A Qualitative Study of Women Prescription Drug Sellers

为了响应国家药物滥用研究所计划公告（PA- 07-329），特别是“使用药物的机会、获得药物的途径、药物使用模式和影响这些差异的因素方面的性别差异”，我们为正在进行的研究项目“药物市场中的妇女定性研究”（R01DA018159）设计了一个更新，调查妇女在药物市场中不断变化的角色。在为家长研究进行采访时，我们发现女性不仅出售大麻、海洛因、兴奋剂和俱乐部毒品（我们当前研究的四个目标群体），而且还出售处方药和转用药物。我们打算采访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），包括医生给他们开的药、从其他病人那里购买的药和转移到非法市场的药。这个为期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，他们在过去6个月内销售或交换过5次或5次以上处方药，年龄在18岁或以上，居住在旧金山湾区。通过扩展研究水平相对较低,处方药的卖家,我们希望面试全方位的分销商,从用户/卖家卖家不使用,从启动到长期的经销商,从卖家卖一种药物只对那些卖其他药物,从女性自己的处方药物卖给批发商销售制药、转移和那些陌生人卖给那些卖给朋友或亲戚。项目调查结果将填补现有文献中关于性别对分配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危险的空白。这一探索性项目将提供急需的信息，以便设计更有效和适当的公共卫生举措和干预措施，针对对性别问题敏感的、针对性别的和针对药物的风险因素。

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.