ArticleJournal of medical Internet research2013
Crowdsourcing black market prices for prescription opioids.
Article in Journal of medical Internet research, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 91 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mapping of Crowdsourcing in Health: Systematic Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2018Pooled it
- Systematic review of surveillance by social media platforms for illicit drug use.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2017Pooled it
- Relative potency of intravenous oxymorphone compared to other µ opioid agonists in humans - pilot study outcomes.Psychopharmacology · 2021Trial
- The Donovan Memorial Lecture: 'Fentanyl-Plus': A New Era of Fentanyl Polydrug Combinations in the North American Overdose Crisis.Journal of medical toxicology : official journal of the American College of Medical Toxicology · 2026Article
- A Perspective on Crowdsourcing and Human-in-the-Loop Workflows in Precision Health.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Prevalence of fentanyl in methamphetamine and cocaine samples collected by community-based drug checking services.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2023Article
- An Examination of the Complex Pharmacological Properties of the Non-Selective Opioid Modulator Buprenorphine.Pharmaceuticals (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Examination of methadone involved overdoses during the COVID-19 pandemic.Forensic science international · 2023Article
- Leveraging the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program to Curb Opioid Prescribing in Arkansas.Journal of prevention (2022) · 2022Article
- An unsupervised machine learning approach for the detection and characterization of illicit drug-dealing comments and interactions on Instagram.Substance abuse · 2022Article
- Web-Based Discussion and Illicit Street Sales of Tapentadol and Oxycodone in Australia: Epidemiological Surveillance Study.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2021Article
- Demystifying the Dark Web Opioid Trade: Content Analysis on Anonymous Market Listings and Forum Posts.Journal of medical Internet research · 2021Article
- Opioid Prescription Patterns for Discharged Patients from the Emergency Department.Pain research & management · 2021Article
- Postmarketing Analysis of Misuse, Abuse, and Diversion of Xtampza ER.Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.) · 2020Article
- Leveraging black-market street buprenorphine pricing to increase capacity to treat opioid addiction, 2010-2018.Preventive medicine · 2020Article
- Fentanyl depression of respiration: Comparison with heroin and morphine.British journal of pharmacology · 2020Article
- A Machine Learning Approach for the Detection and Characterization of Illicit Drug Dealers on Instagram: Model Evaluation Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2019Article
- The potential use of social media and other internet-related data and communications for child maltreatment surveillance and epidemiological research: Scoping review and recommendations.Child abuse & neglect · 2018Article
- Applications of crowdsourcing in health: an overview.Journal of global health · 2018Review
- Diversion and Illicit Sale of Extended Release Tapentadol in the United States.Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.) · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 6 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundPrescription opioid diversion and abuse are major public health issues in the United States and internationally. Street prices of diverted prescription opioids can provide an indicator of drug availability, demand, and abuse potential, but these data can be difficult to collect. Crowdsourcing is a rapid and cost-effective way to gather information about sales transactions. We sought to determine whether crowdsourcing can provide accurate measurements of the street price of diverted prescription opioid medications.
objectiveTo assess the possibility of crowdsourcing black market drug price data by cross-validation with law enforcement officer reports.
methodsUsing a crowdsourcing research website (StreetRx), we solicited data about the price that site visitors paid for diverted prescription opioid analgesics during the first half of 2012. These results were compared with a survey of law enforcement officers in the Researched Abuse, Diversion, and Addiction-Related Surveillance (RADARS) System, and actual transaction prices on a "dark Internet" marketplace (Silk Road). Geometric means and 95% confidence intervals were calculated for comparing prices per milligram of drug in US dollars. In a secondary analysis, we compared prices per milligram of morphine equivalent using standard equianalgesic dosing conversions.
resultsA total of 954 price reports were obtained from crowdsourcing, 737 from law enforcement, and 147 from the online marketplace. Correlations between the 3 data sources were highly linear, with Spearman rho of 0.93 (P<.001) between crowdsourced and law enforcement, and 0.98 (P<.001) between crowdsourced and online marketplace. On StreetRx, the mean prices per milligram were US$3.29 hydromorphone, US$2.13 buprenorphine, US$1.57 oxymorphone, US$0.97 oxycodone, US$0.96 methadone, US$0.81 hydrocodone, US$0.52 morphine, and US$0.05 tramadol. The only significant difference between data sources was morphine, with a Drug Diversion price of US$0.67/mg (95% CI 0.59-0.75) and a Silk Road price of US$0.42/mg (95% CI 0.37-0.48). Street prices generally followed clinical equianalgesic potency.
conclusionsCrowdsourced data provide a valid estimate of the street price of diverted prescription opioids. The (ostensibly free) black market was able to accurately predict the relative pharmacologic potency of opioid molecules.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.