Monitoring HIV, HCV and HBV among people who use drugs in France. A reflective feed-back on a 25-year experiment based on mixed methods. The ANRS-Coquelicot survey.

The ANRS-Coquelicot survey has been carried out in France for 25 years, to monitor trends in infectious diseases (HIV and hepatitis B and C) among people who use drugs. In this article, we propose to open the black box of this monitoring experience, by describing and analysing some methodological, ethical and political issues involved in this type of survey. The ANRS-Coquelicot survey has carried out on five occasions in France (from 2002 to 2024) in several cities (from 1 to 27) among people who use drugs recruited in a large diversity of services including drug treatment centres, harm reduction facilities, residential services as well as outreach teams.

Medications for Opioid Use Disorder in People Who Inject Substances: Reflection on the Potential Place of Morphine Sulfate as Substitution Treatment? Results of COSINUS Cohort Study.

Background: Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) often provokes dramatic consequences in terms of increased morbi-mortality. Two medications have mainly been worldwide used for OUD (MOUD), buprenorphine and methadone. Recently, however, some reports have highlighted the use of Morphine Sulfate (MS) mainly obtained without a prescription but used as MOUD by opioid users and especially People Who Inject Substances (PWIS).

Contributions of the qualitative Qualicor study embedded in a cohort study on the circumstances of SARS-CoV 2 infection in France.

Objectives: This study aims to understand a major result of ComCor, an online epidemiological study conducted to identify the circumstances of COVID-19 infection in France from 2020 to 2022: One third of respondents reported ignoring the circumstances of their infection.

Methods: We conducted a qualitative study through semi-structured interviews, diagnosed in spring or summer 2021. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed.

Comparing methadone policy and practice in France and the US: Implications for US policy reform.

Despite being among the most effective treatments for opioid use disorder, methadone is largely unavailable in the United States, due primarily to federal and other policies that limit its availability and regulate clinical decisions about doses, visit frequency, and drug testing. There is unprecedented momentum to change decades-old US methadone policies. Yet uncertainty remains as to whether reforms will be adopted and how policies will be implemented.

Cost-effectiveness of drug consumption rooms in France: a modelling study.

Background: People who inject drugs (PWID) experience many health problems which result in a heavy economic and public health burden. To tackle this issue, France opened two drug consumption rooms (DCRs) in Paris and Strasbourg in 2016. This study assessed their long-term health benefits, costs and cost-effectiveness.

Uneven effects of twenty years of Chile's cannabis policy implementation in cannabis onset.

Background: In Chile, Laws 19366 and 20000, implemented in 1995 and 2005 respectively, regulated and sanctioned cannabis' personal use, cultivation and trafficking.

Methods: We use thirteen biannual cross-sectional national surveys data from 1994 to 2018 to examine the effect of Laws 19366 and 20000-using the rate of individuals incarcerated per 100000 population due to drug-related crimes as proxy-on the age of onset of cannabis use over time. We estimate the effect of these policies using a mixed proportional hazards framework that models the transition to first cannabis use in 47,832 individuals aged 12-21.

Gender and Drug Use Discrimination Among People Who Inject Drugs: An Intersectional Approach Using the COSINUS Cohort.

Purpose: Injection drug use is strongly associated with stigmatization by loved ones, healthcare providers, and society in general. This stigmatization can have negative consequences on the health of people who inject drugs (PWID) and limit their access to care. Women who inject drugs face greater stigma than men because of gendered social norms and the intersectional effect between gender and drug use identities.

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Participatory research can help improve addiction services. However, the superficial involvement of people with experiential knowledge runs the risk of reproducing social inequity rather than strengthening their empowerment. This article aims to present a critical analysis, co-constructed through a dialogue between people with academic and experiential knowledge, of different types of participation and collaboration undertaken over a number of years, while also examining issues raised by the professionalization or formalization of the role of people with experiential expertise in participatory research in the field of addiction.

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Participatory health research is developing rapidly. Certain issues make the involvement of people with experiential knowledge in research both more complex and more necessary. This is the case for people who use drugs, whose knowledge rendered invisible by the illegality of drug use and the multiple ensuing forms of domination and stigmatization.

Sexualized substance use among gbMSM: Their perspectives on their intervention needs and counsellor competencies.

Introduction: Treatments for problematic substance use by gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (gbMSM) in sexualized contexts must be adapted to take sociocultural aspects of these sexual practices into account. When treatment programs factor in sexuality, they most commonly address it from a biological perspective (STTBIs, HIV). This article sets out to identify intervention needs related to sexualized substance use (SSU) from the perspective of gbMSM, taking into consideration different dimensions of sexuality to offer more effective support.

Conflict and social control among cannabis growers.

