Recreational drug use

Recreational drug use features

• Crystal meth and London gay men – examining the evidence

  Last month the medical journal The Lancet published a news feature, describing an increasing number of London gay men who take methamphetamine (crystal meth), including a significant...

  From:  News

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  Harm reduction and human rights

  Harm reduction for injecting drug users, including clean needles and syringes and opiate substitution therapy, is extremely limited in some regions of the world. Harm reduction...

  From:  HIV & AIDS treatment in practice

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  The lonely drug: crystal meth in the UK

  There are increasing signs of problematic methamphetamine use amongst some gay men in the UK. Gus Cairns reports. ...

  From:  HIV treatment update

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  Mental health and HIV: a clinical review

  This issue (part one of two) covers the wide range of mental health problems people living with HIV experience....

  From:  HIV & AIDS treatment in practice

Recreational drug use news from aidsmap

• More drugs, more alcohol often means more risky sex for HIV-negative gay men

  There is a highly significant relationship between frequency and intensity of drug and alcohol use and risky sex among American HIV-negative gay men, a study published in the online edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes shows. ...

  14 May 2013 | Michael Carter

• Elevated prevalence of HIV and viral hepatitis in men injecting anabolic steroids

  Addressing a topic that has received remarkably little research attention over the years, Dr Vivian Hope of Public Health England told the British HIV Association conference yesterday that injection of image- and performance-enhancing drugs is rising in England and ...

  18 April 2013 | Roger Pebody

• Crystal meth and London gay men – examining the evidence

  Last month the medical journal The Lancet published a news feature, describing an increasing number of London gay men who take methamphetamine (crystal meth), including a significant number who inject it, often at 'chill-outs' and sex parties. There are ...

  11 February 2013 | Roger Pebody

• Patients with pain have poorer engagement with HIV care

  Pain in people with HIV is associated with an increased risk of missed appointments, investigators from the US report in the online edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. The original intention of the study was to see ...

  22 August 2012 | Michael Carter

• Earlier deaths in people with HIV due to drugs, alcohol, co-infections, poorly controlled HIV - not rapid ageing

  Patients taking antiretroviral therapy have the same mortality risk as individuals in the general population, according to Danish research published in the open-access journal PLoS One. However, this was only the case when the patients responded to treatment and ...

  12 December 2011 | Michael Carter

• Fracture rates higher in patients with HIV

  Fracture rates in patients with HIV are higher than those in the general US population, investigators report in the online edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases. Rates increased between 2000 and 2002, and then remained broadly stable until the ...

  15 March 2011 | Michael Carter

• Treatment interruptions explain higher HIV viral load in patients with depression and those who use stimulants

  Inconsistent use of antiretroviral therapy is the main explanation for the higher viral loads observed in HIV-positive patients who are depressed or who use stimulant drugs, US investigators report in the February 1st edition of the Journal of Acquired ...

  08 February 2011 | Michael Carter

• HIV infections soar amongst Eastern European 'street youth'

  As many as 40% of young people living on the streets in some areas of Eastern Europe are infected with HIV, according to doctors, activists and UNICEF representatives presenting at the Eighteenth International AIDS Conference in ...

  20 July 2010 | Mara Kardas-Nelson

• Vienna declaration calls for science-based drug policies

  Three leading scientific and health policy organizations this week launched a global drive for signatories to the Vienna Declaration, a statement seeking to improve community health and safety by calling for the incorporation of scientific evidence ...

  30 June 2010 | Press Release

• Feasible to recruit and retain meth-using gay men to programmes treating dependence to the drug

  It is feasible to recruit and retain methamphetamine-dependent gay men in a pharmacologic drug-treatment programme, US investigators report in the April 24th edition of AIDS. The men participating in the study reduced their risky sexual behaviour, ...

  30 April 2010 | Michael Carter

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Recreational drug use news selected from other sources

• Nyaope: dangerous drug, dangerous misconceptions

  Despite evidence that disproves the popular belief that antiretroviral (ARVs) drugs are an ingredient in nayope or “whoonga”, media coverage on the street drug continues to perpetuate this misconception.

  07 May 2013 | JournAIDS

• Sleazy Michael Presents Sauna and Drug Club Casualties - community panel on recent gay club deaths in London

  Community panel on recent gay club deaths in London at Royal Vauxhall Tavern at 7pm on Thursday 9 May

  05 May 2013 | Time Out

• The World's Best Drug Laws

  What are the best and worst countries to live in if you're a drug user? What is a really good set of drug laws, anyway? One man's view: as provocative and contentious as you'd expect.

  03 May 2013 | The Fix

• London's gay scene: Is a community in crisis beginning to self care?

  An observation I hear often now, is that the gay community is divided into two camps; those who work in healthcare/campaigning/politics, and those who go clubbing and enjoy chem-sex.

  16 April 2013 | Pink News

• Meth Makes an Ominous Comeback Among Gay Men

  In the early part of the millennium, meth was pervasive both in rural America and in urban gay communities. Its use peaked around 2005 when, following a federal law limiting access to its primary precursor, pseudoephedrine, usage seemed to drop. Now, because of the cycles of recreational drugs, a new generation, short memories, and the seductive power of this dopamine-releasing supermolecule, the drug appears to be making a comeback, at least in the gay community.

  03 April 2013 | TheBody.com

• UK: National AIDS Trust calls on London Councils to tackle drug use amongst gay men

  The UK’s National Aids Trust (NAT) has called for urgent action from London Councils to tackle a recent rise in the use of drugs amongst the London gay community.

  28 March 2013 | Pink News

• Recreational cocaine use linked to conditions that cause heart attack

  Recreational cocaine users may have higher blood pressure, stiffer arteries and thicker heart muscle walls than non-users -- all of which can cause a heart attack. The Australian study is the first to document some of these cardiovascular abnormalities in seemingly healthy cocaine users long after the immediate effects of cocaine have worn off.

  13 March 2013 | Science Daily

• HIV and the Power of Escape

  For the men of the AIDS Generation when death was an inevitability, sex and substances provided an escape, not only from the realities of AIDS, but also from the stigma and discrimination experienced by so many of us growing up as gay men.

  10 March 2013 | Huffington Post

• Matthew Todd: The roots of gay shame

  News that HIV rates in gay men remain stubbornly high is depressingly predictable. There is an epidemic of chronic alcohol and drug misuse, fuelled by society's homophobia, which the Terrence Higgins Trust needs to get real about.

  04 February 2013 | The Guardian

• Text messaging as an effective HIV prevention intervention for metaphetamine-using MSM

  A study has found that text messaging can be an effective way to reduce high-risk behaviors associated with HIV transmission among methamphetamine-using men who have sex with men (MSM). Participants received a two-week intervention of social support and health education text messages in real time.

  31 January 2013 | AIDS,gov

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