- The popular drug has long been linked to tempting people into risky behaviour
- But new research has possibly found why cocaine addicts have high STI rates
- Being ‘high’ makes people less willing to postpone having sex to get a condom
- However, the impatience was only relevant to sex as tests on money didn’t work
Stephen Matthews For Mailonline
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Cocaine has long been linked to risky behaviour.
But a new study has confirmed the suspicions around the popular street drug when it comes to having sex.
Users are less willing to wait for a condom before getting under the sheets with a stranger, scientists discovered.
Being ‘high’ off the stimulant causes people to become impatient – possibly explaining why addicts are more likely to carry an STI.
Scientists have discovered that users of cocaine are less willing to wait for a condom before getting under the sheets with a stranger
Study author Dr Matthew Johnson, from Johns Hopkins University, said: ‘Our study affirms and may help explain why people who regularly use cocaine are more willing to partake in risky sex.
‘The bottom line is that cocaine appears to increase sexual desire… They become more impatient when it comes to waiting for sex.
‘If a condom isn’t available, cocaine makes people less willing to postpone sex to get a condom.’
In the study, researchers gave a small number of participants either a placebo, a 125mg pill or a 250mg pill of cocaine.
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Unlike street forms of the drug, oral consumption draws out the euphoria, high energy and hyper-alertness for an extended period of time.
They found that both sexual desire and the drug’s effect rose and peaked around 45 minutes following consumption.
And those who were given the larger dose had an even greater response.
Using a computer, participants were asked to look at 60 photographs of different people and asked to select the ones they would be willing to have casual sex with.
Being ‘high’ off the stimulant causes people to become impatient – possibly explaining why addicts are more likely to carry an STI
They also selected the person they thought would be the least likely to carry an STI, in the study published in the journal Psychopharmacology.
Participants were asked to rate their likelihood of using a condom if one was immediately available and how long they were willing to wait before having sex.
They found that 80 per cent of participants were likely to use a condom if it was available – regardless of cocaine usage.
COCAINE INCREASES THE RISK OF STROKE
Each time an adult uses cocaine, their risk of stroke increases six-fold, experts warned last March.
Scientists compared younger victims – including those in their 30s and 40s – of a first stroke, and found that using cocaine in the 24 hours before the event raised the risk substantially.
Moreover, the risk of stroke increased eight-fold when the drug was smoked in a ‘crack form’, researchers from the University of Maryland discovered.
But the longer a participant on the drug had to wait for a condom, the more willing they were to have sex without.
Next, the participants were asked to rate the likelihood of using a condom based on a certain probability of contracting an STI.
Regardless of the dose, cocaine users were more likely to go ahead and have sex without a condom with those they believed to be high-risk individuals.
Those on the stimulant had a 40 per cent chance of using a condom, while those not had a 70 per cent chance.
In a bid to see if cocaine users’ ‘impatience’ extended to other situations, the researchers offered them a hypothetical choice on receiving money.
They found no differences between the groups – suggesting impatience is specifically to do with sex.
But the researchers said that taking the drug orally may possibly have changed the effects of the drug.
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