Crystal!

This report provides an overview of the study’s objectives and methods, along with a description of what is known about the context of crystal use within the gay community, the background to the current apparent increase in use, and a thumbnail sketch of the scope of published literature on this issue. [...] Over the past two decades the understanding of the relationship between sexual behaviour and drug use has advanced, yet the perceived association between alcohol and/or drug use and the practice of unsafe sexual behaviour remains unclear. [...] This objective was achieved by focusing on four aspects within this community: a. use of crystal alone, and use of crystal as well as other drugs, b. long-term and short-term use of crystal, c. modes of administration and frequency of crystal use, and d. the occurrence and distribution of drug problems, dependency, and addictions. [...] It was conducted through the HIV Social, Behavioural and Epidemiological Studies Unit at the University of Toronto in collaboration with community groups and venues in 13 regions of the Province of Ontario, one of them being the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). [...] When the Desired Effects sample was compared with the OMS sample from the Greater Toronto Area: • The proportion of OMS men who met the drug criteria of Desired Effects was 48.6% • The proportion of OMS men who met the sexual criteria of Desired Effects was 85.0% • The proportion of OMS men who met both Desired Effects criteria was 43.8% Therefore, while Desired Effects recruited a very specifi c