single word I said?

The survey was supposed to be open to all Bluelighters. I gave some constructive feedback informing you that it wasn't appropriate for most people outwith the US.

I haven't made any assumptions about anything, and to infer that I am being negative or non-constructive is actually quite offensive. I did comment in the original thread and my feedback was ignored.

 

[Jabberwocky]

That is the most stupid post you've ever made on Bluelight.

Clearly, you've not read many of my posts.

Did you even read or understand a single word I said?

I read them all, Felix. Though, now I'm not so sure I understood them.

The survey was supposed to be open to all Bluelighters. I gave some constructive feedback informing you that it wasn't appropriate for most people outwith the US.

I appreciate your feedback -- In fact, that's the first thing I wrote in my reply. I suggested that perhaps the survey's list of choices wasn't quite so inappropriate for those outside of the US when you consider that these drugs can make their way abroad via grey and black markets. I actually agree with you that the survey is US-centric, as I also stated in my reply to Shambles above, but that's the nature of the beast for this survey. Thus my comment, "the data is what the data is" in terms of what they ultimately collect.

I haven't made any assumptions about anything, and to infer that I am being negative or non-constructive is actually quite offensive.

Ok, my mistake. It seemed to me that the assumption was that the data would therefore be "bad data." It wasn't my intent to offend you. You have my apologies for having done so.

I did comment in the original thread and my feedback was ignored.

It wasn't ignored. Monica and I brought up all the issues listed in the original thread on a conference call with Inflexxion last week. We've also asked that they respond directly to such comments in the future, and they are happy to.

 

[Tronica]

Hi felix, Having reviewed both threads I now see that I did miss your original post and reference back to this thread, after returning from leave.

Sorry if you felt deliberately ignored, but that was not my intention.

Yes, we have had discussions with the researchers about these issues, including the US centric nature of the questionnaire. As they are part way through this survey, they don't want to change it for this survey, but I think it is a valid point for any future surveys by these researchers or any others. We, as Bluelight, need to ask ourselves how relevant the research is across the globe. I often do this in Drug Studies, as many researchers aren't thinking globally and so they neglect to even include questions about what country the respondent resides.

At least we know that Inflexxion can determine the country of residence, and I would imagine that they will only be reporting on US residents for subsections of the questions. So, no, they won't be getting 'bad data', they will simply filter out non-US data from specific questions.

Another piece of feedback I will bring to them is this one: don't show questions to non US residents that you only intend to use for US residents. There is no point doing that, as it just wastes people's time. Either make the questions globally relevant, or pipe people to sets of questions that are nationally relevant to them.

By the way, the feedback between our community and researchers is actually valuable. So, thank you for feeding back. And thanks to those who have completed these surveys over the years and provided this critical feedback.

 

[Tronica]

You're forced to answer the above exercise before moving to the next question, which is an even more tedious and irrelevant "rating" of the same damn 12 drugs.

I also think this observation is important. I always recommend when creating online surveys to either not force responses or to provide a 'I don't want to answer' or 'Not applicable' option. Sounds like this hasn't worked in this case - as you end up having to rate when you really want to skip or say 'not applicable'. I will bring this up as methodological and ethical feedback to the researchers.

Another thing to improve for next time is that I reviewed the survey as a word document (which led to various changes) but I think Bluelight needs to review the survey as a web form too, so we can assess design issues like forced response (we can't see this on a word doc draft).

 

[felix]

Thanks to both of you for your considered and lengthy replies. I think you both get my point now.

And I apologise for making this factually-incorrect statement, when I was kinda annoyed last night:

That is the most stupid post you've ever made on Bluelight.

I've read some more of your posts and can now see that I was wrong. Sorry. (Just kidding. :D)

 

[Tronica]

Thanks to both of you for your considered and lengthy replies. I think you both get my point now.

You are welcome. Hopefully my points are now clearer too! Please ask for more information if they are not.

 

[monstanoodle]

I will contribute when I can