Bibliographic record
Abstract
The paper by Degenhardt and colleagues (2005) makes a substantial contribution to the addictions literature. In this field there are very few principles that can be said to have acquired the status of ‘laws’. We spend much of our time trying to disprove the validity, applicability and/or generalizability of those observations that are candidates for law status, and are most often successful in doing so. I would suggest that for a principle to be considered a law of addiction it needs to pass two initial tests. First, it needs to be able to predict important phenomena related to a single drug. Secondly, it needs to be able to predict important phenomena across drugs. Availability has long been known as an important determinant of alcohol use and related problems. Information has accumulated over the years to demonstrate that alcohol use varies with alcohol availability, and alcohol problems vary with alcohol availability; this body of evidence is among the strongest bodies of evidence in existence linking health problems to determinants. This evidence serves as the fundamental underpinning of the dominant public health approach to alcohol problems which has been formulated over the past several decades (Seeley 1960; Bruun et al. 1975; Edwards et al. 1994; Babor et al. 2003; Room et al. 2005). However, evidence for the applicability of the principal of availability across drugs, or drug groups, has not been observed consistently. For example, one of the aspects of availability which influences the use of alcohol is its legal availability. The North American experience with legal drinking ages provides a good example of this. When legal drinking ages in North America were lowered, drinking driving collisions and other alcohol-related problems in the affected age groups increased (Schmidt & Kornaczewski 1975). Conversely, in the United States when the drinking age was again increased to 21, drinking-driving collisions and other alcohol-related problems in the affected age groups decreased significantly (Wagenaar & Toomey 2002). However, even though drugs such as cannabis and heroin are illegal in most western countries, they are used by substantial numbers of individuals. In Ontario recently, the proportions of student drivers who drive after using cannabis, an illegal drug, is higher than the proportion who drive after using alcohol, a legal drug (Adlaf et al. 2003). Previous research on the effects of a significant reduction in availability of heroin has not provided a clear picture of impact. Many studies provide only anecdotal evidence, or evidence that may not support the availability principal. For example, Wood et al. (2003) examined the impact of a massive seizure of heroin in British Columbia, and found no impact on public health measures. The strategy of supply reduction is one that would work most strongly through affecting availability, and the value of this strategy has been called into question in recent years (Rydell, Caulkins & Everingham 1995). However, Degenhart et al.'s (in press) detailed examination of the impact of a substantial and sustained reduction in heroin availability in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia is the most comprehensive evaluation of a large reduction of heroin availability in the literature. This reduction was accomplished in part through increased enforcement efforts (Degenhardt et al. 2005). They have carefully documented the nature and extent of the reduction in heroin availability, as well as the impact on a variety of important health indicators. The impact appears clear. Significant reductions in heroin use and heroin-related health problems were observed. This work is completely consistent with work examining the impact of reductions in alcohol availability (e.g. Giesbrecht & Macdonald 1981; Mann & Anglin 1990). There are important implications of the availability law for preventing drug problems. However, recent thought on dealing with illicit drugs has been turning away from availability-based interventions (e.g. Rydell et al. 1995). The findings of Degenhardt et al. (in press) reinforce the potential value of successful availability-based initiates in reducing the suffering caused by heroin.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.013 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.013 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.011 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Research integrity | 0.005 | 0.009 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.018 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".