The 2014 European Drug Report has been issued and researchers expressed their concerns on a wide range of subjects. First of all, they notified 81 new drugs in 2013, showing that the volume and variety of drugs on the market is growing fast. The number of substances to be monitored is now higher than 350 and, to be precise, the researchers are talking about an actual emergency, since 250 of these new substances were detected just recently in the last four years. The director of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), Wolfgang Gotz, said the early warning system about drug emergency was set up 15 years ago and is now globally respected: "I'm deeply concerned, however, that this mechanism is under increasing strain and may be at risk if inadequately resourced."

The 2014 report also focuses the attention on the new trend of what they call ‘chem-sex’ gay parties, which means a bunch of gay people getting high together and then go wild with sex. We already wrote about this matter last year, when medical journal The Lancet published the hypothesis of a connection between these parties and the sudden rise in HIV infections within young gays in London. Now we see that chem-sex isn’t only a habit in London, but it’s spreading around the country and the European continent. We can’t really prove or disprove the theory of The Lancet, but we know for sure that drug use affects the decision-making power of people, so for us it's natural to ask: “Is a chem-sex party a safe sex party too?”

The article on TheGuardian.com about the report was commented on by many readers in many ways: some were accusing the researchers to make too much of a fuss about chem-sex and other (gay) readers admitted that they did notice a shift in gays’ attitude towards drugs. I also read one comment simply asking: “Chem-sex parties? Why wasn't I invited?”. This made me realise that no matter if these facts are an emergency or not, some people just don’t care about warnings by journalists, researchers or doctors – we all actually have that reflex sometimes. It’s therefore difficult to make accusations towards something specific or someone in particular, we can only repeat what we always say: “Use that f***ing condom!”. Whether you’re sober, high, in a couple,  in a group in London or Lisbon... Do it, you’ll never regret it.