British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, St. Paul's Hospital, University of British Columbia, 608-1081 Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6Z 1Y6. bnosyk@cfenet.ubc.ca
The nonmedical use of prescribed opioids (POs) has increased across North America over the past decade. Our objective was to identify changes in the availability of POs and other illicit drugs among drug users in a Canadian setting.
Information on the availability of illicit drugs was collected in standardized interviews from a large observational research program involving illicit drug users in Vancouver, British Columbia from 2006 to 2010. The primary outcome was the perceived availability of a set of six POs (aspirin/oxycodone, hydromorphone, oxycodone, morphine, acetaminophen/codeine and methadone) among individuals reporting ever using POs. Availability was measured in three levels: not available, delayed availability (available =10 min), and immediate availability (available