Talk:Intravenous drug use (recreational)

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1 Purpose
2 Requests for Information
3 Sections yet to be Written
4 External Links
5 Comments

[edit] Purpose

This page is intended to contain technical and historical information on the phenomena of recreational intravenous drug use, much of which is completely absent from Wikipedia.

Please note that this page is intended for information concerning the preperation and administration of Intravenous Drugs, and issues affecting IV drug users.

Hence, if you have never used IV drugs and merely wish to comment on how terrible they are, please make another page, such as Arguments for and against drug prohibition and link to it from here.

[edit] Requests for Information

If anyone reading this page could answer some of the following questions, I would be most grateful.

What is the mean percentage of IDU's in the world and Western (US, Aus, Canada) Population?
What is the name given to the scarring that IV use can leave on the skin and veins?

track marks

[edit] United Kingdom

Population - 60.5 million 60,500,000 1% = 605,000
Injecting Drug Users - 266,000 - 0.3% overall, 3-4% in London

8 "The most recent estimate of problem drug use in the UK relates to 1996. Current studies will provide new estimates in 2003 as well as figures for smaller (Drug Action Team) areas. Recent work has been undertaken to provide more accurate figures for 1996 (Frischer et al., 2001). This work looked at estimates using three different types of methodology. The findings estimate that in England, Scotland and Wales:

"- 143,000 people are at risk of mortality due to drug overdose; "- 161,000 to 169,000 people have ever injected drugs; "- 202,000 are opiate users; "- and 266,000 are problem drug users."

Source: DrugScope, "Report to the EMCDDA by the Reitox National Focal Point: United Kingdom Drug Situation 2002" (Lisboa, Portugal: European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, 2003), p. 26. [1]

9 "Estimates of problem drug use suggest that prevalence of problem drug use is between 3 to 4% for the London districts of Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham, Camden and Islington, and Newham. Further there may be as many as 266,000 problem drug users in Great Britain as a whole."

Source: Report to the European Monitoring Center on Drugs and Drug Addiction by the Reitox National Focal Point of the United Kingdom, DrugScope, "United Kingdom Drug Situation 2000" (London, England: DrugScope and EMCDDA, 2000), p. 10. [2]

[edit] European Union

Population - 457,000,000
Injecting Drug Users - approx 1,500,000 or 0.3%

"Current estimates suggest there are probably between 1.2 and 2.1 million problem drug users in the EU, of whom 850 000 to 1.3 million are likely to be recent injectors. Problem drug use prevalence estimates over time are patchy, making it difficult to identify long-term trends. However, in the EU-15 Member States, indicators broadly suggest that the rapid recruitment into heroin use that most countries had been experiencing peaked at some time in the early 1990s and was followed by a more stable situation thereafter. Although several countries have continued to report increases since 1999, there are recent signs that this situation is not uniform, with prevalence estimates showing no consistent picture at EU level. In particular, the new Member States deserve special mention, as they appear to have experienced heroin problems later and to have a more fluid situation."

Source: "Annual Report 2005: The State of the Drugs Problem in Europe," European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2005), p. 12. [3]

"It is currently estimated that the number of people in drug substitution treatment in Europe is in excess of 500,000, which would suggest that between one quarter and one half of those with opiate problems may be enrolled in substitution treatment."

What Percentage of the European Union population are IDU's?

Current EU population is approx 457 Million (July 2006 est.) [4]

While the number of IDU's is between 850,000 and 2 million, which is less than 0.5% of the total population.

[edit] What percentage of people currently imprisoned are IDU's?

47 "Drug users are strongly overrepresented among the prison population compared with the general population. In most studies in the EU, lifetime prevalence of drug use among prisoners is reported to be over 50%; however, it varies widely, from 22% to 86%, between prison populations, detention centres and countries (184). In the EU, the prevalence of regular drug use or dependence prior to imprisonment ranges from 8% to 73%.

"The majority of drug users reduce or stop their drug use on admission to prison. However, many prisoners continue to use drugs after incarceration, and some start using drugs (and/or injecting drugs) in prison. Available studies show that between 8% and 60% of inmates report having used drugs while in prison, and 10–42% report regular drug use."

"Relatively high proportions of prisoners reported using heroin during their current stay in prison -- 10-20% of prisoners in England and Wales, and 31% in Scotland."

What is the current Prison Population of the EU?

Statistically, at what age do most IDU's being IV drug use?

What percentage of people stop of thier own free will?

[edit] Sections yet to be Written

[edit] Preparation of Commonly Injected Drugs

Note If attempting to filter a morphine pill for injection, use a Wheel Filter if possible.

Otherwise, crush in very hot water and filter through use a pea sized ball of cotton wool. This is very unsafe as small particles of wax get drawn up into the syringe and will block the needle unless the water is kept hot.