Antonia Bendau, Leonard Viohl, Moritz Bruno Petzold, Jonas Helbig, Simon Reiche, Roman Marek, Amy Romanello, Daa Un Moon, Rosa Elisa Gross, Dario Jalilzadeh Masah, Stefan Gutwinski, Inge Mick, Christiane Montag, Ricarda Evens, Tomislav Majić, Felix Betzler
BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic is presumably having an impact on the consumption of psychoactive substances. Social distancing and lockdown measures may particularly affect the use of "party drugs" (e.g., stimulants, dissociatives, and GHB/GBL) through the absence of typical use settings. We aimed to analyse the use patterns of those substances and underlying motivations before and during the pandemic. METHODS: A subsample of 1,231 users of stimulants (amphetamine, methamphetamine, MDMA/ecstasy, cocaine), dissociative drugs (ketamine, dextromethorphan, PCP), and GHB/GBL was assessed from 30th April to 4th August 2020 as part of the Corona Drug Survey, a cross-sectional international online survey in five languages that included a total of 5,049 participants...
April 2022: International Journal on Drug Policy