Ethnographic research methods for identification of new drug trends, in the physical world (1.0) and online (2.0)

1. Identifying Emerging Drug Use Trends:
The Ethnographic Tool Box 2.0
Jean-Paul C. Grund, PhD
CVO – Addiction Research Centre, Utrecht, NL
Department of Addictology, Charles University, Prague, CR

2. "The best way to get misinformed is
to ask a lot of questions."
Jack Black – You Can't Win.
Macmillan, 1926

3. Presentation Outline
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Diffusion of drug use trends (i)
The Ethnographic Toolbox 1.0
Diffusion of drug use trends (ii)
The Ethnographic Toolbox 2.0

4. Diffusion of drug use trends (i)
• Diffusion of Innovations Theory
Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is
communicated through certain channels over time
among the members of a social system. (Rogers,
1962)
Diffusion is the acceptance, over time, of some
specific item --an idea or practice-- by individuals,
groups, or other adopting units, linked to specific
channels of communication, to a social structure,
and to a given system of values, or culture. (Katz ,
Levin & Hamilton, 1963)

5. Diffusion Theory: the Adaptation Curve
This is where we want to be!

6. Diffusion of innovations:
Factors & Processes
• Economic and cultural factors:
– E: prices, supply and purity of drugs
– C: (deviant) subculture around the non-medical
use of drugs, with a distinctive set of values,
language and norms around drug use
• Primary Diffusion
• Secondary Diffusion
• Virtual Diffusion (Online)

7. Primary Diffusion
1. A new drug is introduced
– Introduction through initial contacts between
producer/supplier and (potential) customer.
– Diffusion into personal network (peer group) of
initial user.

8. Secondary Diffusion
2. A new drug trend spreads beyond the initial
consumers to different consumer groups.
• Two processes
– Micro diffusion
– Macro diffusion

9. Secondary Diffusion
• Micro-diffusion: A drug and the associated cultural knowledge are
spread between young people of different social groups by means
of communication and exchange between individuals from different
networks who live in close proximity to one another.
– Networks overlap in Shared Spaces: pubs, clubs, cafes, street corners,
schools
– Thereupon the spread of new drug trends continues along similar lines
of friendship and peer networks.
• Macro-diffusion or geographical diffusion supposes that new drug
trends emerge in the most densely populated cities and towns, and
gradually spread to less heavily populated areas.
– from the big cities – (cultural) capitals and port – to other cities, towns
and rural areas.

10. The Ethnographic Toolbox 1.0
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Ethnographic Observation
Bean Counting
Informal and formal qualitative interviews
Focus Groups
Delphi Method
Rapid Assessment & Response (RAR)
Serendipity

11. Ethnographic Observation: W5
• What?  developing observation protocols
• Who?  engaging with relevant research
participants
• Where?  sampling relevant research sites
• When?  activities may vary by both time
and place
• Why?  reasons for the observed behaviors

12. Important Issues in Conducting Observational
Research – Fieldwork in General
• “Outsiders” (Becker, 1963)
• Overcoming “Them and Us”
– Engaging with communities under study
– Research alliances
– Community field workers / peer researchers
• Ethical standards & security issues
– Academics & researchers – IRB review; legal status protection
of sources and I.D. data?; exposure to violence
– Peer researchers – idem, vulnerable to arrest, prosecution
– Contacts, informants and respondents – idem
• Technology creates new opportunities
– E.g. surveillance camera footage

13. Bean Counting
• Counting people, events,
actions, etc.
• Counting single indicators
• Counting multiple indicators
• The M&M Method

14. Informal and formal qualitative
interviews
• Sampling of respondents
– Time – location sampling
– Snowball sampling
– Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS)
• Gaining trust and report
"His business consisted largely of asking questions and
necessarily he acquired much misinformation."
Jack Black – You Can't Win. Macmillan, 1926
– “Them and Us”
– Privileged Access Interviewers (PAIs)
“A good qualitative interview is, in the experience of the
interviewee, like having a nice chat in a bar.”

