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Chemsex drugs: More than ghb, mephedrone and methamphetamine?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 August 2021
Abstract
The intentional use of drugs before or during sexual intercourse (chemsex), due to its impact on mental health, is a phenomenon of high importance in men who have sex with men. The main drugs usually described in chemsex related research are methamphetamine, mephedrone and GHB/GBL.
We present a narrative review of the evidence about the mechanisms of action of different drugs used in chemsex context.
Narrative Review.
Different drugs have been associated with chemsex use: stimulants such as cocaine, stimulants with empathogenic properties such as mephedrone, methamphetamine, MDMA; stimulants with a psychedelic effect such as 2C-B; depressants such as GHB/GBL and ethyl chloride; and dissociative hallucinogens such as ketamine.
Classical chemsex research includes only mephedrone, metanphetamine and GHB as “chemsex drugs”. Recently, different drugs have been described associated with chemsex practice. Clinicians may encounter polydrug chemsex users and the different mecanisms of action, mental health problems related to every drug and polydrug use must be takek into account.
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- Information
- European Psychiatry , Volume 64 , Special Issue S1: Abstracts of the 29th European Congress of Psychiatry , April 2021 , pp. S573
- Creative Commons
- This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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- © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Psychiatric Association
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