Viagra not a thrill pill

Overheard in an elevator, several years ago, at the CBC Broadcast Centre in Toronto: "I was at this party last night, and they had a bowl, kind of like a candy dish, of these diamond-shaped blue pills, so I took some."

We've come a long way from the days when partygoers might not recognize a Viagra pill, but reports persist that young men are still using it for thrills.

Just who is taking Viagra as a recreational drug? A study in San Francisco by Dr. Jeffrey Klausner found that gay and bisexual men are four times more likely to use Viagra recreationally than heterosexual men. Klausner also found a significant number of thrill-seekers combined the little blue pills with ecstasy (43 per cent) or amphetamines (28 per cent).

Needless to say, such back alley combinations of drugs can lead to serious problems, such as a sudden drop in blood pressure.

Writing in the official journal of the International AIDS Society, Klausner also commented that "sildenafil (Viagra) . . . may be associated with unsafe drug use and sexual risk behaviour," and that, "although Viagra is a drug that should only be taken under the direct supervision of a health-care provider, over half of the men (in his study of 844) received the drug from a friend."

Straight boys are asking for those pills, too. The Harvard Medical School's Dr. Abraham Morgantaler says teenage and 20-something guys are requesting erectile-dysfunction (ED) drugs - inventing a plumbing problem that doesn't really exist.

Morgantaler is quoted in the Chicago Tribune saying that college students often ask him for a "six-pack" that's not beer. (Viagra comes in packs of six.) He calls this "a stroke of (advertising) genius, evoking two great images of American maleness."

In his book The Viagra Myth: The Surprising Impact on Love and Relationships (Jossey-Bass, 2003), Morgantaler blasts drug companies for using professional athletes and other macho figures to push their ED drugs.

And hey, this book came out in 2003, before we had the smirking Cialis couple arriving at the opera in time to hear the final notes and thunderous applause.

So what's wrong with sneaking some Viagra? Let's start with potentially lethal side-effects, such as the interaction between ED drugs and organic nitrates, commonly taken by people with heart problems. There are long lists of other contraindications, plus delightful side-effects like painful erections that won't go down and can even injure you permanently.

Morgantaler also sees subtle emotional dangers. He writes about a couple that decided to separate after the man started taking Viagra.

The problem? "I thought that if I could have sex with her again, everything would work out fine. But it turns out our problems are bigger than the sex thing."

Now to set the record straight, Viagra does not turn healthy guys into sexual supermen. But it certainly does something down there. To find out exactly what ED drugs do to healthy young guys, we turn to research coming out of Italy. Scientists at the University of Florence gave 60 healthy young men with no erection issues a pill that was either a 25-milligram tablet of sildenafil or a placebo. Talk about messing with people's minds!