tronica

We have over 400 responses to our online survey, including nearly 300 Australians who have used synthetic cannabinoids. If you haven't already participated, now is your last chance. The survey remains open until January ends (today and tomorrow). Link to survey: http://kronicstudy.net We will work on academic papers to be submitted ASAP. When the papers are published we will return to all recruitment sources with summaries of results and will be available for discussion. If you prefer to receive an email when the results are released, please email me at [email protected] and I'll add you to the list. Thanks again for your support and assistance.

Thanks I also think we need more work on growing cannabis in Australia - there has been very little research into cannabis growing techniques/practices popular in this country. We are currently putting together a study on home-growing in Australia. Stay tuned

You're welcome

We've just got over 200 completed responses to our Kronic Study. Thanks to everyone who has participated! If you haven't already done so, I would really appreciate it if you could spare 20 minutes for research and to provide your opinions and experiences on this class of drugs: http://kronicstudy.net Results will be presented back to the community when the study is complete

Thanks for the info, 2Deep2Handle - you've indicated some solid reasoning for why the synthetic cannabinoid agonists might be more harmful than cannabis. Caution is definitely required!

@myco I've had a few unsolicited emails since this survey began from people who have had pretty bad health experiences after using synthetic cannabinoids. This is only anecdotal information of course, but it's enough to be concerned. Even if there are many people that use it with no major problems, if some people are experiencing major harms, it's something we should look at more. I don't think we can categorically say that cannabis is safer than synthetic cannabinoids without further research. But if it was a bet, I would bet that cannabis is safer - because, as you point out, there has been a lot more research and we know a lot more about the risks associated with cannabis (eg. heavy use when teenage and when you have schizophrenia-type history is a recipe for harm with cannabis). I don't think we can say that any drug is 'safe', even caffeine. The context, the setting, the set, individual differences, the purity, the route of administration, etc etc, all contribute to how any one drug experience or set of experiences will turn out... in my humble opinion

Thanks Alice. Our plan for the moment is one paper, to be written and submitted as quickly as possible after data collection. Hopefully timeline for publishing won't be too long, and then I'll be able to get it out to everyone who participated as well as to the research world. We did have a second instrument in the survey earlier in the piece - which would have increased survey length by 7-8 minutes and definitely secured a second paper. In the end we let go of that - unfortunate in a way, but then again, maybe if the survey was more like 30 minutes, there would be a lower response rate. Even at 20 minutes, there are still many people who start but are not completing. Ideally I reckon surveys should be 10 mins or less but it's so hard to design a survey that short answering these complex questions!

Thanks heaps to all of you who have completed the survey. Great to see some responses! We appreciate the time you've put into it The speech was heavily based on the EGA journal article, which you can check out - the main difference being that I did a tour of Silk Road in the EGA talk. I'm not an expert with SR but have been playing about with it to get a sense of what is happening there. The main point being that anything in the hidden web can't be affected by the internet filtering, if we didn't already know that such a thing would be a waste of time... Hey I'm also planning on doing up a Vimeo of the EGA talk (EGA has video to the original they will have on their DVD, but I'll do up a version from my desktop and post online). My other three talks from 2011 are available at http://vimeo.com/tronica Sure - my blog is public, happy for anyone to read and comment on it: see http:/monicabarratt.net Well there was a dude camped behind us who was out to the world when we were packing up... that might have been you? No harm done... just don't know how you (or whomever it was) was able to sleep through that morning sun on the Monday! ;) You are welcome! These views are one of the reasons we wanted to do this study. In the survey, we ask you to compare your experiences of proper cannabis with synthetic cannabis. We also look at the relationship between proper cannabis consumption and the prohibition of synthetic cannabis. I think what we can say is that synthetic cannabinoid agonists are much less studied than cannabis. Both products can cause harm, but one is less well-known and less well-understood by science. I think the other thing we can say is that the trend towards synthetic cannabis use is driven by cannabis prohibition - if not for prohibition, would we even be having these discussions? I doubt it. So the study comes from this position. Not entirely off topic but it is probably best to accept that we can have multiple viewpoints on this issue and to ensure you get your viewpoint represented in the survey

For record, I'm Monica Barratt So feel free to ask me any questions on the study too. Really appreciate Shaman Australis's support for the study as well as the support of the EGA organisers.

I also had a fantastic EGA. I went in 2009, but this time I was so much more engaged with everything and everyone. Such a large amount of positive energy. It made me realise a few things... and think further on a few ongoing tensions in my life and perhaps in many other people's lives. Rather than repeat it all here, you can check out my blog post: http://monicabarratt.net/?p=264 Thanks again to everyone who made it possible and everyone who participated.

