Study shows Canadian Gay/Les/Bi/Trans students more apt to use drugs

[klaatu]

Dallas Voice . com
Mar 9, 2006

Investigator attributes club-drug abuse to problems with early
self-identification, more frequent associations with other drug users

In a survey from Canada, gay or bisexual students were 17 times more likely to try methamphetamine or other “club drugs” than their non-gay counterparts.

The study of high school students surveyed in Vancouver and Victoria showed that 14 percent had tried the drugs, according to the CanWest News Service.

The study was based on a written survey of 607 13- to 19-year-olds at six unnamed high schools.

An investigator, Dr. Doug McGhee, medical director of a Victoria youth clinic, said there are two possible reasons for the increased risk posed to the 2.5 percent of students who identified themselves as gay or bisexual.

He told CanWest that the gay and bisexual students probably encountered drug use among greater numbers of their associates. McGhee also speculated that they might have “problems with early self-identification as gay or bisexual.”

The study was published in the March edition of the British Columbia Medical Journal. It showed that 13.6 percent of teenagers had reported using crystal meth, Ecstasy, ketamine or GHB. The students added that most of the use was only occasional or experimental. Only a handful reported using any drug daily or weekly.

Lead investigator Thomas Lampinen, an epidemiologist with the British Columbia Center for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, said the study proves there is no crystal meth epidemic in high schools.

The conclusion is based on the confidential survey, conducted in 2003 when students in the six schools completed them in their career and personal-planning classes. But Lampinen told CanWest that the highly increased risk faced by gay and bisexual students was a big concern.

He and his co-investigators, McGhee and Dr. Ian Martin, a physician at Three Bridges Community Health Center in Vancouver, concluded that high school-based anti-drug initiatives may not be as vital in reaching regular drug-using teenagers. Instead, they suggested programs that focus on street youth and gay or bisexual teens, who are more likely to use the drugs on a regular basis. So-called “club drugs” got their name because of their popularity at raves and dance clubs.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand’s rate of HIV infection rose 17 percent last year with a record 183 people diagnosed with the sickness — half of them as a result of gay sex, an AIDS research group said Tuesday.

The figure, the highest total since records began in 1985, was up 26 on 2004 when 157 cases were diagnosed, the AIDS Epidemiology Group at Otago University said.

Of the 183 new cases diagnosed, 89 were from homosexual sex [up 19 percent on 2004], and 73 [35 men and 38 women] were infected through heterosexual contact, the group said.

Six new sufferers were children diagnosed with HIV through mother-to-child transmission. The causes of the 15 remaining new cases were classified as “unknown.’’

Nationwide some 1,850 people have been diagnosed with HIV and up to another 900 are believed to be living with the disease but not yet diagnosed, AIDS Foundation spokesman Steve Attwood told The Associated Press.

AIDS Epidemiology Group Director Dr. Nigel Dickson said that New Zealand’s HIV prevalence rate among men was “about six per 100,000 males aged between 15 and 64’’ _ mid-range of a group of 12 developed nations ranging from Britain and Ireland to Belgium, Canada and Australia.

AIDS cases in the country of 4 million peaked at 70 confirmed cases in 1989. Some 623 people have died of AIDS since 1985.

Ministry of Health senior public health adviser Dr. Douglas Lush said New Zealand’s HIV prevalence “continues to remain among the lowest in the world despite the 17 percent rise.’’

Foundation executive director, Rachael Le Mesurier, said the group was concerned the primary reason for the increase in HIV was new diagnoses among gay men.

“In spite of an abundance of HIV prevention information in gay communities, it seems that an increasing number of men are choosing not to use condoms for ... sex every time,’’ she said.

Le Mesurier said the rise in HIV infection levels could follow lowered concerns because of the success of HIV treatments, the growth of internet dating which increased the opportunities men had for sex, and integration of the gay community into the “mainstream’’ _ making it harder to target HIV prevention messages.

Foundation chairman Hoani Lambert said the figures showed that no one in New Zealand could afford to be complacent about HIV.

With three out of four new cases occurring in the northern city of Auckland, the foundation had already embarked on specific campaigns in the nation’s biggest city, he said.


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Klaatu

[Pinkavvy]

ya think?!
lol

[klaatu]

Originally Posted by Pinkavvy

ya think?!
lol

Hey, I just report the news.

Next they will have a story saying that men make up approximately 50% of the population and a bear was seen heading towards the woods with some toilet tissue

Klaatu

[elbow]

It's cause teh ghey's know how to party!

But seriously, it's a shame that people aren't behaving responsibly by practicing safe sex, whatever their orientation. It does seem like that can be a negative effect of combining sex and drugs...the lack of concern about STD's.

[Solidly-here]

Klaatu said: "Hey, I just report the news."

