The Role of Drugs in AIDS

1/10/93 Ms. No. T1867

4

HIV (3, 5, 6). However, because of the many virological (2) and
epidemiological inconsistencies of the virus-AIDS hypothesis (3) some,
notably Montagnier and Maddox, have recently concluded that HIV is not
sufficient for AIDS (21, 22). Others have interpreted AIDS as a non-infectious
epidemic (3, 8-17, 23-25). Here the hypothesis is investigated that American
AIDS diseases, above their normal background, are the result of the long-term
consumption of recreational and anti-HIV drugs.
Coincidences between the American AIDS and drug epidemics.
The appearance of AIDS in America in 1981 (6) coincided with a
massive escalation in the consumption of psychoactive drugs (17, 26-31). The
Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that the number of drug arrests in the U.S.
has increased from about 450,000 in 1980 to 1.4 million in 1989 (29, 30). About
500 kg of cocaine were confiscated by the Drug Enforcement Administration
in 1980, about 9,000 kg in 1983, and 80,000 kg in 1989 (29, 31). The agency
estimates that at most 20% of the cocaine smuggled into the U.S. is confiscated
(32). Cocaine-related hospital emergencies increased 5-fold from 1984 to 1988
(26). The number of dosage units of domestic stimulants confiscated
increased from 2 million in 1981 to 97 million in 1989 (31). Further, the
recreational use of psychoactive and aphrodisiac nitrite inhalants began in the
1960s and reached epidemic proportions in the mid 1970s, a few years before
AIDS appeared (33). The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that in
1979-80 over 5 million people used nitrite inhalants in the U.S. at least once a
week (33), a total of 250 million doses per year (34). In 1976 the sales of nitrite
inhalants in one American city alone amounted to $50 million annually (33),
at $5 per 12 ml dose (35). Currently about 80,000 Americans with and without
AIDS take the cytocidal DNA chain terminator AZT prescribed since 1987 as