Kapitány-Fövény Máté, Demetrovics Zsolt
Institute of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.
Faculty of Health Sciences, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary.
Hum Psychopharmacol. 2017 May;32(3). doi: 10.1002/hup.2620.
With growing access to the Internet, people who use drugs and traffickers started to obtain information about novel psychoactive substances (NPS) via online platforms. This paper aims to analyze whether a decreasing Web interest in formerly banned substances-cocaine, heroin, and MDMA-and the legislative status of mephedrone predict Web interest about this NPS.
Google Trends was used to measure changes of Web interest on cocaine, heroin, MDMA, and mephedrone. Google search results for mephedrone within the same time frame were analyzed and categorized.
Web interest about classic drugs found to be more persistent. Regarding geographical distribution, location of Web searches for heroin and cocaine was less centralized. Illicit status of mephedrone was a negative predictor of its Web search query rates. The connection between mephedrone-related Web search rates and legislative status of this substance was significantly mediated by ecstasy-related Web search queries, the number of documentaries, and forum/blog entries about mephedrone.
The results might provide support for the hypothesis that mephedrone's popularity was highly correlated with its legal status as well as it functioned as a potential substitute for MDMA. Google Trends was found to be a useful tool for testing theoretical assumptions about NPS.
随着互联网接入的增加,吸毒者和毒贩开始通过在线平台获取有关新型精神活性物质(NPS)的信息。本文旨在分析对以前被禁物质——可卡因、海洛因和摇头丸——的网络关注度下降以及甲麻黄碱的立法状况是否能预测对这种新型精神活性物质的网络关注度。
使用谷歌趋势来衡量对可卡因、海洛因、摇头丸和甲麻黄碱的网络关注度变化。对同一时间范围内甲麻黄碱的谷歌搜索结果进行分析和分类。
发现对经典毒品的网络关注度更持久。在地理分布方面,对海洛因和可卡因的网络搜索地点不那么集中。甲麻黄碱的非法状态是其网络搜索查询率的一个负向预测因素。与甲麻黄碱相关的网络搜索率和该物质的立法状况之间的联系在很大程度上由与摇头丸相关的网络搜索查询、纪录片数量以及关于甲麻黄碱的论坛/博客条目所介导。
这些结果可能支持以下假设,即甲麻黄碱的流行与其法律地位高度相关,并且它起到了摇头丸潜在替代品的作用。发现谷歌趋势是检验关于新型精神活性物质的理论假设的有用工具。