London Chemsex Network for drug treatment services

Antidote at London Friend and After Party are services supporting gay and bisexual men engaged in chemsex in London. With chemsex continuing to be a prevalent issue for gay & bisexual men we are jointly hosting a scoping meeting for drug treatment services across London with a view to establishing a London Chemsex Network.

This is an opportunity to share knowledge and discuss the support being offered across London by drug treatment services, allowing us to share our understanding and build relationships across services. It is also an opportunity to discuss how chemsex impacts on HIV, and how services are able to support clients around new advances in HIV prevention such as PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis).

We invite staff representatives of London drug treatment services to join us for an initial scoping meeting on Thursday 26^th January 11am – 1pm at Burrell Street sexual health clinic. 4-5 Burrell Street, London SE1 0UN. (Please note this is a change of the previously advertised address.)

Please RSVP to Monty Moncrieff at London Friend to confirm your attendance (we have a limited number of spaces): monty@londonfriend.org.uk

We look forward to seeing you at the meeting.

We are grateful to Wandsworth Oasis for supporting this network.

The festive season can be a lot of fun, but for some people it’s a time of heightened anxiety. It’s the season to be jolly, but sometimes that can tip over into excess. Here’s some information to keep you safer over the Christmas and New Year period.

If you’re partying know your limits. Everyone likes to let their hair down at Christmas but that morning glass of fizz can catch up with you if you’re still going by the evening, and parties do tend to last longer and be more frequent at this time of the year. You can find our tips for cutting back and pacing your drinking here. If you fancy going booze-feree for a month you can have a Sober Start (and you can even fundraise for us via a sponsored alcohol-free January or donate to the campaign via Just Giving.

If you’re going to be partying using drugs you can find lots of information about reducing the risk here. Remember to look out for your friends, and if anyone at your party overdoses call 999.

If you’re having sex, or hoping to see the New Year in with a (gang) bang remember to stock up with plenty of condoms and lube. Gay & bisexual men will find plenty of safer sexual health advice over at the website of our friends at GMFA.

If you think you may have picked up an unwanted gift due to exposure to an HIV risk you can seek advice & PEP (within no more than 72 hours) from a GUM clinic such as 56 Dean Street, Mortimer Market Centre orBurrell Street in central London. If these are closed you can access PEP through your local A&E. In Central London these can be found at:

University College Hospital

235 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BU

Tel: 0845 155 5000

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital

369 Fulham Road, London, SW10 9NH

Tel: 020 8746 8000

St Thomas’ Hospital

Westminster Bridge Road, London, SE1 7EH

Tel: 020 7188 7188

If you feel alone this Christmas and want to talk to another LGBT person our friends Switchboard will have their helpline open daily 10am – 11pm. The National LGBT Domestic Abuse Helpline run by Galop will be open as normal over the Christmas period. The charity Crisis has opened its Christmas centres for homeless people and will run until December 30^th. If you feel suicidal you can call Samaritans 24 hours a day. In an emergency go to your local A&E.

London Friend’s services will resume on Tuesday 3rd January as normal. Our first Antidote drug & alcohol drop-ins will run on Thursday 5th January in Soho then Monday 9th January in Kings Cross.

We wish you a happy, safe Christmas and a healthy 2017.

London Friend

Today is International Volunteering Day. Since London Friend started in 1972 volunteering has been at the heart of what we do. For over 40 years LGBT people have come together to provide support to their communities and improve the health and well-being of other LGBT people.

Volunteers deliver our coming out and support groups for people exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity, and our social groups which provide a space to meet other LGBT people in a friendly and supportive environment without the pressures that can sometimes come trying to meet people in the bar and club scene. Our specialist LGBT counselling service provides placements for LGBT therapists completing their training – with many of our counsellors choosing to stay volunteering with us long beyond achieving their counselling accreditation.

