Talk:Intravenous drug use (recreational)

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Contents

[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

Answer: I think you are referring to fibrotic scarring. See the Scar formation section in this external medscape link and also for more IV problems and background history of the hypodermic syringe.[1] I haven't bothered to read the whole article (Medscape) through but the 'sunken areas' it refers to is often the result of 'lipoatrophy' or the loss of fat under the skin and common with insulin injections. See ext link [2] for photos.--Aspro 17:30, 20 December 2006 (UTC)


[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. [3]
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. [4]


[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. [5]
"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."
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. 13.
  • What Percentage of the European Union population are IDU's?
Current EU population is approx 457 Million (July 2006 est.) [6]
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."
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. 81. [7]
  • "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."
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.


  • 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

[edit] Liquids

[edit] Powders


[edit] Tablets

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.


[edit] Other

  • Liquid Ampule

[edit] Drugs which may be dangerous to inject

[edit] Injecting Hygiene

  • Clean Needles
  • Swabs
  • Tourniquet
  • Needle Sharing
  • Disposal of Used Syringes
  • Re-using Disposable Syringes
  • Choosing an injecting site
  • Missing a Vien
  • Secondary Infection

[edit] External Links

[edit] Comments

  • Ok, that's all I can think of at the moment, if there is anyone out there who wants to help with this, please feel free.

Infernal.magnet 10:42, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copied text from Intravenous drug

I converted Intravenous drug to a redirect and have copied the text here to see if it might be incorporated into this article. Tocharianne 03:48, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

"The reuse of syringes to administer drugs intravenously is a primary vector for diseases that can be transmitted through blood and the practice is generally forbidden in medicine, although in some areas syringe or needle reuse is necessary for economic reasons (such as in sub-Saharan Africa). Inadequate sterilization of needles or syringes between uses has caused or contributed to several serious outbreaks of disease in Africa, such as Ebola.

"Reuse, known colloquially as needle sharing, is common among users of illegal drugs. This has caused an increase in the spread of diseases such as hepatitis and AIDS; because of this illicit IV drug use has become a public health threat and programs to decrease needle sharing have been established, often in contravention of the law (see harm reduction)."


Hi. Im training to be a drug therapist and have worked as a nurse for 10 years (in the UK). I need to expand the section on potential risks to bring it into line with current research. I propose:

  • Increased chance of blood-borne infection
    • Blood to blood transmission. Sharing needles, syringes, spoons, filters, water and tourniquets has been shown to carry a risk of transmitting blood-bourne virusses e.g. Hepatitis B & C, HIV. The amount of infected blood required to infect someone is smaller than you can see. In chaotic injecting environments, equipment can easily get mixed up e.g. knock on the door, everything bundled up and shoved in a drawer. There was some video research done in Glasgow, UK which showed that injecting in the same space as someone else carries risks of cross-infection.
    • Environment to blood transmission. Bypassing the body's immune system by injecting a substance into a vein makes a route for infection to pass into the body. Poor hygeine, dirty conditions, poor access to equipment and contaminated drugs all contribute to increasing the risks.

I'll dig out the references today if possible

--Mark Fuller 08:01, 23 January 2007 (UTC)


I removed the section on coffee as I couldn't find any sources verifying it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.168.107.134 (talk) 09:13, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge from Track marks

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
Y Done. No objections.--Nsevs • Talk 14:05, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure track marks deserve an article to themselves; I think the topic has been well-approached here and not much can really be added, especially in the way of secondary sources. I'll wait a few days to let anyone comment, and barring any objections, just replace the page with a redirect here. --Nsevs • Talk 18:31, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.


[edit] Injection Merges

There is a proposal, as part of the WikiProject Drug Policy, to merge and modify articles related to the injection of recreational drugs into one master article, covering skin popping, intramuscular injection, and intravenous injection. Please make comments here, and we'll wait a couple of weeks to do the merge and rewrites, as well as creating redirects where appropriate. Shamanchill (talk) 21:43, 14 May 2008 (UTC)