Sexually challenged: drug agencies and safer sex advice for young people

Abstract

Authoritative policy advice in Britain in the 1980s challenged drug agencies to reduce the rate of transmission of HIV through work with drug users in relation to their drug use and sexual behaviour. Focusing upon safer sex advice by drug agencies, this paper explores the applicability of such advice to younger people who approach the agency in relation to their non-injecting drug use. A short series of interviews with drug agency staff in England and Wales, deployed with a reading of relevant published literature, suggests that there are obstacles to such safer sex advice. The younger, `recreational' non-injecting drug user who comes to a drug agency for drugs advice finds it strange to discover this translated into a request for sexual counselling. Training the drug worker cannot change this and indeed, mistakes the problem. The role of drug agencies as providers of safer sex advice for young non-injectors may be quite limited.

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