Black Market Pushing Two AIDS Drugs
In a really bizarre twist, a couple of the AIDS-related drugs have found followings on the black market — one as a recreational “trippy” drug and one for impatient gym bunnies.Among the most common side effects of the anti-HIV drug Sustiva (efavirenz) are central nervous system impacts like dizziness and a spacey feeling, and psychiatric symptoms like hallucinations, euphoria, and manic excitability. “Kewl!” some clubbers think, so they are using it recreationally, bought on the black market. Club kids in Florida are the most frequent abusers, but it’s increasingly showing up in Houston. What they don’t realize is that they’re also likely to experience diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, sleep disturbances, fever, confusion and depression, and possibly liver damage, if abused long-term. Diarrhea on the dance floor? No thanks!
Of even more concern, cost-wise, is the abuse of the human growth hormone Serostim. Serostim increases lean body mass very effectively and fairly quickly, and it is used as a last resort to keep a person with AIDS from wasting away and dying. Now bodybuilders, especially in California, are seeking it out as a “supplement” for getting big, substituting it for the more traditional steroids. Yes, users may see quickly increased muscle bulk, but probably at a cost of blood glucose, muscle and bone pains, and swollen hands and feet. And at $7,000 per month, Serostim is one of the most expensive prescriptions around. Abuse of black-market Serostim, bought from indigent HIVers desperate for cash, threatens financial collapse of California’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program for the poor, where most of the prescriptions originate.
What an irony that prescription drugs intended for survival, not cosmetics and recreation, are being used by others acting like spoiled brats. And how ironic that the side effects, all too uncomfortably known to people with AIDS, may exact a price the abusers weren’t expecting.
This article appears in February 28 • 2003.