Department of Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Kindai University, Osakasayama, Osaka, Japan.
Department of Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Tokai University, Isehara, Kanagawa, Japan.
PeerJ. 2024 Sep 26;12:e18137. doi: 10.7717/peerj.18137. eCollection 2024.
Some people use illicit drugs to relieve stress. However, these drugs cause serious damage not only to individuals but also to society as a whole. Stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is considerable, as the number of illicit drug users continues to increase, despite a decrease in the availability of drugs and opportunities to leave the house during the pandemic. Fear of COVID-19 causes stress; however, its association with illicit drug use is not yet understood. In this study, we examined whether the fear of COVID-19 affects the subsequent use of illicit drugs.
We conducted a retrospective longitudinal case-control study using data from an Internet survey performed annually between 2020-2022, with the 2020 survey as the baseline survey and the 2021 and 2022 surveys as follow-up surveys. Those who were illicit drug use-free at the baseline survey but had a history of drug use upon follow-up were defined as the outcome group, whereas those who remained illicit drug use-free at follow-up were defined as the no-outcome group. Logistic regression analysis was conducted between the two groups, using "the fear of COVID-19" as the explanatory variable and adjusting for the effects of confounding factors. The same analysis was conducted by dividing illicit drugs into cannabis and non-cannabis groups, then setting their use as a secondary outcome.
The study included 17,800 subjects, 837 of whom used illicit drugs at follow-up and 16,963 who did not use illicit drugs at follow-up. Logistic regression analysis revealed that higher levels of fear over COVID-19 correlated with higher illicit drug use among the participants. However, our analysis of cannabis-only outcomes showed no significant differences.
We found that fear of COVID-19 was a contributing factor to illicit drug use. Although the exact mechanism through which fear influences illicit drug use remains unknown, previous studies have shown that fear of certain targets increases illicit drug use, and our study adds to this evidence. However, in this study, we were unable to show a statistically significant causal relationship between fear of COVID-19 and the use of cannabis alone. Further research on the relationship between fear and the use of cannabis or other drugs, for varying focuses of fear, may broaden our knowledge of the different reasons individuals have for using different drugs.
有些人使用非法药物来缓解压力。然而，这些药物不仅对个人而且对整个社会造成严重损害。尽管在大流行期间毒品供应减少且外出机会减少，但由于 COVID-19 大流行带来的压力，非法药物使用者的数量仍在不断增加。对 COVID-19 的恐惧会导致压力；然而，其与非法药物使用的关系尚不清楚。在这项研究中，我们检查了对 COVID-19 的恐惧是否会影响随后使用非法药物。
我们使用 2020-2022 年期间每年进行的互联网调查数据进行了回顾性纵向病例对照研究，其中 2020 年调查作为基线调查，2021 年和 2022 年调查作为随访调查。在基线调查时没有使用非法药物但在随访时有药物使用史的人被定义为结局组，而在随访时仍未使用非法药物的人被定义为无结局组。使用“对 COVID-19 的恐惧”作为解释变量，在调整混杂因素的影响后，对两组进行逻辑回归分析。我们还将非法药物分为大麻和非大麻两组，然后将其使用情况作为次要结局进行分析。
该研究共纳入 17800 名受试者，其中 837 名在随访时使用了非法药物，16963 名在随访时未使用非法药物。逻辑回归分析表明，对 COVID-19 的恐惧程度越高，参与者使用非法药物的可能性就越高。然而，我们对仅大麻结果的分析并未显示出显著差异。
我们发现对 COVID-19 的恐惧是非法药物使用的一个促成因素。尽管恐惧影响非法药物使用的确切机制尚不清楚，但以前的研究表明，对某些目标的恐惧会增加非法药物的使用，而我们的研究为此提供了证据。然而，在这项研究中，我们无法显示出对 COVID-19 的恐惧与单独使用大麻之间存在统计学上的因果关系。关于恐惧与大麻或其他药物使用之间关系的进一步研究，针对不同的恐惧重点，可能会扩大我们对不同个体使用不同药物的不同原因的认识。
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