Text from National Post article
For those who can't get the print version, I'm going to paste the text of the article here.
Hed: The party drug that kills
By Todd Klinck
"Over the past several years, nearly every indicator of risky sexual activity has risen in the gay community. Perhaps for the first time since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, the number of men who say they use condoms regularly is below 50%; after many years of decline, the number of new H.I.V. diagnoses among gay men increased every year between 2000 and 2003, while remaining stable in the rest of the population."
The passage above appeared in a recent New Yorker article about the devastating effect crystal methamphetamine is having on America's gay communities, particularly those in New York and San Francisco. The article has created a stir - for it has opened the eyes of millions of Americans to an epidemic that has largely gone unreported.
Crystal methamphetamine is not a new drug. It first gained popularity in San Francisco's gay scene in the late 1990s, and is now becoming common at gay night spots in large Canadian cities. Because the high from "crystal" lasts long, and the drug can be produced cheaply using legal ingredients such as drain cleaner, battery acid, lantern fuel and Sudafed, the drug is known as "poor man's cocaine." It also makes gay men engage in really stupid and risky sexual practices.
I'm 30, so safer sex practices were part of my education. In Grade 11, we were taught about H.I.V. At the time, there was no "cocktail" (the combination of medications that can now keep H.I.V.-positive people alive for decades), so contracting AIDS was then seen as a death sentence.
When I moved to Toronto, I gravitated toward bathhouses and parks, and anywhere anonymous encounters between men occurred. I liked the excitement, I liked the convenience. The freedom of being a young, attractive 20-year-old in a major city was intoxicating. I wasn't worried about the risks, because I was educated. I always played safe, and as far as I could tell, so did everybody else. In those days, condoms were always used. There was no discussion, it was just done. Unlike my 60-year-old friends who lost hundreds of their friends to AIDS, I thought my generation was going to be able to avoid becoming H.I.V.-positive.
Today, things are changing. For many reasons, perhaps one being the fact that H.I.V. medications have improved to the point where H.I.V. is often described as a "manageable disease," safer sex practices are going out of fashion in gay casual sex circles. Another reason is the introduction of crystal to the scene. In the last few years, I've been to bathhouses several dozen times. Crystal is everywhere. And in almost every encounter I had, the body language of my partners assumed there would be no condoms. When I brought the issue up, many guys left the room, saying they "only" have sex "raw."
It has gotten to the point where "to bareback" has become a verb. There are bareback Web sites, bareback chatrooms and a huge trend on gay Internet meeting spots towards a type of sex called "PnP" (Party and Play), which is an acronym that almost always translates to mean "sex while doing crystal meth." I bumped into a high school friend last summer. He told me he had become H.I.V.-positive because of crystal. He said it "made him do things he wouldn't normally do." Crystal sends people on an insatiable and obsessive quest for as much sex with as many people as possible, sometimes for days at a time, and almost always bareback.
I am not against all forms of drug use, and I am definitely not against promiscuity. Party drugs such as Ecstasy, Special K (ketamine), cocaine, amongst others, have their risks, but can sometimes be used in moderation without destroying one's life. But crystal methamphetamine is a different creature, one with a horrendous track record for causing severe addiction, permanent brain damage, paranoia and violence.
Covering the sex and cyberculture scene in the gay community for Toronto's fab magazine for the past few years has afforded me the opportunity to meet many crystal meth users. Most say they wish they'd never tried it. One referred to it as "Satan in powdered form." Statistics show crystal to be so addictive that only 6% of people in drug treatment programs succeed at kicking their crystal habit the first time.
While the gay community has had considerable success at getting publicity and support for same-sex marriage, we are less public about our uglier problems. A small anti-crystal meth movement has started within gay organizations, and on Internet message boards, but we must be more vigilant in promoting the dangers of this drug. We must realize that crystal meth is not just another party drug - but rather a gateway into a tragic health crisis in the gay community.
