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Over the past decade, the internet has gone from being a nerd hide-out to forming an important part of most Australians’ everyday lives. At the same time, ‘party drugs’ have become more mainstream, moving out of the underground rave scene into commercial club settings, and into bars, pubs and house parties.
What we can do online has also changed dramatically since the days of static home pages. Online forums or bulletin boards, and the ‘Web 2.0’ social network sites like Facebook and MySpace, enable users to create and maintain friendships, discuss topics of interest, get tips from other people’s experiences, find out about the latest music and events, and just generally ‘hang out’ online.
Monica Barratt, PhD student from the National Drug Research Institute at Curtin University, discovered the power of online forums in 2001.
“I was new to the dance music scene in Perth, and wanted to go out and get involved. I headed online to a local dance music forum that I found via Google, and within a week, I was at my first large dance event meeting people who I’m still friends with now.”
Six years on, Monica is investigating how the use of online forums influences the way ‘party drugs’ are used. She has recently launched a web survey for online forum users who have ever used ecstasy/MDMA.
“I chose a topic related to what I have noticed from my own experiences in the dance music scenes. The research that was already out there confirmed that while friends are the most important and accessible source of information about drugs, online drug information is becoming more influential. Furthermore, drug users believe non-government websites provide more accurate information than government ones, and media, police and dealers were also less likely to be trusted.”
“I found academic papers had been written warning of the vast amount of drug-related information available online, its (in)accuracies, and its potential to stimulate people’s curiosity to take drugs. Hardly any mention was made of the potentially positive aspects of online drug discussion, such as harm reduction methods or avoiding bad pills; and social, community and interactive aspects also remained unexamined.”
So how can online forum use influence people’s drug-taking habits? Clearly it’s not as simple as reading about something online then blindly going off and trying it.
Buck Reed, CEO of UniMed in Sydney and ITM’s resident medic, believes that the social aspects of forums play an important role. “The medical presentation data between a 3,000-person warehouse party and a 30,000-person festival is markedly different: as events get larger, the number of drug-related medical presentations increases exponentially.”
Buck speculates that “online forum users are less likely to hurt themselves at festivals, because being on a forum is an indication of engagement with the dance party community and a level of awareness and experience. Smaller parties tend to attract crowds that are part of an existing community, whereas larger festivals attract an element of casual partygoers, who are less educated about how to keep themselves and their friends safe.”
Monica agrees. “The community aspect of forums may be important in determining whether people have support if something goes wrong. Some forums can also provide a place where people feel able to ask specific questions about drugs without having to reveal their identity.”
Monica is currently seeking input from forum users who have used ecstasy/MDMA, including people who currently use it and those who are no longer involved in the scene.
Her research encompasses groups who are often excluded from drug use research, including casual or occasional drug users, and people from rural and regional Australia.
Forum discussions have been launched to provide people with more ways to participate in the research. Monica believes that “maintaining an ongoing dialogue with participants is a good way of checking the validity of research findings. I also believe that everyone has a basic right to be involved in research into issues that they care about.”
The web survey is anonymous, takes about 15 minutes, and covers topics like online drug discussion, drug information sources, online forums and pill testing. The results will illustrate the different connections between online forum involvement and drug use patterns. Result summaries will be posted on the project’s website in 2008.
Click HERE to view the survey.
Written by Monica Barratt & Stu Hatton, with comments from Buck Reed.
barkus says...
Massive amount of respect to people like Monica who take their passion, study it, make a career of it and support this industry. I've known Monica and Stu for awhile and her work is genuinely oriented towards harm minimisation and knowledge maximisation. Recommend anyone who can fill in the survey. Go girl!
tronica says...
hey thanks for the comments and ratings! and thanks heaps to ITM for supporting my work, and Buck
tronica says...
... and Buck