Volunteers too support our Antidote LGBT drug and alcohol service, providing advice, information and structured treatment through our walk-in clinics, one-to-one and group services. This includes sexual health and HIV prevention work related to alcohol or drug use. Volunteers also deliver services in our partnerships with NHS drug and sexual health clinics including the Club Drug Clinic and 56 Dean Street, and with other voluntary sector organisations.

This year the contribution of our volunteers was recognised by winning the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, the highest honour available to voluntary organisations and equivalent to an MBE for volunteer groups.

Our Volunteer Coordinator Rita Mclaughin says “Our volunteers work incredibly hard to provide safer spaces for LGBT people to meet and access support. Without them we simply wouldn’t be able to provide the services we do, and as an organisation we learn some much from the experiences they bring to the service”.

Our Chief Executive Monty Moncrieff says “Most of our staff roles are there to support volunteering, and all of our staff have also been volunteers in other organisations so we have a good insight into the value volunteering brings. I know I wouldn’t be working in the LGBT sector today had it not been for my previous volunteer role.”

Richard, who is a volunteer with our Antidote service says “Being a volunteer is both rewarding and challenging. Volunteering with London Friend has helped me refocus and the experience has helped me start to change my career.”

Find out more about our volunteer opportunities and apply to be a volunteer here.

NHS England yesterday announced plans to extend their national HIV prevention work to include PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis). PrEP will initially be available to at least 10,000 people under the large-scale trial, which will also look at how PrEP is implemented and ‘pave the way’ for a full roll out of PrEP.

The move comes after NHS England lost a Court of Appeal hearing brought by the National AIDS Trust over who held legal responsibility to fund the intervention.

London Friend welcomes the news, which will make this potentially game-changing HIV prevention intervention available to those at risk over the next three years. However, we know that the trial alone is not enough to provide the long-term solutions to make PrEP widely available to all those at risk. We call, on NHS England to make a commitment that PrEP will be fully funded following this trial.

The campaign to make PrEP available has been a long one, and London Friend is proud to support it as a member of the United4PrEP coalition, a group of the leading UK-based HIV organisations and individuals calling for PrEP. We particularly thank the work of our friends at National AIDS Trust for bringing the legal challenge to NHS England, and to Prepster and I Want PrEP Now, for helping to make PrEP available safely to gay and bisexual men whilst we have waited for the NHS’ decision.

There have been a number of recent high profile court cases in London that have focused on the death and sexual assault of gay/bi men by other other gay men, all involving the use of hook up apps and chemsex. We know that some gay/bi men are worried about this, and unsure of their rights, the law and how to be safer.

We’ve teamed up with Galop and Survivors UK, other London-based organisations working with gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, who experience sexual assault and other challenges relating to chemsex to produce this new information sheet on chemsex and consent.

You can access the resource here.

Today has seen another high profile case involving gay men and dating apps. Stephen Port has been found guilty of murdering four men he met through apps, along with several other offences including rape. It follows the murder conviction yesterday of Ben Bamford, and that of Stefano Brizzi last week. All three cases involved drug use, two in sexual contexts, a trend now known as chemsex.

We know that some gay and bisexual men have been worried by these cases, which have raised issues around consent and how to be safer. We have worked with Galop and Survivors UK to produce some information relating to chemsex and consent which is available here.

Although these cases are rare, we have been concerned following accounts from our service users of incidents where drug use in a chemsex context has left them uncertain of what may have occurred. GHB/GBL is a very dose-specific drug, and even small amounts too much can cause users to pass out and lose consciousness. If you use GHB/GBL you can find more information about it and how to reduce the risks associated with its use in our G-Aware pages.

If you are concerned about chemsex, or any aspect of your drug or alcohol use our advice is to seek support as early as possible. Our Antidote service offers free, confidential support to LGBT people, and can help whether you are looking to stop completely, or to keep more control over what, when and how you use.

