Drug consumption estimates are of relevance because of public health effects as well as associated criminal activities. Wastewater analysis of drug residues enables the estimation of drug consumption and drug markets. Short-term and long-term trends of cocaine, MDMA (ecstasy), amphetamine (speed) and methamphetamine (crystal meth), were studied for the city of Amsterdam. MDMA (+41%) and cocaine (+26%) showed significantly higher weekend vs. week consumption, while no differences were observed for the other drugs. The consumption of MDMA, cocaine, amphetamine and methamphetamine significantly increased between 2011 and 2019. Weekly trends emerging from wastewater analyses were supported by qualitative and quantitative data from a recreational drug use monitoring scheme. However, information collected in panel interviews within nightlife networks and surveys among visitors of pubs, clubs and festivals only partially reflected the long term increase in consumption as registered from wastewater analysis. Furthermore, methamphetamine use was not well presented in survey data, panel studies and test service samples, but could be monitored trough wastewater analysis. This illustrates that wastewater analysis can function as an early warning if use and user groups are small or difficult to reach trough other forms of research. All in all, this study illustrates that wastewater-based epidemiology is complementary to research among user groups, and vice versa. These different types of information enable to connect observed trends in total drug consumption to behaviour of users and the social context in which the use takes place as well as validate qualitative signals about (increased) consumption of psychoactive substances. Such a multi angular approach to map the illicit drug situation on local or regional scale can provide valuable information for public health.
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The last decades have seen an increase in the use of illicit recreational drugs. In this article we take a detailed look at the current state of normalisation of the three most popular illicit recreational drugs among Dutch university students in the Netherlands (MDMA/Ecstasy, cocaine and amphetamine) by zooming in on five established aspects of normalisation and expanding on one of those aspects: social accomodation, by adding a behavioural subcomponent (setting of use). For this purpose, we used quantitative data, obtained from four studies (2016, 2017, 2019 and 2020) among Dutch university students in a prototypical university city in the Netherlands (Groningen). Results show that three aspects of normalisation are clearly observable. The drugs are perceived as highly accessible, the last year prevalence of use is high, and experimenting, especially with MDMA/Ecstasy, is common. Accurate knowledge of the drugs and acceptance of occasional use, account in some measure for social accommodation. However, as students do not talk openly about their drug use with everyone in their environment, one cannot speak of cultural accommodation. Thus, although clear signs of normalisation of illicit recreational drugs, especially MDMA/Ecstasy, are observable among Dutch university students, there is no full-scale normalisation of these drugs.
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In the 1990s, the popularisation of house music and ecstasy led to a shift in the focus of research into club cultures. Characteristic of club culture is the willingness to share on the social (network), cultural (taste and knowledge), and physical (location) levels. Drug researchers ascertain that, since the 1990s, there has been a normalisation of drug use in the entertainment areas of youth and young adults. In an ongoing panel study among Amsterdam’s trendsetters, club cultures prove eminently receptive to new trends in nightlife. This chapter focuses on the transformation of club cultures into screen cultures within the electronic dance music (EDM) domain and the influence of vernacular media. This development runs parallel to the flight from overregulated entertainment venues. A second development is that the growing influence of the vernacular media has stimulated and also democratised knowledge, opinions and discussions about drugs, and the role in the prevention and risk discourse has changed from of a top-down to a linear model. In the vernacular discourse, the dominating view is that it is normal to experiment with drugs as long as it is done responsibly.
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