Aims: Illegal drug markets are often assumed to be violent and predatory due to the absence of third-party enforcement. While cannabis markets are generally considered to be relatively more peaceful, there has been little investigation of the levels of conflict and victimization among small-scale cannabis growers, particularly under different cannabis policy and enforcement settings. This paper explores prevalence and predictors of conflict and social control among small-scale cannabis growers.

Are cannabis use problems comparable across individuals using for recreational and medical purposes? An international cross-sectional study of individuals who use self-grown cannabis.

Background: Little is known about cannabis use problems among individuals who use cannabis for medical purposes and whether rates and determinants of cannabis use problems in medical users differ to those observed among individuals using for recreational reasons. This study examines whether Severity of Dependence Scale (SDS) scores differ across individuals who use self-grown cannabis for the following reasons: "recreational only", "medical and recreational" and "medical only". Furthermore, the study tests whether cannabis use frequency, cannabis strain, and type of cannabis influences the strength of the association between purpose of use and cannabis use problems.

Willingness to use a drug consumption room among people who use drugs in Lyon, France, a city with no open scene of drug use (the TRABOUL survey).

Background: Drug consumption rooms (DCRs) have been developed in cities with open drug scenes, with the aim to reduce drug-related harm. In Lyon, France's second-largest city, there is no distinct drug use area, which raised doubts regarding the need for a DCR.

Methods: We conducted a face-to-face survey of 264 people who use drugs (PWUDs), recruited in harm reduction or addiction treatment centers, in the streets or in squats.

Drug consumption rooms are effective to reduce at-risk practices associated with HIV/HCV infections among people who inject drugs: Results from the COSINUS cohort study.

Aims: The primary aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of drug consumption rooms (DCRs) in France on injection equipment-sharing, while the secondary aims focused upon their impact on access to hepatitis C virus (HCV) testing and opioid agonist treatment (OAT).

Design: The COhort to identify Structural and INdividual factors associated with drug USe (COSINUS cohort) was a 12-month longitudinal study of 665 people who inject drugs (PWID), conducted in Bordeaux, Marseille, Paris and Strasbourg. We used data from face-to-face interviews at enrolment and at 6-month and 12-month visits.

Association between level of compliance with COVID-19 public health measures and depressive symptoms: A cross-sectional survey of young adults in Canada and France.

Background: While compliance with preventive measures remains central to limit the spread of COVID-19, these measures critically affected mental health of young adults. We therefore investigated the association between the level of compliance with COVID-19 preventive measures and depressive symptoms among young adults in Canada and France.

Methods: From October to December 2020, we conducted a cross-sectional online survey of young adults ages 18-29 years in Canada (n = 3246) and France (n = 2680) to collect demographic data, experiences with COVID-19 preventive measures, and mental health.

Behavioral sensitization to psychostimulants and opioids: What is known in rodents and what still needs to be explored in humans?

Repeated exposure to substances of abuse results in an increase in some behavioral responses. This phenomenon, called behavioral sensitization (BS), is well described in preclinical models. However, its existence in humans is still a matter of debate.

Rethinking urban-rural designations in public health surveillance of the overdose crisis and crafting an agenda for future monitoring.

Rurality has served as a key concept in popular and scientific understandings of the US overdose crisis, with White, rural, and low-income areas thought to be most heavily affected. However, we observe that overdose trends have risen nearly uniformly across the urban-rural designations employed in most research, implying that their importance has likely been overstated or incorrectly conceptualized. Nevertheless, urbanicity/rurality does serve as a key axis to understand inequalities in overdose mortality when assessed with more nuanced modalities-employing a more granular analysis of geography at the sub-county level, and intersecting rurality sociodemographic indices such as race/ethnicity.

Substance use policy and practice in the COVID-19 pandemic: Learning from early pandemic responses through internationally comparative field data.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented natural experiment in drug policy, treatment delivery, and harm reduction strategies by exposing wide variation in public health infrastructures and social safety nets around the world. Using qualitative data including ethnographic methods, questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews with people who use drugs (PWUD) and Delphi-method with experts from field sites spanning 13 different countries, this paper compares national responses to substance use during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Field data was collected by the Substance Use x COVID-19 (SU x COVID) Data Collaborative, an international network of social scientists, public health scientists, and community health practitioners convened to identify and contextualise health service delivery models and social protections that influence the health and wellbeing of PWUD during COVID-19.

Moderation of the association between COVID-19-related income loss and depression by receipt of financial support: Repeated cross-sectional surveys of young adults in Canada and France (2020-2021).

Background: To mitigate the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on financial resources, governments and family/friends mobilized financial support interventions (e.g., emergency aid funds) and assistance.