National Post
info@mayhemnorth.com
Hed: The party drug that kills
By Todd Klinck
"Over the past several years, nearly every indicator of risky sexual activity has risen in the gay community. Perhaps for the first time since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, the number of men who say they use condoms regularly is below 50%; after many years of decline, the number of new H.I.V. diagnoses among gay men increased every year between 2000 and 2003, while remaining stable in the rest of the population."
The passage above appeared in a recent New Yorker article about the devastating effect crystal methamphetamine is having on America's gay communities, particularly those in New York and San Francisco. The article has created a stir - for it has opened the eyes of millions of Americans to an epidemic that has largely gone unreported.
Crystal methamphetamine is not a new drug. It first gained popularity in San Francisco's gay scene in the late 1990s, and is now becoming common at gay night spots in large Canadian cities. Because the high from "crystal" lasts long, and the drug can be produced cheaply using legal ingredients such as drain cleaner, battery acid, lantern fuel and Sudafed, the drug is known as "poor man's cocaine." It also makes gay men engage in really stupid and risky sexual practices.
I'm 30, so safer sex practices were part of my education. In Grade 11, we were taught about H.I.V. At the time, there was no "cocktail" (the combination of medications that can now keep H.I.V.-positive people alive for decades), so contracting AIDS was then seen as a death sentence.
When I moved to Toronto, I gravitated toward bathhouses and parks, and anywhere anonymous encounters between men occurred. I liked the excitement, I liked the convenience. The freedom of being a young, attractive 20-year-old in a major city was intoxicating. I wasn't worried about the risks, because I was educated. I always played safe, and as far as I could tell, so did everybody else. In those days, condoms were always used. There was no discussion, it was just done. Unlike my 60-year-old friends who lost hundreds of their friends to AIDS, I thought my generation was going to be able to avoid becoming H.I.V.-positive.
Today, things are changing. For many reasons, perhaps one being the fact that H.I.V. medications have improved to the point where H.I.V. is often described as a "manageable disease," safer sex practices are going out of fashion in gay casual sex circles. Another reason is the introduction of crystal to the scene. In the last few years, I've been to bathhouses several dozen times. Crystal is everywhere. And in almost every encounter I had, the body language of my partners assumed there would be no condoms. When I brought the issue up, many guys left the room, saying they "only" have sex "raw."
It has gotten to the point where "to bareback" has become a verb. There are bareback Web sites, bareback chatrooms and a huge trend on gay Internet meeting spots towards a type of sex called "PnP" (Party and Play), which is an acronym that almost always translates to mean "sex while doing crystal meth." I bumped into a high school friend last summer. He told me he had become H.I.V.-positive because of crystal. He said it "made him do things he wouldn't normally do." Crystal sends people on an insatiable and obsessive quest for as much sex with as many people as possible, sometimes for days at a time, and almost always bareback.
I am not against all forms of drug use, and I am definitely not against promiscuity. Party drugs such as Ecstasy, Special K (ketamine), cocaine, amongst others, have their risks, but can sometimes be used in moderation without destroying one's life. But crystal methamphetamine is a different creature, one with a horrendous track record for causing severe addiction, permanent brain damage, paranoia and violence.
Covering the sex and cyberculture scene in the gay community for Toronto's fab magazine for the past few years has afforded me the opportunity to meet many crystal meth users. Most say they wish they'd never tried it. One referred to it as "Satan in powdered form." Statistics show crystal to be so addictive that only 6% of people in drug treatment programs succeed at kicking their crystal habit the first time.
While the gay community has had considerable success at getting publicity and support for same-sex marriage, we are less public about our uglier problems. A small anti-crystal meth movement has started within gay organizations, and on Internet message boards, but we must be more vigilant in promoting the dangers of this drug. We must realize that crystal meth is not just another party drug - but rather a gateway into a tragic health crisis in the gay community.
National Post
info@mayhemnorth.com
posted by Todd Klinck at 9:00 AM
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