Articles & Profiles
Tweakers
How Crystal Meth is Ravaging Gay America
By Frank Sanello
2005, Alyson Publications, ISBN 1-55583-884-7
Softcover, 249 pages
The bullshit propaganda that gay people are fed by the straight media is horrifying. But not nearly as horrifying as the bullshit propaganda we quite happily feed ourselves.
Tweakers. How Crystal Meth is Ravaging Gay America is a perfect example of negative propaganda being fed to a gay audience under the guise of yet another wake-up call to a community that is "destroying itself". This time the alarm is being sounded over Crystal Meth, also known as Crank, Tina, Ice or Chalk. It is yet another drug- like crack cocaine or PCP were for earlier generations- that is being blamed for the many terrible things that sometimes happen in our community.
As such books invariably are, it is filled with anecdotal horror stories related by the poor people who have become addicted to the drug. Each of these tales follows a pattern that becomes quickly recognizable. "Subject starts doing drug recreationally. Subject starts to take increasingly higher doses of drug in order to replicate that first high. Subject becomes addicted to drug, starts having unsafe sex for hours or days at a time, destroys their family/social/professional life, hits rock bottom in some hideously dramatic fashion, realizes they have a problem and tries to get off crystal, usually unsuccessfully." Of course the details vary slightly- some are successful businessmen, others are wild club kids, most of them are just average fags like you and me- but once you've read the first narrative of a meth addict you've read them all. In fact, once you've read any story involving negative addiction, whether it's alcohol, cocaine, heroin, greasy fried foods, kinky sex or cigarettes, you've read them all and they get tiresome very fast. As most gay men will learn by the time they're thirty, the only thing more boring than being involved with a drug addict is being a drug addict yourself.
These sad, repetitive stories are interspersed with information bytes from various medical and support agencies that contribute to the demonization of drugs in general and crystal in particular. The author, like many before him, draws a very direct line from crystal use to HIV seroconversion. It's a neat, tidy book and would be far less offensive if it actually was what it should have been- a pamphlet. But it's not one of those informative little pamphlets they hand out in bars and bath houses to keep the public informed of new developments and trends on the party/sex scene. It's a book. It costs $19.95 in the U.S. (No Canadian price given.) and, as the back blurb claims, "… might just save your life- or the life of someone you love."
Despite these rather grandiose claims I saw nothing in this book that went even an iota beyond the expected "war on drugs" party-line that America likes so much. It's the attitude that says all drugs are bad and must be wiped out, that there are no casual or recreational users of drugs, just addicts and that all of an addict's problems stem from the drug they do rather than the decisions they make. This morally simplistic attitude doesn't work, consumes huge amounts of tax dollars to enforce in a mediocre fashion, stigmatizes the diseased addicts by making them criminals and forces mind-altering substances underground where both their purity and their quality are uncontrolled and dangerous. Better to legalize all substances, let the grown-ups do what they want to (as with alcohol, prescription drugs and tobacco) and talk about the real problems, which aren't crystal or any other drug, but addiction, hypocrisy and hatred.
It seems not only offensive but also somewhat dangerous to suggest that crystal meth is the number one reason behind the recent rise in HIV infection. While it is true, as Tweakers states repeatedly, that men on crystal make some very bad sexual decisions brought on by the sexual frenzy the drug sometimes induces, it is also true that if it weren't for the very popular erection enhancing drugs like Viagra to offset the impotence usually brought on by any speed-based drug, the rate of HIV infection would be lessened considerably. I suspect very few people have ever been infected with HIV by someone with a limp cock. And while Tweakers is quite happy to lay the blame on crystal I still suspect that there are more gay men using alcohol to give themselves permission to fuck bareback than any other substance. These are all very complex problems and to suggest they're simpler then they actually are is to suggest there is an equally simple solution and that's where the danger comes in.
It's interesting to note that the last five years has seen a rise, not only in HIV infection, but other STD's, most notably syphilis, as well. Many point their finger at increased drug use as the culprit, despite the fact crystal and drugs like it have been around and available for decades. No one points their finger at another force even stronger and more persuasive than drugs that has also been affecting the gay community for an equal amount of time. I'm talking about George Bush and the Republican party of America. That isn't meant facetiously. Ever since Bush took power, broke the rule of international law to wage his personal war in Iraq, got into bed with the Evangelicals to win a second term and gave Americans permission to break any law they don't "morally" agree with, the gay community has been under tremendous pressure. In fact, the last five years, in which the battle for equal rights symbolized by gay marriage has exposed just how much church and state sanctioned hatred still exists throughout the world for homosexuals, have probably been the most stressful in our community's history. There's nothing like asking to take part in straight people's most flawed and malleable institution to reveal just how irrational and deeply held their hatred of homosexuality is. People talk with great alarm about the number of substance abusers in our community but, given the opposition we face every minute of every day, I'm actually surprised that there are so many people in our community who don't abuse substances at all.
It's hard not to feel like you're worthless when the rest of the world keeps telling you you're worthless. And we are worthless to straight people, less that worthless. Take the recent death orgy surrounding that broken hand-puppet of evil, The Pope. They came from far and wide to honour him. They sang his praises and listed his wondrous accomplishments. But all I know about the Pope is that he condemns the use of condoms and sees homosexuality as a sin. So to me, the Pope is a mass murderer who is responsible for the spread of AIDS through much of the emerging world and the main reason substance abuse is so common in the gay community. To my mind, these are not the accomplishments of a "good man". A large number of Catholics have stated they want the next Pope to be more liberal with issues like abortion, divorce and priests marrying. Not one of them wants the new Pope to change his stand against gay marriage.
And who came to see the Pope off to the next world? Let's see, George Bush the senior, responsible for putting Sadam Huesain and his murderous regime into power, leading to the deaths of thousands of the Iraqi people, George Bush the junior, responsible for starting a war against the man his father put into power that led to the deaths of thousands of Iraqi people because of "inaccurate information", Bill Clinton, who, with his "oral sex isn't sex" stand, is pretty much single-handedly responsible for forcing every teen-age girl in America into being an accomplished cocksucker by age twelve and Prince Charles, an admitted adulterer. These are our leaders. These are our "good men". They allow us to be systematically oppressed because we have "lifestyles their constituents/subjects/people aren't comfortable with."
And someone's going to try to tell me Crystal Meth is the problem that's ravaging the gay community in America? Wouldn't things be so much easier if that were true?