Home Manufacture of Drugs: An Online Investigation and a Toxicological Reality Check of Online Discussions on Drug Chemistry

Emerging trends in market dynamics and the use of new psychoactive substances are both a public health concern and a complex regulatory issue. One novel area of investigation is the availability of homemade opioids, amphetamines and dissociatives, and the potential fueling of interest in clandestine home manufacture of drugs via the Internet. We illustrate here how online communal folk pharmacology of homemade drugs on drug website forums may actually inform home manufacture practices or contribute to the reduction of harms associated with this practice. Discrepancies between online information around purification and making homemade drugs safer, and the synthesis of the same substances in a proper laboratory environment, exist. Moderation and shutdown of synthesis queries and discussions online are grounded in drug websites adhering to harm-reduction principles by facilitating discussions around purification of homemade drugs only. Drug discussion forums should consider reevaluating their policies on chemistry discussions in aiming to reach people who cannot or will not refrain from cooking their own drugs with credible information that may contribute to reductions in the harms associated with this practice. © 2017 Taylor & Francis Group, LL

Contextual Anonymization for Secondary Use of Big Data in Biomedical Research: Proposal for an Anonymization Matrix

Background: The current law on anonymization sets the same standard across all situations, which poses a problem for biomedical research. Objective: We propose a matrix for setting different standards, which is responsive to context and public expectations. Methods: The law and ethics applicable to anonymization were reviewed in a scoping study. Social science on public attitudes and research on technical methods of anonymization were applied to formulate a matrix. Results: The matrix adjusts anonymization standards according to the sensitivity of the data and the safety of the place, people, and projects involved. Conclusions: The matrix offers a tool with context-specific standards for anonymization in data researc

“PMA Sounds Fun”: Negotiating Drug Discourses Online

In 2007, a young woman, Annabel Catt, died after consuming a capsule sold as “ecstasy” that contained para-methoxyamphetamine. In this paper, we describe how this death was depicted in online drug-user communities and illustrate how the meanings of drug use are negotiated in online settings. News articles, public online discussions, and online fieldwork formed the data. This paper demonstrates how dominant drug discourses may be resisted by drug users, drawing on theories of health resistance and Kane Race’s concept of counter public health. Online environments may offer ways of engaging people who use drugs that acknowledge both pleasure and safety. The study’s limitations are noted

Freedom in mundane mobilities: caravanning in Denmark

Freedom is a widely discussed and highly elusive concept, and has long been represented in exoticised, masculinised and individualised discourses. Freedom is often exemplified through the image of a solitary male explorer leaving the female space of home and familiarity and going to remote places of the world. Through in-situ interviews with families caravanning in Denmark, the primary aim of this study is to challenge existing dominant discourses surrounding the subject of freedom within leisure and tourism studies. Secondly, we shed further light on an under-researched medium of mobility, that of domestic caravanning. This serves to not only disrupt representations of freedom as occurring through exoticised, masculinised and individualised practices, but to give attention to the domestic, banal contexts where the everyday and tourism intersect, which are often overlooked. This novel repositioning opens up new avenues in tourism studies for critical research into the geographies of freedom in mundane, everyday contexts

Development of a wheelchair stability assessment system: design tools and approaches

This chapter describes how design has been applied to the development of a system for supporting the prescription of wheelchairs. With an ageing population there is likely to be a continued rise in wheelchair usage, as well as wheelchair modifications for specific needs such as specialist seating and the addition of assistive devices. Ensuring the ease of use, stability, safety and performance of wheelchairs both occupied by, and attended to by older adults is an important consideration. This chapter describes the design methods employed in the development of WheelSense®, a system for use by wheelchair prescribers to support the assessment, adaptation and tuning of wheelchairs to meet individual needs. The system development has required a multidisciplinary approach bringing together designers, engineers, human factors specialists, clinical specialists alongside end-users and stakeholders. The resulting WheelSense® system combines electronics and a weighing system in a folding platform. It is supported by a handheld device and graphic user interface (GUI) for guiding the prescription process, enabling data entry and to support education of the wheelchair user chair