July 2012 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| 13
Health protection |
Drug awareness
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
might be causing problems. It does not tell people what to do; it simply provides
an anonymous, safe place where people can think about their use and check out
the risks they face – or help a friend they think may be in trouble.
*****
Drugs Meter is not funded by any government and does not tell a person that
their use of drugs is safe. If they are in the bottom 10 per cent of cocaine
users it reminds them that only a tiny percentage of their population has used
cocaine in the last year.
So what’s the feedback so far? Since its online launch at the end of March,
more than 3,000 people have completed the meter, adding to the 13,000 people
who contributed their baseline data through the GDS 2011/12 survey. Seventy-five
per cent would recommend it to friends, 80 per cent said it got them to think about
their use of drugs and alcohol in a way that was helpful, 75 per cent said it was
accurate or very accurate in the way it assessed their use and 25 per cent said
they would use less, or use is an way that caused them less harm as a result.
All ten Drugs Meter apps are now available for your smart phone and we are
developing overdose and high-risk sex and injecting meters at present. We are
working with local DATs to promote the initiative, gather good quality data on drug
use trends and ensure that this free resource is used as widely as possible.
Interested? Please feel free to share Drugs Meter with your friends and
colleagues. You can find it at www.drugsmeter.com. How do you measure up?
Additional reporting by Will Coldwell
Dr Adam Winstock is a consultant addiction psychiatrist based in London and
founder of Global Drug Survey, www.globaldrugsurvey.com
Stickers, cards and PDF flyers and posters are also available from
adam@globaldrugsurvey.com
Here are some examples of what we found from the UK data. Just under 20
per cent of people who were judged as alcohol dependent using the AUDIT
screening tool thought their drinking was average or less than average
compared to other drinkers. Just over 15 per cent of people who were smoking
cannabis 20 or more days per month thought their use was average or less
than average compared to other cannabis smokers, when in fact they were in
the top 30 per cent of all cannabis smokers in our sample. More than 50 per
cent of people using 4g or more of cocaine per month thought they were
average or below average users, when in fact they were in the top 20 per cent
of all cocaine users in the sample.
This tells us something about how people want to see themselves, as well
as those they choose to compare themselves with. Like most of us, our
participants probably compared themselves with their mates. So if you do lots
of drugs and all your mates do lots of drugs it probably seems like everyone is
doing lots of drugs. If all your mates drink a lot, then heavy drinking might
seem like average drinking.
Drugs Meter is designed to allow people to compare themselves to others
like them – well, at the moment it compares you to everyone else but once we
hit 50,000 people (we are at 16,500 to date) we’ll allow you to choose your
peer groups based on gender, country, age, sexuality and musical taste. The
approach is different to general mass harm reduction initiatives, in that it
makes information personal.
In order to make informed choices people need personally relevant, objective
information about their use of drugs. Drugs Meter allows people to get rapid and
objective feedback on their drug use and to compare themselves to others,
‘nudging’ them to be safer. It also offers simple tools to reduce risks associated
with drug use and intoxicated-related sexual behaviour and flags up when use
‘In order to make informed
choices people need personally
relevant, objective information
about their use of drugs. Drugs
Meter allows people to get rapid
and objective feedback on their
drug use and to compare
themselves to others.’
personal