| Resumo: | This paper focuses on HIV-related sexual risk behaviors among problematic drug users. The research involved qualitative, in-depth interviews with problematic drug users, following the tradition in ethnography of understanding actors' lived experiences from their own perspectives. The interviews were loosely structured and aimed to elicit respondents' views and experiences of drug abuse and HIV risk behaviors. Interviewees' responses confirmed that factors other than lack of knowledge play a central role in deciding to have unsafe sex and sharing unclean needles. Although levels of knowledge of HIV and AIDS were generally high, unsafe sex and overall injection behavior were associated with relatively complex issues, such as participants' sexual and affective preferences, the nature of the relationship between partners, ambiguities about what is truly safe, the influence of dominant cultural values and the needs of homeless problematic drug users involved in a «street economy».
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