NYU School of Global Public Health, New York, New York.
Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy, Department of Population Health, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, New York.
J Stud Alcohol Drugs. 2023 Mar;84(2):222-229. doi: 10.15288/jsad.21-00438. Epub 2022 Sep 12.
The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected people's ability to buy, sell, and obtain items that they use in their daily lives. It may have had a particularly negative effect on the ability of people who use illicit opioids to obtain them because the networks they relied on are illicit and not part of the formal economy. Our objective in this research was to examine if, and how, disruptions related to COVID-19 of illicit opioid markets have affected people who use illicit opioids.
We collected 300 posts--including replies to posts--related to the intersection of COVID-19 and opioid use from Reddit.com, a forum that has several discussion threads (i.e., subreddits) dedicated to opioids. We then coded posts from the two most popular opioid subreddits during the early pandemic period (March 5, 2020-May 13, 2020) using an inductive/deductive approach.
We found two themes related to active opioid use during the early pandemic: (a) changes in drug supply and difficulty obtaining opioids, and (b) buying less-trustworthy drugs from lesser-known sources.
Our findings suggest that COVID-19 has created market conditions that place people who use opioids at risk of adverse outcomes, such as fatal overdose.
新冠疫情极大地影响了人们购买、销售和获取日常生活用品的能力。对于使用非法阿片类药物的人来说，这种影响可能尤其负面，因为他们所依赖的网络是非法的，不属于正规经济的一部分。我们的研究目的是检验新冠疫情对非法阿片类药物市场的干扰是否以及如何影响到了使用非法阿片类药物的人。
我们从 Reddit.com 上收集了 300 条与新冠疫情和阿片类药物使用相关的帖子，包括对这些帖子的回复。Reddit.com 是一个论坛，其中有几个专门讨论阿片类药物的讨论版块（即 subreddits）。然后，我们使用归纳/演绎方法对早期大流行期间（2020 年 3 月 5 日至 2020 年 5 月 13 日）两个最受欢迎的阿片类 subreddits 的帖子进行了编码。
我们发现了两个与大流行早期阿片类药物使用相关的主题：（a）药物供应的变化和获取阿片类药物的困难，以及（b）从不知名来源购买不太可靠的药物。
我们的研究结果表明，新冠疫情创造了使阿片类药物使用者面临不良后果（如致命过量）风险的市场条件。
