*** online poll: drug use and mental illness ***

[faustus]

hi guys, drug use and mental illness amongst SAB members in comparison to the general population is an issue that i've long been curious about for many years, and i have my theories about what we'd see. please help me by participating in my poll, it's very short. i want to do a regression analysis of the data and will happily share results with you all!

if a moderator could deem this of sufficient importance to pin this thread, i would be most grateful!

gracias

Click on this link

http://www.misterpoll.com/polls/370129

[Alchemica]

Thanks for putting in the time to put this survey together. Great idea.

Personally, I'm going to maintain that we Shaman-Australisers all just are genetically predispositioned to "whatever" in the first place. It's the only logical explanation... or something like that. Any chance of including an "eye-colour" question to verify my "atypicalness" theory?

Keep up the good work.

[faustus]

ive gotten about 30 participants so far. for the time being there's no real point in me doing a statistical analysis until it's closer a 100. but two interesting patterns so far:

- unusually high incidence of major depressive and anxiety disorders in comparison to general population

- somewhat high use of heroin and other opiates than you'd expect (but given the phrasing of the word, it could have been OTC codeine use)

i slapped the survey together on a whim, and i regret the wording of some of the items... it fucks up some of the questions i'm trying to answer.

what i wanna do is spent some time developing a better survey which "unfolds" depending on the answer you give.

but for the time being i am chronically sleep deprived and had better sleep

[Sassy]

I tryed but received ' submission rejected'

[FancyPants]

That mental illness question could pertain to mental illnesses that had nothing at all to do with drug use. It's misleading.

What drugs have you ever tried? Check all that apply, and in the text field enter roughly how many times. If you're unsure, ball-park figues are fine.

97% (33) Cannabis

85% (29) LSD

76% (26) Magic mushrooms (psilocybin)

58% (20) DMT or ayahuasca

55% (19) Salvia divinorum

47% (16) Mescaline

82% (28) MDMA, or other MDMA-related compounds

76% (26) Amphetamine, meth or ritalin (non-medical use)

88% (30) Alcohol

64% (22) Valium or other benzodiazepines (non-medical)

32% (11) Ketamine

85% (29) Cigarettes and tobacco-related products

58% (20) Heroin, morphine or other opiates (non-medical)

ROFL we're apparently all a bunch of total druggies. 58% for the least tried is pretty amusing.

[faustus]

That mental illness question could pertain to mental illnesses that had nothing at all to do with drug use.

i agree, causality can only ever be established with an experiment. all i'm trying to do is identify a correlation between drug use and mental illness on the forum, once controlling for something like age and income. no way to establish the direction of causality.

some of the results are a bit concerning e.g. opiate use, but obviously need a larger sample!

SASSY: for some of the fields you still need to enter text, e.g. "decline" for the income. if you still have troubles and trust me to maintain your privacy feel free to PM me your responses.

Edited December 11, 2008 by twix elbert

[oface]

That mental illness question could pertain to mental illnesses that had nothing at all to do with drug use. It's misleading.

What drugs have you ever tried? Check all that apply, and in the text field enter roughly how many times. If you're unsure, ball-park figues are fine.

97% (33) Cannabis

85% (29) LSD

76% (26) Magic mushrooms (psilocybin)

58% (20) DMT or ayahuasca

55% (19) Salvia divinorum

47% (16) Mescaline

82% (28) MDMA, or other MDMA-related compounds

76% (26) Amphetamine, meth or ritalin (non-medical use)

88% (30) Alcohol

64% (22) Valium or other benzodiazepines (non-medical)

32% (11) Ketamine

85% (29) Cigarettes and tobacco-related products

58% (20) Heroin, morphine or other opiates (non-medical)

ROFL we're apparently all a bunch of total druggies. 58% for the least tried is pretty amusing.

