Alcohol leads to unsafe sex among drug users.

• Position: Your Life - Brief Article

Researchers at Brown University, Providence, R.I., have uncovered an intimate bond between drinking and unsafe sex among injection drug users. "Among individuals who use drugs and the people who treat them, alcohol is overlooked," notes Michael Stein, associate professor of medicine at the Medical School. "It is a forgotten drug. But drinking appears to be one of several risky behaviors engaged in by injection drug users [IDUs]." More than one-third of reported AIDS cases are directly associated with injection drug use. Unprotected sexual contact with IDUs is the predominant cause of heterosexual transmission of HIV.

Among IDUs, "alcohol may not be considered an important drug, or even a drug at all, yet it is likely to reduce certain inhibitions and lead to unsafe sex," Stein points out. Alcohol consumption may be a little-known link between injection drug use and heterosexual transmission of the HIV virus that causes AIDS as well.

Stein and colleagues interviewed a high-risk group of injection drug users--individuals not receiving formal substance abuse treatment--recruited from a syringe exchange program in Providence. Of 5,610 days analyzed, 1,054 (18.8%) were considered...