The Role of Drugs in AIDS

1/10/93 Ms. No. T1867

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89 out of 136 HIV-positive, long-term intravenous drug users from New York
(77), and in about 40% of 69 HIV-positive and 44 HIV-negative addicts from
France who had used drugs for an average of 5 years (78).
(vii) Five out of 6 HIV-free male homosexuals with Kaposi's sarcoma
have reported the use of nitrite inhalants (79).
(viii) Similar neurological deficiencies were observed among 12 HIVinfected and 16 uninfected infants from drug-addicted mothers (80).
Thus, the long-term use of recreational and anti-HIV drugs appears
necessary in HIV-positives and sufficient in HIV-negatives to induce AIDS
indicator- and other diseases.
Toxic effects of drugs used by persons with AIDS or at risk for AIDS.
Toxicity of narcotic drugs. From as early as 1909 (81) evidence has
accumulated that addiction to psychoactive drugs leads to immune
suppression and clinical abnormalities similar to AIDS, including
lymphopenia, lymphadenopathy, fever, weight loss, septicemia, and
increased susceptibility to infections and neurological disorders (39, 45, 82-90).
Intravenous drugs can be toxic directly, or indirectly via malnutrition, both
because of their enormous expense and via septicemia, since most illicit drugs
are not sterile (27, 37, 72, 91). Oral consumption of cocaine and other
psychoactive drugs has been reported to cause pneumonitis, bronchitis,
edema, and other diseases (92). In children born to mothers addicted to
cocaine and other drugs physiological and neurological deficiencies including
mental retardation are observed (13, 40).
Alkylnitrites are directly toxic as they are rapidly hydrolyzed in vivo to
yield nitrite ions, which react with all biological macromolecules (93, 94).
Addicts with 0.5 mM nitrite derivatives and 70% methemoglobin in the
blood have been recorded (94). Toxicity for the immune system, the central