Thanks for posting. I'm one of the authors (Monica). Steve and I simply wanted to try and summarise the situation as best we could, even though as we state in the article, we are not legal experts and our post should not be relied upon for legal advice. Torsten, if you have the time, we would be most grateful if you could let us know where we could make the article more accurate. As I can see just checking out the rest of this thread, it's confusing given the combination of federal, state and analogue laws. I'm a drugs researcher, not a legal expert, so I fully admit that the post was just an attempt rather than an authority on the matter (hence the title 'work in progress'!) For that matter, anyone with comments - feel free to post on the blog or here - I'll definitely read them and take into consideration.

Hi! Just wanted to let you know about my research project. Congratulations on maintaining such an interesting and useful site Monica Barratt (PhD student from the National Drug Research Institute at Curtin University) invites you to complete an anonymous 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. 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! Feel free to post any questions or comments in here, interested to hear your views on this topic. Thanks so much, Monica

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/drugsonforum...t/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/drugsonforum...me/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!

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

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". Let me know if you'd like to read the abstract! 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

When I first started trying to work out a PhD topic, the internet/drugs connection seemed obvious - I was really surprised that there had been little actual research on it. As in, research into what the implications are for drug users and for public health. So, I know this project has a bit of 'well, isn't that just plain obvious' about it - but when you do the literature searches, you find there are a lot of knowledge gaps which this project is designed to explore. The thesis and any publications will never mention forum usernames or forum locations/names. I'll go further than this - I'll avoid using direct quotes from forums unless I have explicit permission from the author and it is not possible to google the quote and find its source. There is an opportunity to complete an online interview with me, and I have investigated open source encrypted instant messaging for this purpose (it's called OffTheRecord). This is much more anonymity than most researchers in these settings are applying, but given the potential for incrimination - as you've mentioned - I think it is appropriate. So, good point - but I do want participants to know that I am committed to avoiding incriminating anyone. Participant safety is paramount in research and I intend to uphold that ideal Thanks for the comments Teljkon. I encourage others to continue this conversation too... the more ideas put forward on this issue, the better!

Thanks for the comments Mr Spock. I did want to be PM when I was an innocent child, before seeing what a life in politics would do to a person! I certainly hope to influence politics one way or the other through my research role The name 'research chemicals' or RC's is a bit disputed - it isn't asked about on other drug user surveys but I know there are a lot of people who use various types of RC's under different names. Would there be a better name for this class of drugs do you think? I get the impression that once an RC's becomes a bit more mainstream (2CB maybe) then it ceases to be an RC as it's no longer in 'research' stages. I've noticed that Shaman Australis members are much more often choosing "Very important" for the poll in this thread. Also found - so far - that my item about credibility of harm reduction sites like Erowid shows them to be considered the most credible for drug information out of all the options I provide. So, you are not alone in singing the praises of Erowid, the site is a great asset and very useful.

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.

How did I miss this last time? Nice work! A bit of subversion never hurt... [so glad we have a new government now, hopefully that terrible report will be given the time it deserves.... about 5 seconds!]

I agree - internet is critical for some of the newer drugs. It's funny how RCs aren't included in any of the prevalence surveys about drug use in the community. I've included them in mine and so far, I've found (from 388 valid responses): 72% - never used research chemicals 18% - used RCs, but not in last 6 months 8% - used RCs 1 to 5 times in last 6 months 2% - used RCs monthly or more often in past 6 months interesting!

Both the Greens and the Democrats have responsible harm-reduction based drug policies - I'm a Green voter myself but have high regard for the Democrats policies too. Kanck certainly stirred things up a bit last year, suggesting ecstasy was essentially 'safe' and encouraging pill testing. I think we should still try to impress upon people that MDMA can be dangerous if used inappropriately, but overall I agreed with her stance and felt it took a fair bit of guts to come out with it!

Thanks for your support. FM, yes it is bad timing. I read about the surveillance threats. It's certainly something Bluelight has had to deal with in the past - I'd prefer forums were left to do their own thing, especially given the harm reduction role they are capable of serving. It's harder to do that sort of work with these threats around. On the other hand, carefulness about what you discuss online is the best policy! Although it's badly timed - it's also timely - this is what my thesis is about. There have certainly been some research projects that treat online drug encyclopedias in a bad light, or treat drug forums superficially. I want to broaden that out and my data allows for both positive and negative effects of online activities on drug-related harms. I've done everything possible to keep this data secure. It can't be intercepted between the respondent and server (https) and once downloaded, I use an encryption program so that my data can't be accessed even if someone broke my log-in password, if my computer was stolen/compromised. I'll also not be naming forums in the findings - to avoid undue exposure to forums re drug discussion. Yes I'll definitely keep you in the loop in terms of results. Feel free to discuss the topic though. I see most people so far think the internet is very important in learning about drugs. How do you think this changes people's drug taking behaviour? [keep it in third person ;)]