FIGHTING BACK AGAINST METH

Palm Springs-Based Group Helping Spread Word In The Gay
Community

David Barrett knew how crystal meth destroys lives.

Meth had left the Palm Springs man jobless, homeless and estranged
from his family. After he pulled his life together, he became a
therapist and then head of a Los Angeles anti-crystal-meth program.
He heard hundreds of others tell him about the devastation it caused
in their lives.

Yet when a friend placed a pipe with crystal meth in front of Barrett
last year, he lit it without hesitation. And his life started falling
apart again.

Barrett's relapse illustrates the power that the highly addictive
drug has even over those who become crusaders against it. After the
relapse -- his third over the past 21 years -- Barrett, 46, quickly
realized that crystal meth would kill him if he continued to use it.
He sought treatment at a Palm Springs recovery center and now directs
the education program of the Palm Springs Crystal Meth Task Force.

Barrett was one of more than 50 desert residents who met a year ago
to form the task force after becoming alarmed at how crystal meth was
ravaging the Coachella Valley's gay community. Many users were
getting infected with HIV. Barrett said he became HIV-positive in
1985 from unprotected sex while high either on crystal meth or
cocaine. Similar groups targeted at gay meth users are in Los
Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego.

Crystal meth is a form of methamphetamine that resembles small chunks
of ice.

Since its formation, the task force has distributed brochures warning
of the dangers of crystal meth and listing places to turn for help,
inaugurated a 24-hour hotline and trained local therapists, teachers
and others on helping people with meth addiction. The group has also
created two Web sites, one geared toward gay and bisexual men and the
other directed at a general audience.

The task force is raising money to put up billboards and is planning
to send speakers into area schools, said Robin Johnson, an addiction
specialist at Desert AIDS Project, which helps fund the task force.
Johnson herself lost her job, her partner and two jobs to meth addiction.

Meth has shattered the lives of people throughout the Inland area,
regardless of sexual orientation.

More than half of those seeking drug or alcohol treatment in
Riverside and San Bernardino counties are meth users, according to
health-department data.

The AIDS project is involved in crystal-meth education largely
because of the links between meth and HIV, Johnson said.

In 2003, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 9.5
percent of gay meth users statewide tested positive for HIV at
state-funded clinics, compared with 3.9 percent of gay men overall,
according to the state Department of Health Services.

Kevin Farrell, chief of education and prevention services for the
state AIDS office, said the 2006 numbers are probably similar.

Barrett, who in addition to his volunteer work with the task force is
interim director of education for the AIDS project, said he regularly
meets gay men who have avoided unsafe sex since the beginning of the
AIDS epidemic and turn reckless once they start using meth. Many are
older gay men who come to the desert to retire and are offered meth
at a social gathering, he said.

"Someone who has protected themselves for 20-plus years and always
used a condom is high on crystal and suddenly makes a choice not to
use a condom," he said.

"Every week we have somebody who made that choice and is now
infected."

Barrett sometimes mans booths that the task force sets up at events
such as the recent Greater Palm Springs Pride festival and at
VillageFest, the weekly street fair in downtown Palm Springs.

Many people who stop by the booths are friends and family members of
meth addicts who didn't know how to help them, Barrett said.

"A lot of people haven't had anyone they could talk to," he
said.

"They were going through it alone."

Barrett and other volunteers at the booths have also helped people
find treatment for their addiction. Some passersby pick up brochures
without saying a word. Barrett said that doesn't discourage him.

"Even if somebody doesn't want to get clean and sober today," he
said, "they'll know where to turn to in the future."