Risk factors for initiation, such as age, and risk behaviors at initiation, such as paraphernalia sharing, have been investigated in previous studies of young injection drug users (IDUs) ( Crofts, Louie, Rosenthal, & Jolley, 1996 Fuller et al., 2002 Roy et al., 2003 Sanchez, Chitwood, & Koo, 2006). Initiation into injection drug use is a critical event in the life history of a young drug user since transitioning to injection as a mode of administration increases risk for HIV, hepatitis C virus (HCV), drug dependence, overdose, and other types of bacterial or viral infections ( Centers for Disease Control, 1998 Fennema, Ameijden, Hoek, & Coutinho, 1997 Sherman, Cheng, & Kral, 2007). Qualitative analyses revealed that rationale for injection initiation and subjective experiences at first injection differed by drug type. Several variables evidenced statistically significant relationships with drug type: age at injection initiation, level of education, region of initiation, setting, mode of administration, patterns of self-injection, number of drugs ever injected, current housing status, and their hepatitis C virus (HCV) status. Young IDUs initiated with four primary drug types: heroin (48.6%), methamphetamine (20.3%), ketamine (17.1%), and cocaine (14%). Interview data was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively.
The sample was between 16 and 29 years old, and had injected ketamine at least once in the preceding two years. A diverse sample (n=222) of young injection drug users (IDUs) were recruited from public settings in New York, New Orleans, and Los Angeles during 20.
This article describes how the drug type injected at the first injection event is related to characteristics of the initiate, risk behaviors at initiation, and future drug-using trajectories.