Although discrimination has been shown to adversely affect the health of marginalized populations, there is a paucity of research on the health impacts of discrimination experienced by illicit drug users. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between interpersonal discrimination and the mental and physical health of illicit drug users taking into account several potential con...

The increase of overdose deaths involving licit and illicit fentanyl analogs (FAs), recently observed in North America, has shifted toward Europe posing a serious public health menace (Mounteney et al., 2015). The widespread appearance of these synthetic opioids, between 50 and 100 times more potent thanmorphine and inmany cases not approved for medical use, has been reported by the European Mo...

BACKGROUND Illicit drug use has become an increasing public health and social concern in the past decades worldwide. Intravenous injection has an elevated risk of infection. Needle embolism is a rare complication of intravenous drug users, Retained broken needles can lead to local complications, such as infection, but they also have the potential to embolize to heart or lung, and lead to seriou...

Objective The purpose of this study was to evaluate the perinatal outcomes in pregnant women who use illicit drugs. Methods A retrospective observational study of patients who, at the time of delivery, were sent to or who spontaneously sought a public maternity hospital in the eastern area of São Paulo city. We compared the perinatal outcomes of two distinct groups of pregnant women - illicit d...

BACKGROUND Peer methodology (PM) is an adaptation of the privileged access interviewer methodology and is used for prevalence studies. PM estimates higher drug consumption frequencies among school and college students than self reports, since it minimizes underreporting. AIM To assess drug abuse among students using PM. MATERIAL AND METHODS A random sample of 234 school students of middle a...

BACKGROUND As a consequence of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) epidemic, which continues among illicit drug users, high rates of HIV-associated morbidity are believed to exist. This study focuses on hospitalizations of drug users and on the relative contribution of drug users to the total burden of inpatient hospital care in Amsterdam. METHODS During the years 1990-1992, data were coll...

The use of illicit drugs and high rates of crime are strongly associated. Under drug prohibition, drug-consumption and drug trafficking are inevitably defined as offences. Drug-related offences — especially incomegenerating property crime — are also common although psychopharmacological offences and violence between drug traffickers are less prevalent. Drugs and crime are also linked by many co...

Data from the 2001 College Alcohol Study, a national sample of U.S. college students, were used to conduct multinomial logistic regression analysis examining correlates of substance use. Students were divided into three groups based on their lifetime substance use: non-users, non-medical prescription drug use only, and illicit/street drug use only. The purpose of this analytic strategy was to e...