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7. ETHICAL ISSUES IN NEUROSCIENCE RESEARCH ON SUBSTANCE DEPENDENCE TREATMENT AND PREVENTION

practice since the early 1980s for drug researchers to pay drug users A$20 if
they participate in research interviews. The money is intended to compensate
participants for their time, travel expenses and inconvenience. Payment of
research participants is also standard practice in drug research in Canada
and the USA.
In Australia this strategy has proved to be a successful way of recruiting
illicit drug users for research studies of risk factors for the transmission of
HIV, hepatitis C and other infectious blood-borne diseases; patterns of illicit
amphetamine use (including injecting use, the reasons for making the
transition to injecting, and the prevalence of psychological and health
problems caused by injecting use); the prevalence and correlates of drug
overdoses among heroin users; and national monitoring of trends in illicit
drug use since 1996. The information collected in these studies could not be
easily obtained in any other way. Interviewing drug users in treatment, for
example, would be of limited use because many drug users do not seek
treatment, and those who do usually do so after several years of problem
drug use. Obtaining information in this way provides advance warning of
emerging trends in illicit drug use. It also creates an opportunity to provide
drug users with information about the risks of their drug use, and such
information may also help in the design of educational campaigns aimed at
illicit drug users. The findings of these studies are also regularly presented to
staff at treatment centres to alert them to problems emerging among persons
seeking their help.
A concern expressed by critics of this practice of paying participants is
that the money will serve as an inducement because of its potential for buying
drugs. The first question is whether drug users have the same rights as anyone
else to be compensated for the time and inconvenience of being interviewed.
The money may well be used to pay for tobacco, alcohol or illicit drugs, but
so may any income that drug users obtain by employment, social welfare, or
crime. In terms of the daily pattern of drug use of most injecting drug users,
$20 buys only a very small amount of the street drugs normally used per day.
This issue is controversial and remains unresolved.

Privacy and confidentiality
Researchers are obligated to protect the privacy of study participants.
Participants’ personal information must not be divulged to any individual or
group of individuals without their direct consent, and they should not be
identifiable from the published results of the study (Brody, 1998). These rules
are especially important when study participants have a stigmatized
condition such as mental illness or substance dependence.
Protecting the privacy of participants and the confidentiality of the
information that they provide is critical in research where data are collected
on substance use. The use of some psychoactive substances (e.g. cannabis,
cocaine and heroin) is illegal, as is the use of alcohol by persons who are

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