Recreational drug use

Recreational drug use features

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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

• 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

• Counselling as well as drug treatment needed to reduce risky behaviour in opioid-using youth

  Extended treatment with buprenorphine/naloxone helps reduce levels of injecting drug use and sexual activity in opioid-using youth, according to US research published in the online edition of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes. However, therapy ...

  30 April 2010 | Michael Carter

• Drug interactions still common and often unrecognised in patients taking HIV treatment

  Clinically significant drug interactions are common amongst patients taking antiretroviral therapy, and often are not noticed by HIV doctors, UK investigators report in the May 15th edition of Clinical Infectious Diseases. Researchers from Liverpool recorded clinically ...

  23 April 2010 | Michael Carter

• Morphine may protect against HIV-related brain disease

  Morphine protects rat neurons against damage by HIV, researchers from Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington DC, reported last week. They believe the finding might help in the design of new neuroprotective therapies for patients with the infection. ...

  21 April 2010 | Keith Alcorn

• Does methamphetamine affect HIV viral load?

  The viral loads of HIV-positive people who use the recreational drug methamphetamine are significantly higher than those of individuals who do not take the drug, according to research conducted in San Diego and published in the ...

  17 December 2003 | Michael Carter

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Recreational drug use news selected from other sources

• Anti-drug ads do not work and can be counterproductive

  Governments spend millions on them and they may serve political functions, but do anti-drug media campaigns prevent drug use? This first systematic review finds no strong evidence that they do and some that they can have the opposite effect.

  26 November 2011 | Drug & Alcohol Findings

• Drug use is changing fast; the economic slump may shake things up again

  Drug use is changing fast. Old drugs are falling from favour, new ones are growing, and the economic slump may shake things up again

  18 November 2011 | The Economist

• London: First club drug help clinic opens

  The first UK clinic to help users of club drugs opens in west London.

  26 September 2011 | BBC Health

• Substance Use Doesn't Increase Risk of Neurocognitive Problems in HIV

  Neurocognitive problems—notably HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder (HAND)—are no more likely to occur in illicit substance users compared with non-substance users, according to a report published ahead of print on the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes website.

  12 July 2011 | AIDSMeds

• Warning over legal Russian drug

  Russian epilepsy medication is being increasingly used in the UK as a substitute for illegal drugs, scientists have warned.

  07 July 2011 | BBC Health

• Drug policy: Supply and demand

  The argument over treatment is being won. Now for the battle over supply.

  03 June 2011 | The Economist

• Marijuana Slows SIV Disease Progression in Monkeys

  Monkeys infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) that were given chronic doses of the active ingredient in marijuana appeared to have slower SIV disease progression than monkeys given a placebo. These results, published in the June edition of the journal AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses, aren’t proof that marijuana will slow human HIV progression, but they do indicate that the drug does not increase disease progression, as had been feared by some.

  27 May 2011 | AIDSMeds

• Zimbabwe: Abuse of ARV Drugs Rampant

  THERE are genuine fears that antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) dispensed by different institutions in Zimbabwe are being abused by drug addicts, who think they enhance ecstasy.

  28 March 2011 | AllAfrica

• South Africa: No ARVs in 'Whoonga', Say Experts

  Media in South Africa recently erupted into a frenzy of coverage of an allegedly new illegal drug, 'whoonga', said to contain life-prolonging antiretrovirals (ARVs), but experts say the drug is actually an old foe, heroin, and does not include ARVs.

  10 February 2011 | IRIN Plus News

• Whoonga dealers are peddling poison; drug does not contain ARVs

  Those peddling Whoonga, the deadly drug sweeping through KwaZulu-Natal townships, should face murder charges as they are deliberately poisoning people. This is according to Dr Thavendran Govender, who tested samples of Whoonga and found that it was based on rat poison and heroin – not antiretroviral medication.

  01 February 2011 | Health-E News Service

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