Pubdate: Thu, 08 Sep 2005
Source: Capital Xtra! (CN ON)
Copyright: 2005 Pink Triangle Press
Contact:  http://www.xtra.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2153
Author: Kevin Ritchie
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)

LIVING WITH CRYSTAL METH

Former Addict Volunteers Time To Help Others

For Brian Finch, crystal meth was part of a mid-life crisis. It helped him 
escape from the day-to-day realities of living with HIV, energized his love 
life and made him feel sexy.

All his friends were taking it. Although he watched some of them spend 
exorbitant amounts of money on the drug and lose their jobs when their 
habits started to affect their ability to work, he continued doing crystal 
from the late 1990s up until 2003.

"I wasn't spending tons of money and I was maintaining a manageable life. 
So I didn't think I had problem," he says. "The problem was, it was making 
me more and more sick."

His adherence to his meds became sporadic. Crystal wasn't the only drug in 
his party regimen. He also took GHB and ecstasy.

"I literally thought I was going to end up dead or in jail. I overdosed 
twice. That wasn't even enough to get me to stop," he says. "I had to cut 
all my ties with everybody and stay home alone because everyone I know was 
doing it."

Now off party drugs, Finch volunteers as the Ontario representative for the 
Canadian Treatment Action Council (CTAC). Last month he attended the First 
National Conference On Methamphetamine, HIV And Hepatitis in Salt Lake 
City, Utah on behalf of CTAC.

The two-day conference brought together 900 law enforcement agents, 
scientists, outreach workers, treatment specialists and social marketers. 
The conference was organized by Salt Lake City's Harm Reduction Project and 
was the first of its kind.

The event opened with a keynote address by Patricia Case, assistant 
professor in Harvard Medical School's School Of Social Medicine, who gave a 
history of methamphetamine and challenged the prevailing notion that its 
use is epidemic is sweeping North America. She argued that meth is just the 
latest trend in North American society's historical love affair with 
stimulants.

One of the key topics discussed at the conference was strategies for 
anti-crystal campaigns. Compared with the US, Finch says Canadian drug 
policy and awareness campaigns tend to be more pragmatic, non-judgmental 
and open-ended. A lot of the anti-crystal campaigns south of the border 
focus on "Just Say No"-style messages such as the blunt "Buy crystal, get 
HIV free!" campaign produced by Aidsmeds.com in New York City (for more on 
Aidsmeds.com turn to page 14).

A hard-line abstinence-only message is prevalent in the US, especially in 
Republican-dominated Utah where the focus is on criminalization. Members of 
Congress, the US Senate and media attacked the conference as a taking a 
soft approach and promoting a pro-legalization agenda.

In a letter to the US Department Of Health And Human Services, one of the 
major sponsors of the conference, US Republican Congressman Mark Souder 
condemned the conference's harm reduction approach, arguing that it 
undermines US federal policies on drugs.

"That administration officials from your department are consulting with 
harm-reduction advocates ... and sponsoring conferences controlled by the 
harm-reduction network completely undermines the work of the president, the 
Congress and the men and women who work in law enforcement across the 
nation who are trying desperately to fight the meth epidemic," Souder 
wrote, according to the Washington Times.

Salt Lake City's mayor Rocky Anderson, an outspoken critic of the Bush 
administration and its policies, defended the conference during an address. 
He stressed that more money is needed for treatment and called the "Just 
Say No" approach a "dismal failure."

"The mayor really put himself out there," says Nick Boyce, who attended the 
conference on behalf of the AIDS Committee Of Toronto (ACT). "In the 
political climate he's in, I have a lot of respect for him. It gave me a 
sense of hope."

Finch admits the overwhelming amount of information at the conference 
initially prompted him to think the hard-line approach was the right one.

"As a former user, my first reaction was, 'We need to have a clampdown and 
we really need to stigmatize this,'" he says. "And as I walked away I 
realized that's not going to work."

Going clean and cutting ties with his party lifestyle worked for Finch, but 
he points out that may not work for everyone. He says that strong 
peer-to-peer support alongside nonjudgmental campaigns and treatment will 
ultimately help gay and bisexual men make healthy choices.

Once the addiction is beaten, Finch says, the original feelings of 
depression, loneliness and anxiety linger, posing a new challenge: facing 
your feelings without turning back to drugs.

