BTL Blog Comments

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:53:1258555984 GMT

And how common are poppers now?

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:46:1258555619 GMT

Sorry - am I missing something - what is that asterisk for? "queer*" ?

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:50:1258329007 GMT

agree - I reckon it's a big cocktail of isolation, drug and alcohol use, societal stigma, family issues.... etc etc - the early stuff that Howard et al did relating to risk for young people was more around the issue of coming out

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:45:1258073134 GMT

Good article - underlying question for me relates to social isolation and acceptance of diversity. Good mental health is being OK in your own skin and clearly we're not providing the right type of support or spaces for young people who identify as SSA. While I agree with JH you have to question the logic - how much experimentation and at what cost?

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:10:1258053044 GMT

I think its interesting that the research says that one of the main explanations put forward for young queer people engaging in "more frequent, more harmful" drug use is because they rely on the pub and club scene. I don't think that the reliance on pub and club spaces for connections is peculiar to just queer folk.

Most young straight people are out in pubs and clubs most weekends - so I don't think just being in those spaces is an explanation for higher rates of drug use.

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:06:1258052771 GMT

As this article has pointed out - there seem to be a lot of reasons for the disproportionate number of 'queer' people doing drugs. I would love to see the stats around differences in drug induced injury and death for 'queer' vs 'unqueer' vs 'sortaqueer' - if the differences are alarming than this is a massive risk awaits flag that can't be ignored, if the stats arent that different I would be interested in why (eg. safer practices). Would also be keen to see the role of alcohol here - perhaps alcohol in hetrosexuals is equally damaging.