Conway K et al. 'Chems4EU’: a study describing chemsex use across four European countries in MSM attending HIV services. 17th European AIDS Conference, Basel. Abstract PS9/6. 2019.

A study presented at the recent 17th European AIDS Conference (EACS 2019), comparing reported drug use among HIV-positive men attending clinics in England, Spain, Greece and Italy, has found higher rates of drug use in England than in other countries and considerably higher usage of the drugs used in chemsex (sexualised drug use) – methamphetamine, GHB/GBL, mephedrone and ketamine.

The English men also reported higher rates of adverse effects of using chemsex drugs such as drug withdrawal, non-consensual sex and problems at work. They were also considerably more likely to report drug injection that men in the other three countries, though not higher rates of injection injury (bad hits).

The survey only looked at a selected patient group so can’t be used to draw conclusions about chemsex use in HIV-positive men in general in the four countries – but the very different patterns of drug use are striking. These data can be compared with the figures from the European MSM Internet Survey (EMIS) 2017.

The study was conducted by giving gay and bisexual men attending the HIV clinics an anonymous questionnaire to fill out. In total, 1714 men completed the survey: about a third each in England and Spain, about a quarter in Greece, and just over 10% in Italy. On average over the four countries, 44% reported recreational drug use at least once in the last year. The figure was higher in England, at 51%, and lowest in Italy, at 33%.

The differences between countries were much greater when individual drugs were considered. The complete list of drugs in the survey was cannabis, ecstasy, amphetamine, ketamine, methamphetamine, heroin, mephedrone, GHB/GBL, and cocaine. Respondents provided information on use in the past year. Read more via AIDSmap