"You really have to learn to have sex all over again," he says. "After not 
doing crystal, sex seems dull and boring. Why bother?"

Along with the chemical effects of drugs like crystal, outreach workers at 
organizations like CTAC and ACT say that social attitudes specific to the 
queer community play a part in men's decisions to have unprotected sex, 
thereby increasing the risk of HIV transmission.

Boyce, ACT's gay men's harm reduction coordinator, says ACT intends to 
launch a crystal awareness campaign at the end of the year that will draw 
on interviews with crystal users, ex-users and nonusers and target the 
reasons why some men have unprotected sex when high.

"A lot of men want to connect with other men. It's a very sexualized 
culture, we've been conditioned to think about sex and to have sex," says 
Boyce. "Some men feel guilty about being gay, about having sex. It may not 
be overt, but subtle reasons play out in your head."

Although the sense is that gay men use crystal mainly for sex, heterosexual 
men take it as an energy booster and for partying - sex isn't in the top 
three reasons. A trucker might take it to stay awake while on a long haul, 
while street youth get into because it's a cheap high. Some people, 
primarily women, use it to lose weight.

In Utah, a state with 2.2-million citizens, there are 10 crystal anonymous 
groups. In Toronto, home to 2.48 million people, the city's only crystal 
anonymous group met last month at the 519 Community Centre for the first time.

[Sidebar]

ACT gets hard on crystal

Kevin Ritchie / Capital Xtra / Thursday, September 08, 2005

After months of pressure from local activists, the AIDS Committee Of 
Toronto (ACT) has firmed up its position on crystal methamphetamine, 
clearly acknowledging a link between its use and unprotected sex among gay 
and bisexual men.

"Anecdotal evidence suggests that crystal meth leads some men to engage in 
unprotected sex when they normally wouldn't," states a fact sheet published 
on ACT's website last month. "It should be noted, however, that while some 
research studies support this, others are inconclusive."

In June, ACT's director of communications and community relations John 
Maxwell told Xtra the link was "not clear at all," and pointed to 
contradictory research, which concluded gay men were no more likely to 
engage in unsafe sex while high on crystal than while using other drugs, 
such as marijuana.

But now ACT's communications coordinator Tyler Steim says the organization 
recognized the link all along.

"ACT has always acknowledged a connection between crystal meth and HIV 
transmission," says Steim. "What we have been reluctant to do - especially 
in light of the recent hysteria surrounding meth and HIV in the US - is 
overstate that link and represent crystal meth and HIV as a simple 
cause-and-effect relationship."

Steim says the agency never tried to downplay a link between crystal use 
and HIV transmission, but rather that it was attempting to counter 
hard-line views by pointing to complexities around crystal use in the queer 
community.

The new fact sheet points to "underlying cultural issues/attitudes within 
the gay and bisexual community" which lead men to take sexual risks when 
high on crystal meth. For example, men might take crystal to escape from 
the day-to-day realities of HIV treatment, to feel desirable or to combat 
depression and feelings of guilt.

"Ultimately, what we were saying wasn't getting across," he says. "We 
should have been timelier with our position statement, but [we] stand by 
the harm-reduction approach we've taken to date."

Steim adds that ACT has applied for a research grant to study the link 
between crystal meth and HIV transmission and hopes to begin an awareness 
campaign later this year.

Greg Downer, a volunteer safer-sex educator with ACT who was suspended for 
criticizing the organization's soft position on crystal, says he's pleased 
with the change.

"The fact sheet is clear, concise, to the point and very representative of 
the reality crystal presents to the community," says Downer. "There's no 
ambiguity. People can now make informed decisions."

Downer, who was forced to take a six-month leave from the Gay Men's 
Outreach Program last April, says he's hoping to return earlier now that 
his point of view is no longer in conflict with ACT. Steim declined to 
comment on Downer's situation citing confidentiality issues.

ACT isn't the only organization that's taking crystal more seriously 
lately. The federal government recently announced a reclassification of the 
drug from a schedule three classification under the Controlled Drugs And 
Substances to a schedule one classification, placing it on par with cocaine 
and heroin. That means tougher penalties for those caught producing, 
trafficking or selling the drug. In addition, stricter controls on the 
chemicals used to make crystal are expected to be announced soon.

The AIDS Committee Of Toronto's new fact sheet on crystal meth can be found 
at Actoronto.org/website/home.nsf/cl/act.docs.0468.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom