Tag: drugs

Would you like to do a PhD on drug checking with me?

The Loop Australia’s drug checking service at Earth Frequency Festival, May 2024 (Qld)

The supply of illegal drugs is unregulated due to prohibition. Unregulated supply results in drugs being sold that are of unknown content and strength, leading to overdoses which are sometimes fatal. Drug checking (a.k.a. pill testing) services (DCS) are a health response to this problem: members of the public submit substances of concern for chemical analysis and get the results back alongside a tailored health intervention. They empower people who use drugs to make informed decisions about their health, while also enabling communities and authorities to amplify health messages when toxic adulterations are detected.

While relatively new in Australia, DCS have been established for 50+ years in 30+ countries. But there is still much we don’t know. Knowledge gaps include: (1) the medium-to-long-term effectiveness of DCS on reducing drug harms, (2) the effects of the public outputs of DCS on drug harms, (3) how best to leverage community experiences of toxic drug outbreaks, and (4) how best to reach diverse groups.

A PhD candidate is sought to lead a research project to address one or more of these knowledge gaps, supervised by me/Monica, who leads a research program focused on emerging drug market trends. I have a partnership with The Loop Australia, offering access to service-level data and internship possibilities. The candidate may have an academic background in qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods approaches to research. People with living or lived experience of substance use and/or who have worked with people who use drugs are encouraged to apply.

To be considered for this PhD Scholarship at RMIT University, applicants must meet the Eligibility criteria and English requirements as described on the How to Apply page, and should ideally meet the selection criteria below:  

  1. Hold a degree (Honours or Masters) with a demonstrated research component. HD level grades are desirable. Relevant disciplines include but are not limited to psychology, sociology, criminology, health sciences, epidemiology.
  2. Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with an ability to explain technical detail to non-technical audiences.
  3. Previous demonstrated experience conducting quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods research with humans on health or social topics (please describe what kinds of research you have experience with, what roles you played in these projects, and analysis techniques, approaches and software you have used)
  4. Previous interest in, or knowledge of, the drugs and harm reduction fields. While demonstration of existing knowledge of the drugs field is desirable, candidates with demonstrated research expertise in other fields are still welcome to apply.  
  5. People with living or lived experience of substance use and/or who have worked with people who use drugs are encouraged to apply. If you do not hold one of the qualifications detailed under the Eligibility criteria on the How to Apply page, you will only be considered for scholarship if you have previous publications or significant research experience at the discretion of the project lead.

All applicants should email the following to Dr Monica Barratt, monica.barratt@rmit.edu.au

  • a cover letter, which should directly address each of the key selection criteria (see above)
  • your academic transcript
  • your Curriculum Vitae, including a section on research skills and their application
  • a 1-2 page research proposal focusing on responding to unregulated drug markets with drug checking services

The research proposal is a key part of the application process where applicants must demonstrate the value of their research and their suitability for scholarship selection.

Your proposal should be developed under the following headings:

  • Title
  • Research questions you plan to investigate in the context of existing research/literature
  • Methodology/research tasks required to undertake the research
  • Significance and impact of the research

Applications close Sunday 20th October 2024!

Following the scholarship closing date, these applications will be assessed, with applicants making the first round invited to a casual chat. Second round applicants will be asked to participate in an interview.

Drug checking for Victoria – it’s time

This week, I co-led the launch of a public campaign to urge the Victorian government to implement drug checking in Victoria. We launched a statement signed by 77 organisations on the steps of parliament on Monday. The statement was led by VAADA and written by myself and Isabelle Volpe from RMIT University. Harm Reduction Victoria and Students for Sensible Drug Policy also contributed to the campaign, and on the day we also heard from Debbie Warner, from Apod Support representing the family perspective, and Daniel Robinson Croft, youth advocate at YSAS.

The Victorian statement demonstrates support from a wide range of social and community organisations. These include professional societies representing medical and pharmaceutical sectors, such as the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia.

Isabelle and I also published a longer article in The Conversation on Monday about this campaign and the argument for drug checking.

Following is a selection of the media coverage:

  • Neil Mitchell, Oct 23, 3AW Melbourne, Mornings with Neil Mitchell,  ‘‘Simple and pragmatic approach’: The push for a ‘drug checking’ system in Melbourne’, 8:34am. HTML.
  • Raf Epstein, Oct 23, ABC Radio Melbourne, Melbourne Mornings, ‘Victorian health organisations call for drug testing to reduce deaths’, 8:50am. HTML.
  • Ewa Staszewska, Oct 23, SBS News, ‘Debbie’s son overdosed. She thinks this state’s push for drug testing is a ‘no brainer’’. HTML.
  • Frank Bonaccorso, Oct 23, 2ser 107.3 and The Wire, ‘Health agencies urge Victorian government to implement drug testing’. HTML.
  • Monique Patterson, Oct 24, The Standard, ‘WRAD Health backs call for drug checking system to save lives’. HTML.
  • Will Keech, Oct 26, Geelong Advertiser, Groups in push for drug testing. Bid to stop overdoses, p. 18. Also ‘‘Concerned’ Geelong organisations sign statement in support of drug checking’, HTML.
  • Jenny Denton, Oct 26, Bendigo Advertiser, ‘BCHS lends voice to call for pill testing to prevent overdoses’. HTML.

Special issue of Drug & Alcohol Review – music festivals

As Deputy Editor for Drug and Alcohol Review, I was asked to write an introduction to a virtual special issue collecting papers from the journal published in the last 4 years on this topic. The papers are available for free download here.

The full introduction is reproduced below:

Dance music festivals are typically outdoor events where electronic dance music is performed to large crowds of festivalgoers. These events have emerged as sites of alcohol and other psychoactive substance use, particularly MDMA (or ‘ecstasy’), other stimulants, as well as psychedelic drugs. While some such festivals are single-day events (typically held in urban locations), they are commonly held over multiple days in non-urban locations, with attendees typically camping at the event for 3 to 5 days (sometimes longer). This virtual issue of Drug and Alcohol Review contains 11 papers published in the journal since 2018 on the topic of alcohol and other drug use and harms, and associated policy and monitoring responses, in these festival settings.

Seven of these papers engaged with populations of festival attendees, typically through surveying them to collected self-reported information [1-7]. The typical age of surveyed festivalgoers was young, with median and average ages in the mid-20s across all studies [1-7]. Four of these studies involved in-situ data collection [4-7] – that is, festivalgoers completed the surveys at the festival they were attending – with the remaining three studies conducted through web surveys that asked people to recall and report on their behaviours at previous festival attendances [1-3]. Only one of these studies combined biological measurement with self-report, and in this study, only the use and markers of alcohol consumption were measured [7]. Illegal drug use, and specifically the use of MDMA, was the focus of the remaining 6 studies of festival attendees [1-6]. Event-based measurement – that is, where questions are focused on characteristics of a specific event (usually the current event or the most recent event attended) – was employed among 3 studies [3, 5, 7], while the use of scenarios and measurement of future intended behaviours was employed by 3 studies [1, 4, 6] – all exploring hypothetical responses by festivalgoers to scenarios where drug checking services were available.

Of the 7 articles reporting research with festival attendees, 4 studies were measuring patterns of alcohol and other drug use [2, 3, 5, 7]; in particular, higher-risk behaviours and harm reduction practices. Two papers confirm that double dropping – taking two (or more) MDMA pills or capsules simultaneously – is prevalent among Australian festivalgoers, with Grigg et al. [3] reporting 48% of festivalgoers (who used MDMA) double dropping at the last festival they attended (data collected 2016) and Healey et al. [5] also reporting 48% double dropped (or intended to do so later in the day) at the festival event where they were surveyed (data collected 2019-2020). Healey et al. also reported on the practice of preloading: consuming all of their drugs prior to entering the (single-day) festival. Of the festival-goers who reported drug use during the festival, 33% reported preloading. This behaviour appeared to be related to how the festivals they attended were policed. Those who agreed that knowledge of or anticipation of police or police dog presence at the festival had altered their drug use patterns were at over double the odds (adjusted odds ratio 2.2) of reporting preloading their drugs before entering the festival. While double dropping practices may be based on past experiences of MDMA pills being relatively weak in Australia, with the rise of high strength pills and capsules, double dropping is much more likely to result in MDMA toxicity. Healey et al.’s findings that preloading with drugs prior to events is commonplace and is a response to policing practices is concerning and should spur more urgent action to overhaul such the relatively heavy-handed policing practices that occur at music festivals in Australia.

The web survey of an international sample of festivalgoers (primarily from Spain, USA and Australia) reported by Fernández Calderón et al. [2] focused on harm-reducing practices, such as avoiding mixing depressants (69%) and limiting the quantities of drugs consumed (62%). Overall, fewer adverse health events were reported by respondents who also took harm reducing measures. Norman et al.’s [7] study used multiple measures of alcohol drinking over a prolonged drinking event, finding that a diverse set of 4 measurements contributed unique and valuable information. Importantly – while only conducted with 14 participants – this study demonstrates feasibility of continuous alcohol monitoring and the use of unobtrusive biological techniques among the festivalgoer population.

The remaining 3 papers that engaged festivalgoer populations were focused on how people might respond to a drug checking service [1, 4, 6].  Taken together, in the Australian context where drug checking has been formally available at only two single events in the ACT [8], these studies indicate a strong desire to use drug checking services if available, with an on-site service (94%) somewhat more popular than a fixed-site or off-site (external to the festival) service (85%) [1]. Lack of support for drug checking from government and police was a considerable barrier, with 94% reporting that they would not use a service if there was the possibility of arrest [1]. One political barrier to drug checking introduction has been the contention that drug checking services would increase the use of MDMA among this population, by ‘giving the green light’ to use drugs. Two of these studies provide data to refute this contention [4, 6].  Hollett and Gately [6] found that both people who had never used MDMA and people with MDMA experience reduced their MDMA risk across on-site and fixed-site drug checking scenarios; however, they noted that people with MDMA experience were less likely to reduce risk than MDMA naïve participants in some situations, for example, when the hypothetical drug checking result showed a high strength MDMA pill or a pill substituted with PMA/PMMA. It may be that certain risks (higher strength; PMA/PMMA) may be perceived as less concerning to those with more experience then to those who are MDMA naïve. Murphy et al. [4] report that neither group (MDMA experienced and MDMA naïve) reported an increased intention to use MDMA in scenarios were drug checking was available. Subjective norms (e.g. items like “Most of my ecstasy-using friends tell me that I should test/check the content of my pill before I use ecstasy” [9]) were associated with intended use of both on-site and fixed-site drug checking services. These studies also found that festival goers were willing to co-pay for a drug checking services – $12 [6] or $10 [1] for an on-site test.

The remaining 4 papers that did not report on festivalgoer populations all focused on the topic of drug checking at music festivals, and included: a representative survey of the Australian population measuring attitudes towards drug checking at music festivals [10], two policy analysis papers on the topic of drug checking in the Australian jurisdictions of NSW and the ACT [11, 12], and one paper from Italy reporting descriptive drug sample data from an operational drug checking service [13]. Through these papers we learn that almost two-thirds of the Australian public (64%) support “pill testing at music festivals” while 22% are opposed, 14% neutral and 1% did not answer. Political affiliation was associated with support, with voters for the two main Australian conservative parties the least likely to support this initiative [10]. The two policy analysis papers utilised document analysis to create detailed timelines of critical policy and advocacy events, utilising news coverage, transcripts of television specials on the topic of drug checking, parliamentary transcriptions and reports [11, 12]. Ritter’s analysis of the debate in NSW synthesises the narratives used by those in favour and those opposed to drug checking, finding that both sides appeared to share a basic goal of ‘saving lives’ but as the beliefs and values underlying this goal differed, the debate continued to remain polarised [11]. Sommerville et al. compared one jurisdiction who had successfully supported drug checking (ACT) with one that had failed to do so (NSW) using the Advocacy Coalition Framework [12]. The key difference identified was that the dominant coalition in ACT was health-led, whereas the dominant coalition in NSW was led by law enforcement. For policy change on drug checking to occur in NSW, both core and secondary beliefs of the dominant law enforcement policy required shifting, a shift that rarely occurs [12]. The final paper in this special issue reported on an active drug checking service in Italy in the festival and party context, focusing on the drugs detected and the use of a Raman spectrometer in the field [13]. Raman instruments are often used for policing application (e.g. the “TruNarc”) and are rugged, field-deployable, are not required to touch the drug sample directly and provide fast results. However, the Raman fails to identify substances when present in low quantities or when a novel substance was not available in its spectral library [13]. Raman instruments are likely to be useful among a suite of analytic tools used in drug checking services, rather than as a stand-alone instrument.

This collection contains only 2 papers from outside of Australia – but it should be noted that Drug and Alcohol Review has also recently published Canadian papers on drug checking (just not in a festival context) [14, 15] as well as papers related to similar drug use practices but within the nightclub setting, e.g. in New York City [16-18].

This showcase of festival-related research provides some pertinent information relevant to advocates and policy makers. It demonstrates that the lack of drug checking in most parts of Australia cannot be blamed on a lack of evidence or on a lack of public support. Indeed, the lack of uptake of drug checking may be much more associated with a clash of values and the location of where the most political power currently lies, that is, within coalitions of partners aligned with law enforcement. As festivals begin to emerge again after the easing of pandemic restrictions on large gatherings, we may see further pushes for policy reform, especially in the event of deaths that could be prevented by service provision as well as public drug alerts derived from checking services.

Dr Monica Barratt
Senior Vice Chancellor’s Research Fellow, RMIT University, Melbourne Australia
and Deputy Editor for Drug and Alcohol Review
References
  1. Barratt MJ, Bruno R, Ezard N, Ritter A. Pill testing or drug checking in Australia: Acceptability of service design features. Drug Alcohol Rev 2018;37:226-36.
  2. Fernández Calderón F, Díaz Batanero C, Barratt MJ, Palamar JJ. Harm reduction strategies related to dosing and their relation to harms among festival attendees who use multiple drugs. Drug Alcohol Rev 2019;38:57-67.
  3. Grigg J, Barratt MJ, Lenton S. Double dropping down under: Correlates of simultaneous consumption of two ecstasy pills in a sample of Australian outdoor music festival attendees. Drug Alcohol Rev 2018;37:851-5.
  4. Murphy S, Bright SJ, Dear G. Could a drug-checking service increase intention to use ecstasy at a festival? Drug Alcohol Rev 2021;40:974-8.
  5. Healey A, Siefried KJ, Harrod ME, Franklin E, Peacock A, Barratt MJ, et al. Correlates of higher-risk drug-related behaviours at music festivals in New South Wales, Australia. Drug Alcohol Rev 2021 [Epub ahead of print]. https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.13404
  6. Hollett RC, Gately N. Risk intentions following pill test scenarios are predicted by MDMA use history and sensation seeking: A quantitative field study at an Australian music festival. Drug Alcohol Rev 2019;38:473-81.
  7. Norman T, Peacock A, Ferguson SG, Kuntsche E, Bruno R. Combining transdermal and breath alcohol assessments, real-time drink logs and retrospective self-reports to measure alcohol consumption and intoxication across a multi-day music festival. Drug Alcohol Rev 2021;40:1112-21.
  8. Olsen A, Wong G, McDonald D. ACT Pill Testing Trial 2019: Program Evaluation. Canberra, ACT: Australian National University; 2019.
  9. Davis AK, Rosenberg H. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior to predict implementation of harm reduction strategies among MDMA/ecstasy users. Psychol Addict Behav 2016;30:500-8.
  10. McAllister I, Makkai T. The effect of public opinion and politics on attitudes towards pill testing: Results from the 2019 Australian Election Study. Drug Alcohol Rev 2021;40:521-9.
  11. Ritter A. Making drug policy in summer—drug checking in Australia as providing more heat than light. Drug Alcohol Rev 2019;39:12-20.
  12. Sommerville K, Ritter A, Stephenson N. Pill testing policy: A comparative analysis using the Advocacy Coalition Framework. Drug Alcohol Rev 2021 [Epub ahead of print]. https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.13352
  13. Gerace E, Seganti F, Luciano C, Lombardo T, Di Corcia D, Teifel H, et al. On-site identification of psychoactive drugs by portable Raman spectroscopy during drug-checking service in electronic music events. Drug Alcohol Rev 2019;38:50-6.
  14. Borden SA, Saatchi A, Vandergrift GW, Palaty J, Lysyshyn M, Gill CG. A new quantitative drug checking technology for harm reduction: Pilot study in Vancouver, Canada using paper spray mass spectrometry. Drug Alcohol Rev 2021 [Epub ahead of print]. https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.13370
  15. McCrae K, Tobias S, Grant C, Lysyshyn M, Laing R, Wood E, et al. Assessing the limit of detection of Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and immunoassay strips for fentanyl in a real-world setting. Drug Alcohol Rev 2020;39:98-102.
  16. Kelly BC, Vuolo M. Nightlife scene involvement and patterns of prescription drug misuse. Drug Alcohol Rev 2020;39:888-97.
  17. Palamar JJ, Barratt MJ. Prevalence of reagent test-kit use and perceptions of purity among ecstasy users in an electronic dance music scene in New York City. Drug Alcohol Rev 2019;38:42-9.
  18. Palamar JJ, Le A, Acosta P, Cleland CM. Consistency of self-reported drug use among electronic dance music party attendees. Drug Alcohol Rev 2019;38:798-806.

Help inform harm reduction in the EDM space

We need your help!

Harm reduction group Energy Control – famous for their international and local drug testing services – have collaborated with Australia’s DanceWize to do some research into safer drug use practices. We will see how drug use patterns and safer use practices differ between Spain and Australia, countries with quite different policy settings.

If you have been to festivals or dance parties recently, please complete the survey and help harm reduction groups understand what’s really happening!

http://partyanddrugs.infoinnova.es/

Rainbow Serpent Festival
Rainbow Serpent Festival

Podcast with Tim Bingham of INEF

Tim Bingham conducted a Skype interview with me last week about the world of drugs, internet, social media, Silk Road, ‘legal highs’, stigma and drug policy. It was a lot of fun! I’d like to thank Tim for providing me with the opportunity to participate.

You can access the podcast here.

Anything is possible on the Silk Road

Note Feb 2012: A different (much shortened!) version of this blog post has now been published in the peer-reviewed journal Addiction.

Much of the research and discussion about drugs and the internet has focused upon either buying drugs online or seeking drug-related information online. News coverage has particularly focused upon the capacity to buy drugs from web vendors (eg, Psychedelic drugs just a click away online, Deadly drug on the net).

Yet, evidence from the last decade indicates that most drug transactions still occur in the traditional way.

Popular illegal drugs are not generally available online: unless the product can be marketed as ‘legal’ or ‘not for human consumption’, the legal risk and practical problems associated with selling heroin, MDMA, amphetamines, and cannabis through an online marketplace are just too big, for both buyers and sellers.

It’s not that the demand doesn’t exist for online drug vendors. I interviewed forum moderators for my thesis who prohibited ‘sourcing’ on their message boards and regularly edited, closed or removed discussions they believed were motivated by attracting potential sellers.

An example would be a forum user posting that ‘isn’t it hard to find ecstasy in Perth at the moment’. If anyone in Perth had ecstasy to sell, they could send a private message to the OP offering their services.

Although this was possible and likely occurred despite swift moderator action to remove those threads, most forum users did not use the internet to buy drugs.

In a paper I will be presenting next week at #comtech2011, forum users discussed their views on talking about drugs in public online forums and their strategies to avoid the risk of incriminating themselves.

One popular strategy was to avoid all discussion of supply or dealing so as not to attract the attention of law enforcement who may be watching the forums. Most believed that law enforcement were after ‘dealers, not users’.

I conducted those interviews 3 years ago in 2008. In 2011, the situation has shifted considerably with the arrival of Silk Road, an anonymous online marketplace where anything* can be bought or sold.

Silk Road is accessible only to people who are using TOR anonymising software. TOR uses encryption to make it impossible for anyone to trace your IP address.

The front page of Silk Road looks a lot like an Amazon or an Ebay. Goods and services for sale are categorised. Sellers receive ratings from buyers and comments about the quality of their products, how fast they ship, and the level of professionalism and discreteness of the transaction. Trust in sellers is built on reputation.

Silk Road traders use the anonymous currency Bitcoin. This decentralised international currency operates through peer-to-peer technologies. It has an exchange and a lively forum of users.

The possibilities of a non-government-controlled anonymous international currency are quite mind-boggling. The obvious possibility is being played out right now on Silk Road: buying and selling illegal products is now possible and may dramatically increase in the near future.

What may stop an exponential increase in the use of anonymous online drug marketplaces is the hurdle of delivery. At the end of the transaction, the physical product still needs to be sent to the buyer.

Sending products between countries allows Customs the opportunity to intercept packages and potentially attempt to arrest the would-be importer. Sending products within the same country may make arrest less likely.

There are also fairly large barriers to entry for most ordinary people who might want to buy drugs online. Installing and using TOR, buying and using Bitcoins in a secure way, and taking the risk of fraud or arrest through package tracing from Customs may deter the majority of would-be users. In a recent example of the volatility of this new system, Bitcoin exchange Mt Gox was hacked, causing the currency to rapidly devalue.

But for the minority who master these concerns and are willing to take the risk, Silk Road and its successors have forever changed how the internet can be used to source drugs.

After all, buying drugs in the real world also involves considerable risk. For some, the online equivalent may prove more secure than trying to arrange a standard deal.

