THE PARTY DRUG THAT KILLS

"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 HIV 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 HIV. At the time, there was no "cocktail" (the
combination of medications that can now keep HIV-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 --
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
HIV-positive.

Today, things are changing. For many reasons, perhaps one being the
fact that HIV medications have improved to the point where HIV 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 toward 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 HIV-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.