Spadaro Anthony, Connor Karen O', Lakamana Sahithi, Sarker Abeed, Wightman Rachel, Love Jennifer S, Perrone Jeanmarie
Department of Emergency Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, 3400 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA.
Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 3400 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
medRxiv. 2023 Mar 14:2023.03.13.23287215. doi: 10.1101/2023.03.13.23287215.
Xylazine is an alpha-2 agonist increasingly prevalent in the illicit drug supply. Our objectives were to curate information about xylazine through social media from People Who Use Drugs (PWUDs). Specifically, we sought to answer the following: 1) what are the demographics of Reddit subscribers reporting exposure to xylazine? 2) is xylazine a desired additive? and 3) what adverse effects of xylazine are PWUDs experiencing?
Natural Language Processing (NLP) was used to identify mentions of "xylazine" from posts by Reddit subscribers who also posted on drug-related subreddits. Posts were qualitatively evaluated for xylazine-related themes. A survey was developed to gather additional information about the Reddit subscribers. This survey was posted on subreddits that were identified by NLP to contain xylazine-related discussions from March 2022 to October 2022.
76 posts mentioning xylazine were extracted via NLP from 765,616 posts by 16,131 Reddit subscribers (January 2018 to August 2021). People on Reddit described xylazine as an unwanted adulterant in their opioid supply. 61 participants completed the survey. Of those that disclosed their location, 25/50 (50%) participants reported locations in the Northeastern United States. The most common eoute of xylazine use was intranasal use (57%). 31/59 (53%) reported experiencing xylazine withdrawal. Frequent adverse events reported were prolonged sedation (81%) and increased skin wounds (43%).
Among respondents on these Reddit forums, xylazine appears to be an unwanted adulterant. PWUDs may be experiencing adverse effects such as prolonged sedation and xylazine withdrawal. This appeared to be more common in the Northeast.
赛拉嗪是一种α-2激动剂，在非法毒品供应中越来越普遍。我们的目标是通过社交媒体整理吸毒者（PWUDs）关于赛拉嗪的信息。具体来说，我们试图回答以下问题：1）在Reddit上报告接触过赛拉嗪的订阅者的人口统计学特征是什么？2）赛拉嗪是一种受欢迎的添加剂吗？3）吸毒者正在经历赛拉嗪的哪些不良反应？
使用自然语言处理（NLP）从也在与毒品相关的子版块上发帖的Reddit订阅者的帖子中识别“赛拉嗪”的提及。对帖子进行定性评估，以确定与赛拉嗪相关的主题。开展了一项调查，以收集有关Reddit订阅者的更多信息。该调查于2022年3月至2022年10月发布在通过NLP识别出的包含与赛拉嗪相关讨论的子版块上。
通过NLP从16131名Reddit订阅者的765616篇帖子（2018年1月至2021年8月）中提取了76篇提及赛拉嗪的帖子。Reddit上的人将赛拉嗪描述为阿片类药物供应中不受欢迎的掺杂物。61名参与者完成了调查。在那些披露了自己位置的参与者中，25/50（50%）报告位于美国东北部。赛拉嗪最常见的使用途径是鼻内使用（57%）。31/59（53%）报告经历过赛拉嗪戒断。报告的常见不良事件是镇静时间延长（81%）和皮肤伤口增加（43%）。
在这些Reddit论坛的受访者中，赛拉嗪似乎是一种不受欢迎的掺杂物。吸毒者可能正在经历诸如镇静时间延长和赛拉嗪戒断等不良反应。这在东北部似乎更为常见。
