A Qualitative Study of Women Prescription Drug Sellers

针对美国国家药物滥用研究所的公告(PA-07-329)，特别是“在使用药物的机会、获得药物的机会、药物使用模式和影响这些差异的因素方面的性别差异”，我们为我们正在进行的题为“女性在药物市场中的定性研究”(R01DA018159)的研究项目设计了更新，这是一项关于女性在药品市场中角色变化的调查。在为家长研究进行采访时，我们发现女性不仅在贩卖大麻、海洛因、兴奋剂和俱乐部毒品(我们目前研究的四个目标群体)，而且她们还出售处方和转移的药品。我们建议采访50名女性和50名男性，他们销售处方药(阿片类药物、兴奋剂和中枢神经系统抑制剂)，包括为他们开的处方药、他们从其他患者那里购买的药物以及转移到非法市场的药品。这个拟议的为期24个月的项目的总体目标是对旧金山湾区的女性处方药销售商进行定性研究。采用人种学抽样技术，我们将招募100名参与者，他们在前六个月内销售或交换处方药五次或以上，年龄在18岁或以上，居住在旧金山湾区。通过将研究扩展到相对较低级别的处方药销售商，我们希望采访全方位的分销商，从使用者/销售商到不使用的销售商，从初学者到长期经销商，从只销售一种药物的销售商到也销售其他药物的销售商，从销售自己的处方药的女性到销售分流药品的批发商，从卖给陌生人的人到卖给朋友或亲戚的人。项目成果将填补现有文献中关于性别对分销做法和个人使用模式的影响，以及反过来对销售处方药的妇女的健康相关危险的影响的空白。这一探索性项目将提供急需的信息，以便设计更有效和更适当的公共卫生倡议和干预措施，以针对对性别敏感、针对性别和针对毒品的风险因素。

In response to the National Institute of Drug Abuse Program Announcement (PA- 07-329), specifically “gender differences in opportunity to use drugs, access to drugs, patterns of drugs use and factors affecting these differences,” we have designed a renewal for our ongoing research project entitled “A Qualitative Study of Women in Drug Markets” (R01DA018159), an investigation of women’s changing roles in drug markets. While conducting the interviews for the parent study, we discovered that women are not only selling marijuana, heroin, stimulants and club drugs (the four target groups for our current study) but they also sell prescribed and diverted pharmaceuticals. We propose to interview 50 women and a comparison group of 50 men who sell prescription drugs (opioids, stimulants and Central Nervous System [CNS] depressants), including drugs that have been prescribed for them, those they have purchased from other patients and pharmaceuticals diverted to illicit markets. The overall aim of this proposed 24-month project is to conduct a qualitative study of women prescription drug sellers in the San Francisco Bay Area. Employing ethnographic sampling techniques, we will recruit 100 participants who have sold or exchanged prescription drugs five or more times in the prior six months, who are 18 years of age or older and who reside in the San Francisco Bay Area. By extending the study to relatively low level sellers of prescription drugs, we hope to interview a full range of distributors, from users/sellers to sellers who do not use, from initiates to long term dealers, from sellers who sell one drug only to those who sell other drugs as well, from women who sell their own prescribed medications to wholesalers who sell diverted pharmaceuticals, and from those who sell to strangers to those who sell to friends or relatives. Project findings will fill the gap in the extant literature regarding the impact of gender on distribution practices and personal use patterns and, in turn, the health-related dangers for women who sell prescription drugs. This exploratory project will provide much needed information in order to design more effective and appropriate public health initiatives and interventions that are designed to target gender-sensitive, gender-specific and drug-specific risk factors.