I-Trend Project overview: Internet tools for research in Europe on new drugs.

Until now, most of our available knowledge on the NPS (new/novel psychoactive substance) phenomenon originated from traditional information systems on drugs and drug addiction (data on seizures and treatment demands, monitoring in a recreational setting, etc.). Meanwhile, the development of growing Internet supply, especially for NPS, makes it easy for users and substances to evade monitoring by these reporting systems. Therefore, new monitoring methods are required in order to study both supply and demand, to shed more light on the risks and challenges, and to allow stakeholders to better adapt their decision-making processes. The general purpose of the I-Trend Project was to develop specific tools suited to monitoring trends in the NPS phenomenon, via Internet channels, in addition to existing information systems. The fields taken into consideration were supply (types of shops, dealer strategies, components of the substances sold, etc.), user profiles and purchasing practices, NPS use and information search patterns, points of interest among NPS users on online forums, and health problems reported by users. Identifying the most widely circulated and used substances (confusion with supply or relying on seizures, having proved to be a biased source, is common) took on a rather important role in the project as the first step for other activities, but also as an independent objective. Activities: • Monitoring user forums • Monitoring online shops • Online survey among NPS users • Monitoring of substance content • Top list (prioritisation) and technical folder

Mixed methods to assess the use of rare illicit psychoactive substances: a case study

Abstract This article presents original mixed method research to describe the use of rare illicit psychoactive substances, with special emphasis on crack cocaine in France. We first introduce a unique monitoring system committed to the observation of hard-to-reach populations. Qualitative findings rely, among others, on perennial ethnographic studies and field professionals’ knowledge to provide guidance to estimate the number of crack cocaine users. We then rely on a set of multilevel capture-recapture estimators, a statistical procedure to indirectly estimate the size of elusive populations. Since prior field evidence suggests an increasing diversity in crack cocaine users’ profiles, we provide a measure of heterogeneity to assess which estimator better fits the data. The calculated estimates are then critically reviewed and debated in light of the previously gathered information. Our results uncover both individual and institutional heterogeneity and suggest that the spread of crack cocaine in France initiated earlier than originally thought. Our case study underlines the need for field-driven assessments to put quantitative results into perspective, a necessary step to tailor efficient health policy responses.</jats:p