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Background: The use of methamphetamine or amphetamine stimulant drugs has been identified by authoritative public health bodies as a global health issue, with a worrying trend towards production and consumption of a higher purity crystalline form methamphetamine (ice) over the past decade. This trend has been well documented within Australia, resulting in a public perception of there being an 'ice' epidemic in regional/rural areas. Considering the illicit nature of ice, monitoring it is challenging and as such little information is available regarding the actual extent of methamphetamine use, harms and patterns in regional/remote Australia. Aim: To collate the available literature regarding methamphetamine use in regional/rural Australia and identify gaps in the literature. Methods: A literature search was conducted by searching 6 databases (PUBMED, Medline, CINAHL, EMBASE, PsycINFO and SCOPUS) following which exclusion/inclusion criteria were applied. Included papers were appraised with the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical appraisal tools and synthesised in light of the sociocultural, ethnic and geographic differences in methamphetamine use in Australia. Results: Regarding rural/regional Australia there is a significant lack of research into methamphetamine use, patterns and epidemiology since the rise of crystalline methamphetamine in 2013. The existing literature available suggests great variability in methamphetamine harms in rural communities. This can be a double-edged sword however, as the introduction of ice into a remote/rural community may result in greater harms if it becomes ingrained in local customs. Similarly, there is a lack of research into the specific factors within Indigenous communities leading to an increased rate of methamphetamine use amongst members. Recommendation: Future research should address the causes of variance in methamphetamine harms in rural/remote regions. Although the scope of this paper was the Australian context, a wider international approach may yield useful information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gaining accurate information on illicit drug use and policing in real-world settings is a challenge. This study examines the utility of a smartphone app ('Going Out In Sydney') to prospectively follow up illicit drug use and policing encounters at music festivals and licensed entertainment precincts in Sydney, Australia. In all, 38 regular festival and licensed entertainment venue attendees used the app to log nights out over a 3-month period, including (1) where they went (eg, festival, nightclub), (2) the prevalence of illicit drug use, and (3) the incidence and nature of police encounters. A survey and interview were then conducted about the utility of the app. The app enabled rich data collection (n = 353 entries) about illicit drug use and policing at both target settings. Follow-up surveys indicated that most participants were extremely satisfied with the ease of use of the app and privacy afforded, and compared with other data collection modes, such as paper-based logs and online surveys, rated the app the most desirable method of data collection. This suggests smartphone apps may be a viable option for future studies on illicit drug use and policing of drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A decline in response rates in traditional household surveys, combined with increased internet coverage and decreased research budgets, has resulted in increased attractiveness of web survey research designs based on purposive and voluntary opt-in sampling strategies. In the study of hidden or stigmatised behaviours, such as cannabis use, web survey methods are increasingly common. However, opt-in web surveys are often heavily criticised due to their lack of sampling frame and unknown representativeness. In this article, we outline the current state of the debate about the relevance of pursuing representativeness, the state of probability sampling methods, and the utility of non-probability, web survey methods especially for accessing hidden or minority populations. Our article has two aims: (1) to present a comprehensive description of the methodology we use at Global Drug Survey (GDS), an annual cross-sectional web survey and (2) to compare the age and sex distributions of cannabis users who voluntarily completed (a) a household survey or (b) a large web-based purposive survey (GDS), across three countries: Australia, the United States, and Switzerland. We find that within each set of country comparisons, the demographic distributions among recent cannabis users are broadly similar, demonstrating that the age and sex distributions of those who volunteer to be surveyed are not vastly different between these non-probability and probability methods. We conclude that opt-in web surveys of hard-to-reach populations are an efficient way of gaining in-depth understanding of stigmatised behaviours and are appropriate, as long as they are not used to estimate drug use prevalence of the general population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]