15. Focus Groups
• Brings together various stakeholders to generate and
discuss information on a specific topic
• Allows for exploring consensus and dissent
• Needs a strong moderator, reporter, etc.
• Challenges:
– dominance of certain
participants may skew data
– missing less dominant
perspectives

16. Delphi
Technique

17. Delphi Method

18. Rapid Assessment & Response (RAR)
• RAR is not a single instrument, but rather a toolbox of
different qualitative tools, such as the above.
• Used in situations where it is difficult to apply
commonly used (semi) quantitative questionnairebased evaluation and assessment methods.
• Several existing data sources are additionally used for
triangulation.
• RAR helps to get fast information on cultural
interpretations and meanings, on viewpoints
of communities, and on needs of e.g. vulnerable
groups.

19. Serendipity
• That quality which, through good
fortune and sagacity*, allows a
person to discover something good
while seeking something else
*: Sagacity (noun): personal alertness, awareness,
and understanding;
sagacious (adjective): having or showing
understanding and the ability to make good
judgments; wise

20. Serendipity
“In the field of observation, chance
favors only the prepared mind."
- Louis Pasteur
"Chance favors only those
who know how to court her."
- Charles Nicolle

21. Diffusion of drug use trends (ii):
Virtual (Online) Diffusion
• Example: Internet forum discussion between two
young men in the Netherlands:
– One was high on drug 2CT-7, a psychedelic
phenethylamine
– The other was interested in the drug, searched for
information about it, but had not encountered it in his
home town, Amsterdam, the Dutch capital, where
probably all ‘classic’ drug trends of the previous
century commenced.
– Anno 2012, the one high on the drug was living, in his
own words, “somewhere in the neighbourhood of
Groningen,” thus rural territory.

22. Effects of Technology on Drug Trends
• Internet changed parameters of diffusion of drug trends
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Changed how information on new drugs is acquired and spread
Destroyed monopoly on information of professionals, authorities
No longer need for F2F contact
Information moves much faster
Forums, “use groups” and other internet communities offer a safe
environment to discuss personal drug use of various sorts.
– Proliferation of news media (hyping new drug use phenomena)
• Mobile phones drastically changed local drug markets
– By 2000 ordering drugs for home delivery did not require more
than ordering a pizza.
• In the 1990s and early 2000s, Internet made Waiting for the
Man obsolete. But, until recently, meeting in person
continued to be a requirement for drug transactions!

23. No More Waiting for the Man
• Drug markets are in flux
• E-Commerce is altering the economic
environment of the diffusion of drug trends.
– at this point, the Man is always available, he can be
contacted and transactions made 24-7 online
– ordered drugs will be express mailed, inconspicuously
wrapped, to almost anywhere in the world.
• Silk Road, a glimpse of the future of drug
markets?
• Serious challenges to drug epidemiology
• Both economic and the sociocultural components
of drug diffusion theory in need of revision

24. The Rise of a New Dawn:
New Psychoactive Substances
• 2012: 73 new synthetic
drugs detected in the EU
– Cannabinoids, cathinones,
psychedelics, other drugs
• Internet
• “Smart” shops
• Other outlets

25. Recent Developments
• A polluted recreational drug market
– 4-Methylamphetamine (4-MA) sold as speed
– Methoxetamin sold as MDMA powder
– Paramethoxyamphetamine (PMA) and Paramethoxymethamphetamin
(PMMA) in Ecstasy tablets
• NPS moving into PDU populations (NPS leading to problem drug use?)
– Mephedrone injecting in UK, Romania
– 5% NEP clients Prague inject NPS
– “Baxtercaine”
• New drugs meet old habits: Synergy of harms? Potential for merging of
different trends: home production and NPS
– Sisa (homemade, smokable methampthetamine) in Greece
– GHB in the Netherlands
– Self-produced methcathinone (Jeff) in Krakow, Poland – made from
medications containing pseudoephedrine

26. Trends, Hypes & the Speed of Life

27. The Ethnographic Toolbox 2.0
• EMCDDA Snapshot Methodology
– Inventory of online supply: online outlets and
advertisements for New Psychoactive Substances
(NPS)
• CVO Snapshot 2.0
– Adjusted EMCDDA method + WebAnalytics
(internet market research tools)
• E.g. Google Trends, Alexa
– Allows for analyzing both demand and supply on
the internet

30. Contact
Jean-Paul Grund, PhD
CVO – Addiction Research
Centre, Utrecht, NL
&
Department of Addictology,
1st Faculty of Medicine,
Charles University in Prague &
General University Hospital in
Prague, CZ
E: jpgrund@drugresearch.nl
W3: www.drugresearch.nl