[FancyPants]

:D My stoned arse automatically assumed the last one was the lowest-scoring (and least tried). Nevermind that the list is just in the same order as originally put. (yay weed? Oh well, I had a good chuckle anyway lol)

[PhoenixSon]

maybe try to post a poll up on bluelight

[faustus]

here's a few stats for you, sample size = 52 SAB members. when i have more time i'll do some statistical analysis of other things

lifetime prevalence of mental illness

GAD = generalised anxiety disorder

SAD = social anxiety disorder

substance = substance abuse disorder, as diagnosed by a doctor or psychologist

substance, all = substance abuse, but with more relaxed criteria: includes subject's own opinion of whether or not they were addicted

i obtained stats for australia from national survey of mental health and wellbeing, 2007

overall, not much difference in prevalence of any mental disorder, but a greater prevalence for depression and generalised anxiety.

depending upon criteria, there's a lower prevalence of substance abuse disorder in comparison to national statistics. but when the criteria are relaxed to include one's own assessment of drug addiction, then there's a much greater lifetime prevalence in SAB members. the national statistics are for addiction as diagnosed by a doctor or psychologist.

NB: for drug addiction, caffeine and tobacco weren't included.

lifetime drug use

i obtained stats for australia from national drug strategy household survey, 2007

speed = amphetamine, meth, or non-medical use of ritalin and other stimulants

heroin = heroin, morphine, and non-medical use of opiates e.g. codeine

benzos = non-medical use of benzos such as valium

for some of the hallucinogens, e.g. salvia and DMT, there's no available national statistics

it's a bit surprising that tobacco use is much greater than national prevalence. ditto for amphetamines and opiates.

Edited January 10, 2009 by twix elbert

[Francois le Danque]

this is pretty good, well done.

edit: i have been meaning to do a really simple poll on here about whether the members consider themselves 'happy' and 'sane'. i guess this is similar but more complicated.

Edited February 3, 2009 by frank

[immanuel]

the one problem i see in such studies is that there is no way to prove whether people with mental illness before drug usage are more likely to resort to drugs to alleviate symptoms. which is the case in many individuals.

Edited February 16, 2009 by mardybum

[Genesis]

52 % Major depression

50 % Generalised anxiety

98% (82) Cannabis

81% (68) LSD

79% (66) Magic mushrooms (psilocybin)

Maybe we should all lay off the drug for a while and we may get a little happier Or take more drugs and get A LOT happier lol

Gen

[TG83]

Ketamine should also have a (non medical use) next to it. I know many people who because of chronic pain (usually following major operations) are given ketamine to (as quoted by a friends doctor) "take your mind off the pain".

A friend of mines mother has quite extensive spinal pain which has left her almost unable to walk, she was prescribed Ketamine however discontinued using it because she said it made her "see demons".

Another friend from a car club I am in had his stomach removed due to cancer and was also given ketamine following the operation, he said that while watching the brownlow medal on tv, everything appeared fine until the winner was announced and 2 androids entered the stage to claim the award. He said he has no idea how long he was hallucinating before that or when it actually started lol

My uncle was also involved in a clinical trial, as his spine is made up of metal rod's due to a work accident when he was very young and he had been on morphine for 30 years, his morphine dosage eventually reached the stage where it was above the lethal dose level (for those without any drug tolerance). For this reason they trialled him on 2 studies for alternate use of non opioid pain killers for chronic pain. First test involved Ketamine, which he discontinued due to motor and speech problems. A few months later he was asked to take part in a similar trial, this time involving GHB however he also discontinued due to (in his words) "The most absolutely disgusting feeling I've ever felt in my entire life", he also expressed his anger after my aunty googled information about GHB and explained to him what it was, his reaction was "they gave me a bloody date rape drug and didn't even tell me that's what it f**king was!". He is very anti recreational drug use, however in reality would definitely require serious rehabilitation like that of heroin addict if he was ever told he must discontinue morphine use. He was also trialed on methadone but was removed due to side effects, he now has a morphine pump permanently installed into his body to avoid the constant need for injections.

So Ketamine in medical use is still actually fairly common, in fact I dare say I know more people who have been treated with ketamine by doctors than I do that use it recreationally.

GHB to my knowledge in recent times has never been used medically in Australia, apart from during extremely limited controlled clinical trials, however should probably be added to that list of recreational drug use. GHB and direct relatives are in very widespread recreational use these days.

Edited June 21, 2009 by TG83

[cycle]

A couple of points. I agree "ever tried" is not the same as "use" so the results are likely to be misleading. Also I have never been diagnosed with a mental illness but that doesn't mean I don't have one.

[Razor]

A couple of points. I agree "ever tried" is not the same as "use" so the results are likely to be misleading. Also I have never been diagnosed with a mental illness but that doesn't mean I don't have one.

I think i would be more mental without ethnos