Drag Race star says we need to talk about killer 'chemsex' party epidemic

There's a dark shadow hanging over Britain's party scene. Concern has been raised after British drag queen Bimini Bon Boulash spoke out about their experiences with ‘chemsex’ parties, an underground phenomenon which sees people consuming illegal to enhance sexual experiences.

In an interview with Paul Brunson on the podcast We Need To Talk, the Ru Paul's star opened up about the growing trend in the community. They said: “[Chemsex] is a crisis. There’s a problem more so than ever before.”

According to a by the British HIV Association conducted in 2021, chemsex is a significant issue in several European countries, including Spain, Italy and . The report found that Britain had the highest proportion of gay men engaging in chemsex, with more than 32% admitting to have participated in the activity.

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Bimini continued: “No one’s going out as much, nightclubs are shutting down. People don’t need to go out now to meet other people. They can just go on an app and hook up with someone. You can basically, if you wanted to, go to a party at any time of the day.”

“I’ve seen first hand the change in drugs being used in clubs… There’s not enough harm reduction. There’s not enough information. We need more spaces that are community driven,” they added.

Chemsex is also referred to as 'party and play' which is sometimes abbreviated to 'PnP'. While any drugs can be used in the act of ‘chemsex’, the three most popular are methamphetamine, mephedrone and GHB.

All of these drugs fall under legal restrictions in the UK, and all can have devastating consequences if misused. Ketamine use has also been linked with chemsex.

One of the most concerning parts of the crisis is that it’s difficult to find data on it. Speaking to News, a sexual health consultant Dr Naomi Fitzgerald revealed she has seen a rise in chemsex over the last decade. She said that a third of all drug related presentations at King's College Hospital were from GHB and crystal meth – two drugs closely linked with ‘chemsex’.

Social psychologist Marc Svensson spoke to about the rise in chemsex drugs: "You could refer to this as a kind of a silent crisis or epidemic...it's happening, we know that it's happening."

Worse still, the drugs have also been linked to fatalities. The same investigation conducted by ITV in 2023 found that three people die every month from chemsex in London alone.

Chemsex drugs like GHB also can also leave their users more vulnerable to sexual abuse. In 2019, , Buzzfeed News and the Terrence Higgins Trust launched a major survey gay male GHB users. They found that almost half of users had overdosed and passed out from the drug. A further one in four said they knew of someone who had died as a result of using this drug.

There is a lack of education around these drugs and their potentially fatal consequences. Most of the 2,700 survey respondents admitted that they were unaware that while on GHB could be a dangerous warning that someone is slipping into a lethal coma.

Equally disturbing, the same survey found that the drug can also lead to sexual abuse. An overdose of GHB can lead to incoherency, convulsions and unconsciousness, making the user more vulnerable to assault. More than a quarter of respondents who used GHB reported being sexually assaulted while under the influence.

The dark trend has also been closely linked with HIV infections. According to a conducted between 2013 to 2016, men who used chemsex drugs or who had sex without a condom with multiple partners were at increased risk of acquiring the potentially fatal virus.

Meanwhile, a conducted in Brazil found that chemsex has also been linked to the deadly monkeypox (or Mpox) virus. Researchers uncovered that the practice of chemsex was six times higher among those diagnosed with the virus than than those who had not contracted it.