Version in Journal of Drug Issues
Although intended to avoid illicit drug use, national laws and international conventions have limited research on psychoactive drugs. To characterise the evolution of the literature on psychoactive drugs, a bibliometric study of 15 psychoactive drugs from 1960 to 2018 was conducted in which 956,703 academic publications were obtained from Web of Science. Growth patterns were analysed per drug type, legal status and country. Our results show the existence of heterogeneous patterns of growth for the publications of different psychoactive drugs. Strikingly, the literature on legal substances and depressants represented between 60% and 80% throughout the years. We found unexpected regional differences in the scientific output about the selected drugs, which might be explained by cultural and political phenomena. Governments and funding bodies should consider these results when allocating resources to research on psychoactive drugs to optimise the therapeutic applications of these compounds and our understanding of the nervous system
- Julia Lebrero-Tatay
- Arthur Sebag
- Ivan Ezquerra-Romano
Keywords: 🔑 Psychoactive drugs, bibliometric study, drug policy, depressants, drug policy
- Devices: MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2019, Two Thunderbolt 3 ports)
- Operating system: macOS Monterey Version 12.4
- Programming languages: Python 3.8.6