Skip to main content icon/video/no-internet

Puerto Rico is a major epicenter of the AIDS pandemic, fueled by failed policies directed at illegal drug use. Injecting drug use (IDU), or nonprotected sex with an injecting drug user, accounts for nearly two thirds of all cumulative AIDS cases in the island. Increases in the number of AIDS cases are slightly greater for women compared with men. Although the route of infection for the majority of Puerto Rican women is through heterosexual contact, nearly a third are exposed through heterosexual contact with an injecting drug user. Using injected drugs accounted for 37% of the cumulative AIDS cases among women between 1989 and 1996 (Pérez, Suárez, Pérez, & Morales, 1998).

Curtailing the spread of HIV/AIDS among women who use drugs needs to be a public health priority for the island. Research involving drug-using women is necessary to inform all levels of prevention. Given the scant opportunities to obtain drug treatment faced by Puerto Rican drug users, research with clinical samples of drug-using women limits the applicability of findings to the much larger nontreated population. Conducting community-based research is therefore essential to inform public health policy designed to reduce the incidence and adverse impact of HIV/AIDS among Puerto Rican drug-using women. Women who use illicit drugs are vulnerable to risks associated with participating in research. This entry identifies important research risks faced by Puerto Rican female drug users involved in community-based research and suggests research protections for this and similar vulnerable populations.

The Context of Illegal Drug Use in Puerto Rico

Policies directed at preventing and punishing illegal drug use in the United States are based on two assumptions: (1) Use of illegal psychoactive drugs with the potential to create dependence results from moral incompetence or psychological deficits of the user; and (2) problems associated with illegal drug use are inevitably related to the pharmacological properties of the drug itself. Within this framework, illicit drug users are viewed as lacking will and determination and possessing defective personalities (Evans & Sullivan, 2001), and use of any psychoactive drug is problematic and lacking instrumental value (Van de Wijngaart, 1991). This pervasive view has supported state criminalization of drug use and jail sentences as a strategy to curtail the demand for illegal drugs to attain a “drug-free society” and an improved moral environment (U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1979; White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, 1998).

Puerto Rico has followed the mainland United States in adopting a criminal justice model drug policy. Attempts to control demand for illicit drugs by criminalizing their use as well as the possession of injection paraphernalia has marginalized drug users and reduced opportunities to minimize health risks through the application of public health measures, such as access to clean syringes.

A Community Network Approach to Drug Abuse Research Ethics

In 1996, a research group headed by Dr. Margarita Alegría at the University of Puerto Rico's Graduate School of Public Health began a 3-year study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The study sought to determine the extent to which conditions such as partner violence, criminal behavior, incarceration, and contagion with HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) were associated with illegal drug use among poor urban Puerto Rican women aged 18 to 35 years. Two groups of women were studied: (1) heroin and cocaine users recruited in areas where drugs were sold in the greater metropolitan area of San Juan and (2) a random sample of women of the same age range residing within the community surrounding the locations from which drug-using women were recruited.

...

  • Loading...
locked icon

Sign in to access this content

Get a 30 day FREE TRIAL

  • Watch videos from a variety of sources bringing classroom topics to life
  • Read modern, diverse business cases
  • Explore hundreds of books and reference titles

Sage Recommends

We found other relevant content for you on other Sage platforms.

Loading