Talk About Partying HARD!
Using Viagra as a party drug

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Dr. Jeffrey Klausner realized he had to do something when he walked through one of the city's sex clubs and heard pill wrappers crunching beneath his feet. 

``I picked one up, and it was a Viagra sample,'' said Klausner, who heads the city health department's sexually transmitted disease unit. ``I thought, 'What's happening if people are using Viagra in sex clubs?''' 

His research soon showed that nearly a third of gay men surveyed at sexually transmitted disease clinics said they were using the anti-impotence drug Viagra, often in combination with illegal drugs that tend to encourage risky behavior. 

Health experts say Viagra alone seems to pose no real danger to men who use it recreationally even though they don't need it to get erections. 

``It's not just something going on at an STD clinic in San Francisco, this is actually pretty common,'' said Patricia Case, who directs the Program on Urban Health at Harvard University and is studying ``club drug'' users in Boston and New York City for the National Institute on Drug Abuse. 

Now, Viagra needs to be studied more closely as another possible factor in sexually reckless behavior, said Dr. Ronald Valdiserri, the CDC's deputy chief of sexually transmitted diseases. 

``I see the Viagra story as sort of a subplot in all of this,'' he said. ``We take all of this very seriously.'' 

Sipping a drink with friends at a popular gay bar at the edge of San Francisco's Castro District, Lim, a 22-year-old gay man, said Viagra is simply another part of the drug scene at the city's five regulated sex clubs, and at nightclubs and raves. 

Lim, who gave only his last name, says he began mixing Viagra with crystal meth or Ecstasy about two years ago. It takes about 30 minutes to kick in, he says, and can keep sex going strong for hours. 

Lim says he's never had to buy party pills, because if you're ``young and cute, it's just there.'' 

Viagra is supposed to be available only by prescription, after a doctor's consultation, at a cost of $8 to $10 a pill. However, Internet companies sell the drug to anyone who completes an online survey. Viagra then gets traded among friends or resold for $20 to $30 a pill. 

Pfizer Inc., which introduced Viagra in 1998 and now makes about $1.2 billion a year on the drug, says it's not responsible for drugs obtained without a prescription, or Viagra knockoffs made by someone else. 

``We were opposed to the recreational use of Viagra from day one,'' said company spokesman Geoff Cook. 

Pfizer has marketed Viagra mostly to men 40 and older who suffer from erectile dysfunction, but the little blue diamonds quickly became known for boosting the sexual stamina of younger, healthy men. 

``Those of us really close to the street see what's going on,'' said Alan Brown, who runs the Electric Dreams Foundation, which promotes health at gay nightclubs nationwide. In the complicated mix of legal and illegal drugs partyers use, Viagra is considered a natural companion to drugs that remove inhibitions, Brown said. 

The drug is also showing up among heterosexuals. 

``I thought, 'Hey, what a good idea,''' said a 33-year-old heterosexual man from San Francisco, recalling the time he first combined Viagra with Ecstasy. 

``If I had not been on Ecstasy at the time I would have never thought of it,'' he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. 

He now uses Viagra regularly, and has combined it with Ecstasy twice in the past two years, although he considers it an ``unsafe decision.'' 

``If the person is using Ecstasy and can't get an erection, then takes this to obtain one, is that a problem? I'm not sure that it is,'' he said. 

So far, there has been little research on what happens when Viagra is taken with illegal drugs. ``There have been fatalities they just haven't been published,'' said Case, who is conducting the study of club drug users. 

Dr. Edward Boyer, a Boston area toxicologist, believes it was Viagra and poppers that killed an otherwise healthy 48-year-old man he saw in an emergency room 1 year ago. The man had suffered a heart attack while at a place where gay men meet for sex. 

In San Francisco, syphilis cases jumped to 183 in the first four months of this year, up from just 41 by April 1998. Rectal gonorrhea is up nearly 50 percent, and the city expects 750 to 900 new HIV infections this year, up from about 500 five years ago. 

Klausner didn't conclude that Viagra leads to these diseases, but said his study did show a significant correlation. 

``It enables them to have more sexual partners and sex for a longer periods of time,'' he said. ``Both of those are major factors for getting STDs.'' 

His survey of men at STD clinics showed Viagra users reporting more sexual partners than non-Viagra users. 

Klausner and other public health officials also want stronger warning labels, including urging Viagra users to wear condoms. 

Pfizer says Viagra labels and advertisements clearly indicate that the drug doesn't protect against STDs. Cook, the Pfizer spokesman, said the drug maker also supports the crackdown on Internet sales and knockoff pills. 

But Viagra, which enables erections for up to 12 hours after taking it, may be just the beginning. Eli Lilly and Co. is developing another anti-impotence drug, Cialis, which promises to last 24 to 36 hours. 

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