TY - JOUR
T1 - Fentanyl analogs on the Swedish webforum flashback
T2 - Interest and impact of scheduling
AU - Moeller, Kim
AU - Svensson, Bengt
AU - Munksgaard, Rasmus
N1 - Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/1
Y1 - 2021/1
N2 - Background: Sweden regulates new psychoactive substances, including fentanyl analogs, individually. This reactive scheduling procedure enabled the existence of a recreational market for unscheduled fentanyl analogs sold from surface webshops. We measure the interest in 24 named fentanyl analogs and the impact of scheduling. Methods: We scraped posts in threads on named fentanyl analogs from the Swedish internet forum Flashback.org, 2012–2019. The sample consists of 24 threads with a total of 8761 posts. We construct five measures of interest based on duration of threads, number of posts, and number of distinct posters, and fit a non-seasonal ARMA model to test if there was a change in mean activity after scheduling. Results: Across the five measures, there was most interest in acryl fentanyl, butyr fentanyl, and acetyl fentanyl. The number of daily posts was significantly reduced in nine out of 13 threads after scheduling. Conclusion: The scheduling of fentanyl analogs impacted interest on Flashback.org. The biggest effect sizes were from the narcotics scheduling of 2-Me-MAF, acryl, and acetyl fentanyl, while furanyl fentanyl saw the biggest reduction after health scheduling. The reductions were bigger for narcotics scheduling compared to health scheduling.
AB - Background: Sweden regulates new psychoactive substances, including fentanyl analogs, individually. This reactive scheduling procedure enabled the existence of a recreational market for unscheduled fentanyl analogs sold from surface webshops. We measure the interest in 24 named fentanyl analogs and the impact of scheduling. Methods: We scraped posts in threads on named fentanyl analogs from the Swedish internet forum Flashback.org, 2012–2019. The sample consists of 24 threads with a total of 8761 posts. We construct five measures of interest based on duration of threads, number of posts, and number of distinct posters, and fit a non-seasonal ARMA model to test if there was a change in mean activity after scheduling. Results: Across the five measures, there was most interest in acryl fentanyl, butyr fentanyl, and acetyl fentanyl. The number of daily posts was significantly reduced in nine out of 13 threads after scheduling. Conclusion: The scheduling of fentanyl analogs impacted interest on Flashback.org. The biggest effect sizes were from the narcotics scheduling of 2-Me-MAF, acryl, and acetyl fentanyl, while furanyl fentanyl saw the biggest reduction after health scheduling. The reductions were bigger for narcotics scheduling compared to health scheduling.
KW - Fentanyl
KW - NPS
KW - Sweden
KW - Synthetic opioids
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85096159102&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.drugpo.2020.103013
DO - 10.1016/j.drugpo.2020.103013
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 33181448
AN - SCOPUS:85096159102
SN - 0955-3959
VL - 87
JO - International Journal of Drug Policy
JF - International Journal of Drug Policy
M1 - 103013
ER -