the essential
Chemsex, an alliance of drug consumption for sexual purposes, has become a real public health problem, according to addictologists, who have denounced the devastation that the practice has caused since 2022 already. With the Pierre Palmade affair, the issue received unprecedented media attention.
The practice would have really exploded during confinement, mainly among the gay population. While the French were forced to stay at home, “people who were already doing chemsex many of them worsened their practices in a context of anxiety, loneliness, closure. People who perhaps did not do it “discovered: there were only private meeting places”, explained Hélène Donnadieu, head of the addiction department at Montpellier University Hospital, in 2022.
Also read:
PORTRAIT. Trial of Pierre Palmade: “What a waste…” Itinerary of a man in free fall
Health professionals noticed this: in the months following confinement, requests for treatment linked to this practice multiplied throughout France, while “chemsex” was previously confined to the capital. It consists of the ingestion of synthetic cathinones, notably the most popular of them, 3MMC, whose much greater distribution also contributes to this explosion. We also talk about GHB (the rapist's drug), or even MDMA, ketamine or methamphetamine.
Numerous news items
Synthetic drugs that promise their users ecstatic sexuality: they suppress hunger and sleep, remove inhibitions and increase desire and sensations. Their consumption is often accompanied by alcohol and poppers, as well as medications that promote erections, which can be inhibited by these drugs. Among the problems they raise, however, the risk of addiction quickly arises, with all the psychosocial dysfunctions that this entails: from depression to psychiatric disorders, including social isolation and the inability to experience sexual pleasure. in the absence of drugs.
Also read:
Trial of Pierre Palmade: drug addiction, traumatic accident… how the actor finds himself risking 14 years in prison
In addition to the Pierre Palmade affair, numerous news items have marked the news in recent months, reminding us that “chemsex” did not stop with the accident caused by the comedian, quite the contrary. Thus in Bordeaux, last March, three separate investigations into four overdoses, two of which were fatal, were opened after a succession of events occurring a few days apart concerning men consuming products linked to “chemsex”. A forty-year-old was sentenced following these cases to ten months in prison, nine of which were suspended for drug trafficking, admitting to being “addicted” after being found unconscious during one of these evenings.
Proposal for a national prevention strategy
Enough to push last May deputies from different political parties to call for a national prevention strategy on chemsex in a proposed resolution which was to be studied at the end of June. Renaissance MP Brigitte Liso was one of those who sounded the alarm on “a much deeper social subject” than the simple Palmade affair, asking in particular for “a precise epidemiological inventory”. It also proposed to “raise awareness and inform widely” on the subject, with a training offer for health professionals and judicial personnel, as well as a series of prevention actions, particularly in “party places”, as well as than in high schools, universities or grandes écoles.
Because in France, it is estimated that chemsex would concern “at least 100,000 to 200,000 people”, affirmed the parliamentarian in her resolution, based on a report submitted to the Ministry of Health two years earlier. “The practice of chemsex is becoming established among increasingly younger audiences, coming from all backgrounds and all territories,” she further warned.
Related News :