Well, some news is better left un-repeated.

Picking-up on a statistical analysis about homosexuals is offensive to certain people (especially to those who choose to live that life-style). Stories like this one tend to make a statement that holding certain beliefs is BAD. I am hetero, but I feel compassion to people who do not share my life-style.

If you find any more stories like this (which might hurt people's feelings), I hope that you will pass on your slogan: "Hey, I just report the news."

[jduba]

Being gay myself but having mostly straight guy friends (frat and sorority crowd) I have noticed in the states it is always my gay friends and myself doing the serious drugs use. (b4 i quite) but at a straight frat party or house party you would find; beer, beer, beer, pot, coke, and maybe mushrooms, roofie, and adderall. At the gay bars & parties (mostly turned to sex parties) involved all the above, minus the adderall and roofies and add crack, meth, K, GHB, poppers, cialis or viagra, X, and sometimes a form of opiote. Oh and a lot of steroids to get the weekly shot!


P.S. I'm gay and don't find it offensive but fact and very sad! Hell it got me, i'm now in recovery from drugs and always will be. I think a lot of young gay men feel they need to shock people when they come out to protect themselves. They may also use drugs to numb there emotions and self medicate there anxieties of being gay and dealing with the reality of it. This is causing a large rise again amoung young gays for hiv, aids, and hep C from needle usage! Also getting high and having unprotected sex known as PNP (Party N Play)

[jduba]

Drug use is also a quick was for young gay men to meet other cute young gay men and have something in common. So it can kinda be used as a way to making friends and getting into some "exclusive hollywood wanna-be" fag click that you wanna be part of. Also when you come out your horomones are raging from hiding your sexuallity for some time so your ready to bust loose and gay sex and drugs have always kinda gone side by side.

[napoleon in rags]

It's all attributed to how gay/les/trans people are willing to "try new things"... often without any regard to physical or mental safety.

To be honest, most of the gay kids I knew in high school were screwed up to begin with, and not many of them had any aspirations for further education. Some people take the idea of being liberal and take it too far, thinking that any attempt to educate or inform is an "attack on my lifestyle".

[motorhead]

I've thought about this for a few days now and I cant get this out of my head. I dont care if your gay, straight, hermaphrodite, sober, or high, AIDS and HIV has been around since the late 70's. It was identified in the 80's, and ever since the early 90's there has been massive public activism and outpouring of prevention information.
Its now 2006. I mean we have no sympathy for someone who goes out, gets fucking drunk off their ass, and kills someone behind the wheel or sexually assualts someone. Why should we be sympathetic for someone who gets wasted on meth and plays russian roulette with their dick?
Use a clean rig, and wrap it up! period, end of statement. Everyone should know better by now; gay, straight, or hermaphrodite.

[Nagognog2]

Forgive my cynicism, but one's sexuality has little to do with people sharing needles and sperm and infections. It has to do with most people being about as intelligent as a dead house plant. Being born gay/lesbian/unknown in a repressive culture can have a lot to do with outlook. But so can going to a repressive school system that punishes creativity as regards blocking people's desire, or willingness, to continue to learn after they manage to escape their local high school. I managed to escape in 7th grade by pulling a knife on the principal. I was rewarded with an excellent and fun education. Which my home town paid for - all the while thinking I was going to some "special" skewl for disturbed retarded kids. Suckers!

No dirty needles ever went in my arms.

[Solidly-here]

Nagognog knows how to improve the US Educational system . . . Get OUT of it.

I, personally, lost about 50% of my Creativity in my 13 years of pre-College days. College, however, only stole another 5% or so (by then, I knew how to protect myself, somewhat, from bone-head teachers and regulations).

I wish (in some ways) that I would have had the wherewithal to "Bail-out" of the usual Public system, and get into a kinder, gentler school.

So, I'll do MY part for the School System. I'll print-up 1,000 copies of Nagognog's Post (while carefully deleting his name and marital status), and Post them up at all the Schools nearby. (Well, maybe I will, anyway.)

[jduba]

Nagognog2...agreed! meth is huge in the gay community but heroin is in the black comm using needles! It just boils down to being responsible for your actions!

[bewilderment]

The increased drug use may also just be a result of going to clubs at a younger age where there's an increased likelihood that you'll meet more people (also an older crowd)who are into drugs at a location meant meant for "partying". When I first came out of the closet, the first thing I wanted was to be around like-minded people and it seems that the gay/lesbian bars/clubs are very good for this sort of thing. I mean, there are things like the gay-straight alliances and PFLAG groups, but the meetings themselves aren't usually that exciting and often you find that GSA outings include the clubs and bars...not to mention that it's not always the case that these groups aren't in that many high schools to begin with or at least they weren't at mine.