Professor David Plummer led a study by JCU and Griffith University that interviewed drug users.<\/p>\n “We weren’t satisfied enough work had been done to explain why there was such a high level of drug use in Australia and we decided to do smaller in-depth studies to try and understand some of the drivers,” he said.<\/p>\n Research shows almost 40% of Australians aged 15 years and over have used one or more illicit drugs at some stage in their life, and approximately 17% within the past 12 months.<\/p>\n The research team concentrated on recreational drug users rather than habitual users.<\/p>\n “We found recreational users viewed themselves as different from people who are habitual users<\/strong>. The recreational drug users used drugs because they valued the benefits that specific drugs seemed to offer while considering the risks to be manageable, worthwhile and\/or minimal,” said Professor Plummer.<\/p>\n The team identified two important drivers<\/strong> they believe lead people to take up recreational drug use: social networking<\/strong> and performance enhancement<\/strong>.<\/p>\n “A common reason is performance enhancement. Not only in the physical sense of giving users greater stamina but also in making them feel more attractive and more sociable,” said Professor Plummer.<\/p>\n He said the popular view of all drug users as anti-social loners existing on the margins of society was wrong, with social networking another powerful driver of recreational drug use.<\/p>\n “Recreational users take full advantage of social networks. They report their drug use as being highly social in terms of face-to-face encounters — recreational drugs are integral to the party scene and are often used to lubricate social interactions. They also depend on complex social networks for their distribution and use.”<\/p>\n Professor Plummer said the findings presented a challenge for agencies trying to warn recreational users about the underappreciated dangers of illicit drug use<\/strong>.<\/p>\n “We have to rethink the preoccupation in anti-drug strategies with negative outcomes, as recreational users see their risks as different from those of habitual users. Current anti-drug campaigns seem to be disconnected from the actual experience of recreational drug users and this may result in a credibility gap.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the James Cook University press release: A researcher from James Cook University in Queensland has been investigating why Australians are among the top users of illegal drugs in the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[350,526],"tags":[20,128,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25097"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25097"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25306,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25097\/revisions\/25306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Cocaine-300x200.jpg\")
A researcher from James Cook University in Queensland has been investigating why Australians are among the top users of illegal drugs in the world — and has uncovered some revealing new facts about the motivations of recreational drug users<\/strong>.<\/p>\n