The extent to which law enforcement can bring down a site like this is yet to be seen. Equally, the extent to which ordinary drug users will use this new technology is also unknown. Needless to say, if anonymous online drug markets do end up expanding into mainstream drug markets, they will pose a real challenge to existing drug laws and policies.

All I can say is that I will be following Silk Road’s progress with great interest.

* In this exchange from Silk Road’s founder, he notes that some goods/services are not tolerated due to their capacity to harm others and attract controversy. In this category, he includes pedophilia, hitmen and counterfeit currency.

Note: An edited version of this article has also been published at Injecting Advice, a site for NSP workers and injectors. Thanks Nigel!

Video of 6DYP conference presentation

I recorded the audio of my presentation on 4th May at the 6th Drugs and Young People conference, and now I have recorded it alongside the Prezi into a movie. Please ignore the beginning with 12 seconds of black screen. My video editing skills are novice but I’m hoping to continue this kind of thing so all presentations I do in public will be recorded and disseminated on my Vimeo channel at http://vimeo.com/tronica

Drugs, Internet, Censorship from Monica Barratt on Vimeo.

Drugs, the internet, and the internet filter #6dyp

I’m presenting this today. In case you can’t be there, or were there and want to follow up any of the points I made, here’s the presentation! Remember to press ‘full screen’ 🙂

All comments warmly welcomed!

LINK

Embracing interactivity and openness: Drugs 2.0

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of attending a presentation by Ray Stephens of Moreland Hall. Ray spoke about ‘Using Web 2.0 to engage with clients and reduce drug-related harm’.

Web 2.0 is an interactive, immersive network where participants consume and create content and connections. Young people, arguably the target group of much alcohol and other drug ‘interventions’, are primarily using the internet to source health information. Online networks facilitated through web 2.0 allow people to collaborate, gather and distribution information. Illicit drug use is no exception to this trend!

Ray argues that web 2.0 is where alcohol and other drug treatment services need to be focusing their attention if they want to capture the attention of the majority of young people who already use these online networks to discussion drug use.

The examples of online engagement in the AOD field that Ray reviewed were websites with comment facilities (like Somazone), websites that host multiple blogs (like Between the Lines) and Moreland Hall’s website Bluebelly, which is pushing the boundaries in its use of wiki articles and forthcoming feature film.

From the audience, we discovered the innovative work currently underway at the Burnet Institute using Facebook. The Queer as F**k project follows the lives of 5 fictional gay men who live together in a share house in Melbourne. The characters have their own facebook pages and interact together on the site. The main action occurs in short film clip episodes uploaded to youtube and disseminated through the facebook page. Health and social issues are introduced through the films and online interaction.

Chris Raine, founder of Hello Sunday Morning was also in the audience and had a chat to me after the show. HSM is a collective of bloggers who have taken 3, 6 or 12 months off drinking to examine why they drink and develop a new relationship with alcohol. Hello Sunday Morning uses similar logic to Queer as F**k: people who follow the experience of these individuals and interact with them will be engaged and more open to learning and experimenting with their own behaviour change. The difference is that the HSM people are real, whereas the Queer as F**k characters are fictional. There is something particularly appealing about HSM bloggers being real.

Alongside the importance of using web 2.0 to engage with people about drug issues, Ray also argued for the opening up of AOD workplaces to web 2.0. How can people who work in this field become familiar with web 2.0 when much of it is blocked by our organisation’s firewalls? How can innovation be stimulated in organisations where facebook, youtube and twitter are seen as not work related?

Ray ended his presentation with a great list of 10 reasons why we should embrace web 2.0 in the AOD field:

1. Source of information
2. Brand awareness, credibility
3. Networking and partnership development
4. Provide treatment to people we will never see
5. It’s engaging (and fun?)
6. Encourage opportunities for users to have a voice
7. Extend your staff’s working hours
8. Free (…ish)
9. ‘They’ are already using it
10. It’s not going away

What I love about this list is that it reads so much like why people should embrace the harm reduction approach to drug use. Essentially, people are using web 2.0 and it isn’t going anywhere, so we need to learn how to use it wisely and well, instead of the zero tolerance approach of ignoring it in the hope that it might be a passing phase. Hopefully more alcohol and other drug agencies will modernise their social media policies and embrace interactivity and openness through web 2.0. All they have to lose is their fear 🙂

* Thanks Ray for starting this conversation. Let’s continue it!