Dating apps have become a part of everyday life for many people, and are particularly popular with gay and bisexual men. As relatively new technology we’re sometimes still learning how to navigate them. You can read more about them and our tips for online and app safety here.

The Police investigating the murders committed by Stephen Port have referred the case to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which has confirmed 17 officers are under formal investigation.

Galop has today issued a statement saying they passed on community intelligence to the Police related to the case in October 2014. This case therefore raises questions about how effectively the Police respond to intelligence from the LGBT community and investigate crimes affecting LGBT people. It is essential that LGBT people feel able to report and have access to appropriate support.

If you have been affected by any of the issues surrounding this case you can speak to us, or our partners Galop confidentially. Our thoughts are with the family and friends of all the victims in these cases.

Statement on the murder of PC Gordon Semple

A jury at the Old Bailey has today delivered a guilty verdict in the trial of Stefano Brizzi, a man who murdered and dismembered the body of PC Gordon Semple. Brizzi killed the policeman after agreeing to meet him for sex through a smartphone app. Throughout the trial Brizzi's use of crystal meth has been a prominent feature, with some of the press keen to label him a 'chemsex killer'.

The case has been harrowing to follow in news reports, containing gruesome accounts of the crime and its aftermath. It has also thrust crystal meth and chemsex into the headlines once more. Crystal is one of three drugs commonly used for sex which has gained popularity among small groups of gay and bisexual men over the last decade. Its effects have been well documented in other parts of the world where it has been more of a mainstream drug: in the UK it is seldom seen outside of chemsex settings.

A case like this is a rare and extreme example, but the impact of crystal meth on the mental health of our service users is not. We strongly advise anyone who experiences any difficulties through using it, or other drugs or alcohol, to seek support as early as possible. Our Antidote service offers support to LGBT people seeking to stop completely, or to have more control over what, when, and how they use.

Sadly, whilst PC Semple’s death could not have been prevented in this case, our tips for personal safety offer some practical suggestions for navigating online and app safety in general situations. If you have been affected by any of the issues surrounding this case you can speak to us, or our partners Galop confidentially.

Our thoughts are with the family and friends of PC Semple.

Are you an LGBT refugee or asylum seeker, or new to the UK? Our new weekly group offers free conversational English practice to improve your language skills.

Groups run every Wednesday 11am – 1pm at London Friend, 86 Caledonian Road, London N1 9DN.

No need to book, just turn up.

Today sees the start of the trial of Stephen Port, the man who was arrested in 2015 and charged with causing the deaths of four young men in Barking.

When this news became public last year it was upsetting and worrying for many people. We know the reporting of the trial is likely to be an unsettling time for the LGBT community.

Whilst we don’t know what’s going to happen during the trial or how the media and public are going to react, media reports from the time Mr Port was charged with the offences alleged the case included the use of drugs and sexual assault.

Our website contains a range of information related to these reported issues: you can find some harm reduction information relating to drug use; our G-Aware pages contain information about the drugs GHB and GBL; and you can find more information about personal safety when using apps and online dating sites.

Free Chemsex support

Check out our chemsex support services for gay, bi and trans men who have sex with men:

A one-day chemsex workshop with our partners GMFA on October 22nd with information to help you gain more control over your sex life and sexual health. Find out more information and book here. Check back for future dates.

Chemcheck, a new 6-week programme in partnership with AfterParty London and Burrell Street. Find our more information and book here.

If your own drug or alcohol use is causing problems in your life we can offer one-to-one and group support through our Antidote service. We offer walk-in assessments in Kings Cross and Soho. We’re also at Code Clinic and cliniQ (for trans people) both at 56 Dean Sreet. You can call us on 020 7833 1674 or email antidote@londonfriend.org.uk Our services are all confidential.

Reporting a sexual assault

If you have experienced a sexual assault or hate crime you may be considering reporting this or seeking support. Galop is the lead LGBT organisation providing expert, confidential support to those affected by this case. You can read their statement on the trial here, and contact them for confidential advice and support.