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MONDAY, Aug. 20 (HealthScoutNews) -- Young gay men in San Francisco seeking a drug-assisted sexual high are taking Viagra without a prescription and in combination with illegal drugs, warn local health officials. A study found that homosexuals who visited a health clinic were almost five times as likely as heterosexuals to use the erectile dysfunction drug.
A variety of potential complications are possible when Viagra is mixed with mind-altering drugs. Side effects range from loss of consciousness to an extraordinarily painful erection and even death.
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"It's a very powerful drug and really needs to be used under medical supervision," said Dr. Jeffrey D. Klausner, a medical director with the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
Viagra, first released in 1998, makes it easier for impotent men to develop and sustain erections. More than 7 million men have used it legally, but "a lot of people are using and abusing it," said Dr. Sanjay Kaul, a Viagra expert who is a cardiologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Health officials in San Francisco surveyed 844 men who visited a clinic that treated sexually transmitted diseases from 2000-2001. The results were released earlier this month at the federally sponsored National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta.
Thirty-two percent of gay men in the study reported using Viagra over the past year, compared to only 7 percent of the heterosexual men.
Some of the men, including HIV-positive ones, are using Viagra under a doctor's supervision to counteract legitimate impotency problems, Klausner said.
"Many other people are HIV-negative and are using Viagra to enhance and prolong their sexual activity and to heighten their sexual pleasure," he says.
A third group takes Viagra to counteract the effects of illegal drugs, which dampen a man's sex drive and function, he said. The gay men reported taking Viagra with the mind-altering club drug Ecstasy (43 percent), with "speed" methamphetamines (28 percent), with blood vessel-expanding nitrates (15 percent) and with the veterinary anaesthetic ketamine (8 percent). About three in every four of the men who used several drugs reported getting Viagra from friends.
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