ArticleJournal of studies on alcohol and drugs2023
COVID-19-Related Changes to Drug-Selling Networks and Their Effects on People Who Use Illicit Opioids.
Article in Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- Socioenvironmental disasters and the dialectics of overdose mortality.The International journal on drug policy · 2026Article
- Identifying Demographic Predictors of Increased Nonfatal Opioid Overdose Risk Among New York State Medicaid Enrollees After the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Analysis of Heterogeneous Treatment Effects.Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2026Article
- The Drug Market's Impact on the Overdose Risk Environment for Women Who Use Drugs During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Journal of urban health : bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine · 2026Article
- "How are we going to be able to pull that off?": staff perspectives on the early implementation of mobile medication units in New York State.Addiction science & clinical practice · 2026Article
- US Adolescents' and Young Adults' Sources for Prescription Opioid Misuse: Age, Substance Use, and Mental Health Differences.Pain practice : the official journal of World Institute of Pain · 2025Article
- Which social media platforms facilitate monitoring the opioid crisis?PLOS digital health · 2025Article
- Self-reported experiences and perspectives on using psychedelics to manage opioid use among participants of two Reddit communities.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2025Article
- Navigating the COVID-19 Risk Environment, Overdose Prevention, and Self Care Practices of People Who Use Illicit Opioids in New York City.Substance use & misuse · 2025Article
- Associations between COVID impact domains and time to buprenorphine treatment disengagement.The American journal of drug and alcohol abuse · 2025Article
- COVID-19 public health restrictions and opioid overdoes: a summative content analysis of emergency medical services records in three Texas counties.Substance abuse treatment, prevention, and policy · 2024Article
- Fentanyl, Heroin, Methamphetamine, and Cocaine Analyte Concentrations in Urine Drug Testing Specimens.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- Strategies used to reduce harms associated with fentanyl exposure among rural people who use drugs: multi-site qualitative findings from the rural opioid initiative.Harm reduction journal · 2024Article
- Enhancing drug checking services for supply monitoring: perspectives on implementation in syringe service programs in the USA.Harm reduction journal · 2024Review
- Racial, Ethnic, and Sex Differences in Methadone-Involved Overdose Deaths Before and After the US Federal Policy Change Expanding Take-home Methadone Doses.JAMA health forum · 2023Article
- Enumerating contributions of fentanyls and other factors to the unprecedented 2020 rise in opioid overdose deaths: model-based analysis.PNAS nexus · 2023Article
- Synthesising evidence of the effects of COVID-19 regulatory changes on methadone treatment for opioid use disorder: implications for policy.The Lancet. Public health · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveThe COVID-19 pandemic has significantly affected people's ability to buy, sell, and obtain items that they use in their daily lives. It may have had a particularly negative effect on the ability of people who use illicit opioids to obtain them because the networks they relied on are illicit and not part of the formal economy. Our objective in this research was to examine if, and how, disruptions related to COVID-19 of illicit opioid markets have affected people who use illicit opioids.
methodWe collected 300 posts--including replies to posts--related to the intersection of COVID-19 and opioid use from Reddit.com, a forum that has several discussion threads (i.e., subreddits) dedicated to opioids. We then coded posts from the two most popular opioid subreddits during the early pandemic period (March 5, 2020-May 13, 2020) using an inductive/deductive approach.
resultsWe found two themes related to active opioid use during the early pandemic: (a) changes in drug supply and difficulty obtaining opioids, and (b) buying less-trustworthy drugs from lesser-known sources.
conclusionsOur findings suggest that COVID-19 has created market conditions that place people who use opioids at risk of adverse outcomes, such as fatal overdose.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.