Impact of Coronavirus on Drug Purchases Survey

25 February 2021: Based on the submitted data to this survey we have released a new publication "Drugs in the Time of COVID: Interim Report". The survey is still live so please keep submitting your experiences.

The purpose of this survey is to monitor changes in the UK’s drug supply – and how people buy their drugs – that may arise following lockdown restrictions because of coronavirus, and moving forward, as lockdown lifts across most of UK. Even if you have filled this survey in before, we’d like to encourage you to fill it in again!

This is a confidential survey. Your data is anonymous, so we will not be able to tell who you are we do not ask you for identifiable information, and we do not collect IP addresses. (But we do ask for your age, gender, your occupation.)

We will ask questions about a recent drug purchase, including its date, location (UK region), drug type, price, and quantity; how you think buying may be different compared to your purchases before the virus (things like difficulty of finding products and sellers, changes in product quality, price, weight), and whether you sourced from the darknet.

You can complete this survey just once, or every time you access drugs over the coming months, as often as you like. The questions apply to drugs you buy (with money) or get otherwise from someone outside your household (for free, or in trade).

How we will use the information you give us. The answers from the many people in the UK who take part in this survey will be collected into a dataset and stored securely. Release will use the results to help us better understand how the UK’s drug supplies may be changing as a result of coronavirus. Knowing this is important for the work that Release does in providing free non-judgmental, specialist advice and information to the public and professionals on issues related to drug use and to drug laws. We will share the dataset with expert drug researchers from UK universities who will further analyse the data and publish scientific papers about the results.

The survey should take about 5-6 minutes to complete.

If you are interested in knowing more about our research, then please get in touch with Niamh Eastwood at eastwood@release.org.uk.

This is a voluntary survey and you are under no obligation to take part. However, if you are willing to participate, you must: Be over the age of 18 AND live in the UK