Bluelight.org

Forum Focus Month Jan/Feb 2018: Come Discuss Science & Film!



This is a new way of trying to promote lesser used (and often once thriving) sub-forums here on bluelight: forum focus months. Basically the idea is to try and give certain forums a bit of steam by cataloguing and encouraging use in some of their interesting and engaging threads.

For January/February, the forums will be Science & Technology and Film & Television.

Both forums have seen quite an upsurge in posts recently, and we'd like to promote both of them.

Science & Technology Active Threads Jan/Feb 2018:
Come and discuss science stuff in the following threads:

BITCOIN Discussion v. 8 Coins on an Old Computer
Why are we so eager to believe in extraterrestrial life?
New Solar System Like Our Own Discovered
Which CRYPTOCURRENCY Will Post The Most GAINS By 2020?
Why We May Soon Be Trapped on Earth
BUYING Bitcoin
Mysterious explosion of c. diff bacteria caused by increased consumption of a sugar...

GDS / Bluelight census



In partnership with Global Drug Survey, Bluelight is launching its own census. That's right, we want to know a bit more about our community. Things like demographics and drug use characteristics. And whether you use harm reduction information from website to inform what decisions you make.

This year, Global Drug Survey included an item asking whether people had accessed certain drug-related websites ever and in the last 7 days. So by partnering with GDS, we will be able to draw the sample of people who report using Bluelight in the last 7 days from the larger sample, and produce a short report on their data.

We will post that report to Bluelight's front page by February 2018. The report will be short, focusing on demographics, drug use statistics, rates of harm (e.g. emergency attendance), and use of harm reduction strategies.

GDS / Bluelight census

Notes

You do not have to complete every section of GDS to be part of the census...

the forums are back after a short interruption.

thanks.

alasdair

Currently we have 4 surveys on the go where the universities have donated to Bluelight. They have helped us upgrade the servers!!! So please consider completing these surveys, if you haven't done so already, and if you are eligible. Thanks so much for your support

Do you live in the US and have you ever used Tapentadol, otherwise known as Nucynta, Palexia and Tapal, even just once?
Click here for survey on Tapentadol

Have you used synthetic cannabis (such as spice, K2, noids, Black Mamba, Mad Hatter, JWH, CHMINACA) even just once in your lifetime?
Click here for survey on synthetic cannabis

Do you live in the UK and have you used mephedrone in the last 12 months?
Click here for UK survey about mephedrone

Do you live in the UK and have you used synthetic cannabinoids in the last 12 months?
Click here for UK survey about synthetic cannabinoids

Image from page 1011 of 'The Pharmaceutical era' (1887) by Internet Archive Book Images, on Flickr

tl;dr – NBOMe mixtures sold as MDMA are around, don’t snort unknown caps, use test-kits wisely, look after your mates, and get your lab student/worker friends to contact us so we don’t need to rely on labs in Barcelona to access high-quality drug testing in Australia!

On the weekend 15-16 January 2017, there was a spate of poisonings, hospitalisations and deaths that have been associated a batch of capsules that were reportedly sold as MDMA or Ecstasy. Punters at Revolver nightclub and other clubs on Melbourne’s Chapel Street were affected.

The contents of these caps appeared damp, more like a brown sugar consistency than crystals or powder.



We obtained anonymous reports from people who consumed these capsules. The reports describe very strong hallucinogenic symptoms and paranoia. While in most cases, the symptoms resolved without medical intervention, they were very unpleasant, with one person reporting that they ‘felt like they were going to die or never be the...

F.D.A. Agrees to New Trials for Ecstasy as Relief for PTSD Patients

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/11/26/us/26ecstasy1/26ecstasy1-master768.jpg

C.J. Hardin, a veteran who served three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, at a memorial in North Charleston, S.C. He is a patient in the study of MDMA, also known as Ecstasy, as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

CHARLESTON, S.C. — After three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, C. J. Hardin wound up hiding from the world in a backwoods cabin in North Carolina. Divorced, alcoholic and at times suicidal, he had tried almost all the accepted treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder: psychotherapy, group therapy and nearly a dozen different medications.

“Nothing worked for me, so I put aside the idea that I could get better,” said Mr. Hardin, 37. “I just pretty much became a hermit in my cabin and never went out.”

Then, in 2013, he joined a small drug trial testing whether PTSD could be treated with MDMA, the...

Please welcome toscablue (Nadine van Gelder) to the Bluelight research assistant position, who will also have a moderating role on Drug Studies.

toscablue will help me liaise with researchers who may wish to donate for banner space or to access our archives for research.

She will also join neversickanymore at Drug Studies: focusing on sorting through all of our research studies, matching older studies up with publications, to illustrate how Bluelight is contributing to research more broadly.

toscablue joins us from Amsterdam - she has held a variety of research assistant roles in the drugs area, most recently working at the EMCDDA, so she has some on-ground drug-research skills to offer.

So, thanks and welcome!

The Journal of Substance Use recently published a paper which represented the international harm reduction community Bluelight.org as a website used for sourcing drugs.

Yet this article’s conclusions were based only on two case studies, with no attempt to review the existing literature regarding Bluelight. Many in this community would be aware of these studies which show that most people come here to learn how to use drugs more safely, that our members actively disseminate information to warn people of highly dangerous adulterated drugs, and that we regularly collaborate with researchers to provide a leading-edge source of data for monitoring new drug trends. Bluelight is regularly cited as a valued source of harm reduction information for people who use drugs.

Bluelight goes to great lengths to avoid hosting discussions about drug sources. Moderators delete all discussions that could be related to sourcing drugs as quickly as they can.

Our response to this journal...

A dabs pizza from Waxerz Containers

Researchers from Wright State University (Ohio) have been collaborating with Bluelight (allowing staff to provide feedback on their questionnaire) and supporting Bluelight through a donation to the site.

The study is now closed. Thanks for your support. Results will be posted when complete!

Official advertisement below, for archive purposes:

Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine researchers, in collaboration with researchers from Columbia University and the University of Massachusetts, are conducting a survey on cannabis use trends.

This survey is open to all of the Bluelight community, including guest visitors.

To participate in this research study, you need to meet the following requirements:
1) Be 18 years of age or older;
2) Have used cannabis (any form) at least once in your lifetime.

The survey is anonymous - IP addresses will NOT be collected; no identifying information will be asked.
The survey is...

A collaboration between researchers at Karlstad University and Bluelight has resulted in a publication exploring motivations for novel substance use in the International Journal of Drug Policy.

The study was promoted exclusively through Bluelight's banner over a 3 month period. 619 users of novel substances responded to the survey, describing a total of 1551 uses of novel substances (up to 3 per respondent).

We would like to congratulate Christophe Soussan and Professor Anette Kjellgren on their successful publication. We are especially grateful for their decision to make the publication open access, so anyone in our community can read it.

If you are a researcher interested in collaborating with us, please see our Research Portal for more information or contact us directly.