Gay people “more than three times as likely” to take drugs
July 26th, 2010 by Kaite.Welsh
A study by the UK Drug Policy Commission has found that substance misuse among lesbians and gay men is higher than in heterosexual people.
The report, The Impact of Drugs on Different Minority Groups, which is published today, also found that lesbians and gay men tended to be early adopters of new drugs as well as abusing prescription drugs such as steroids. The findings concur with Stonewall’s 2008 survey of gay and bisexual women, which found that they were five times more likely to take drugs than straight women.
Editor-in-chief of the Pink Paper Tris Reid-Smith, who is working with the Home Office to publicise the report, blamed the news on the gay scene itself: “Gay people in their day-to-day lives, working in regular offices, have very little access to gay lifestyle other than in evenings, which are focused around bars and clubs – and clubbers are more likely to take drugs.”
Reid-Smith also said that health officials had to diversify the ways they interacted with drug users, suggesting that social networking sites could play a role in the prevention of drug misuse.
[Via The Guardian]
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