Abstract
Background“Slam” has emerged since 2008 as a new international phenomenon among men who have sex with men (MSM); it consists of the intravenous injection of drugs before or during planned sexual activity. The practice of slam is associated with the use of psychostimulants, including synthetic cathinones.MethodsAll spontaneous notifications (Nots) of slam practice reported between January 2012 and October 2019 at the Nantes addictovigilance center in France were collected and analyzed. The purpose of this work was to analyze cases of slam to characterize cathinone use disorder according to the diagnostic criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) and to further our knowledge of slam practice based on data on drug use, risk taking and harmful consequences.ResultsWe collected 39 slam Nots. The severity of cathinone use disorder was mild, moderate and severe for 18%, 12%, and 58% of the patients, respectively. “Much time spent using cathinone” was the diagnostic criterion most often cited (82%).ConclusionsTo the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to evaluate the presence of a cathinone use disorder. Cathinone use disorder seems particularly important in this population of users, and negative consequences of slam practice appear quickly.
Highlights
Slam has emerged as a new phenomenon in Western Europe [1, 2] among men who have sex with men (MSM) since 2008 and has emerged in Southeast Asia [3,4,5], North America [6, 7], and Australia [8, 9], where it is called “party and play” or “intensive sex partying”
We found that 34 slammers were the subject of 39 Nots corresponding to different slam sequences
Polydrug use was high in both groups but was higher among the regional cases, which might be related to the systematic inquiry in these cases, resulting from the regional awareness of the professionals involved and the specific selection of slam cases
Summary
Slam has emerged as a new phenomenon in Western Europe [1, 2] among men who have sex with men (MSM) since 2008 and has emerged in Southeast Asia [3,4,5], North America [6, 7], and Australia [8, 9], where it is called “party and play” or “intensive sex partying”. According to the French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT), slam is a form of chemsex defined by (i) the use of psychostimulants (ii) through the intravenous route of administration (iii) in a sexual context [10]. Cathinone Use Disorder in Slamming sexual practices and infectious harms [11,12,13,14,15] but not on the substances used in this specific context. In Europe, and more in France, this practice is associated with the use of specific psychostimulant substances in the synthetic cathinone family. No accurate data are available in the literature about the specific effects of synthetic cathinones in the context of slam, how they are used, and if they induce substance use disorder, negative consequences, withdrawal syndrome, tolerance, or craving
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