Gay activists trying to make meth 'uncool'

NEW YORK -- It's a Friday evening, traditional kickoff time for the party scene in New York's gay community, but the 75 men packed into a small room at a gay health center aren't in a partying mood.

Through a humbling 12-step program modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous, they are battling to kick their addiction to methamphetamine, and in doing so escape an epidemic that is roiling urban gay communities nationwide with disease, despair, embarrassment and anger.

Meth is an equal-opportunity menace -- many thousands of men and women, gay and straight, have fallen prey to it in rural villages, placid suburbs and city slums. But gay leaders in New York, California and elsewhere bluntly acknowledge that their communities have distinctive problems with the drug, and an unavoidable responsibility to combat it.

"Years from now we'll look back, as gay men, and be pretty despondent that we popularized and glamorized this drug," said Dan Carlson, an ex-addict who has become one of New York's leading anti-meth campaigners.

Crystal meth -- which can be snorted, smoked or injected -- has been a popular gay party drug on the West Coast for more than a decade, and in New York since the late 1990s. In many cities, however, gay activists and health officials were not quick to confront the fact that the drug, by curbing inhibitions and boosting energy, encourages unsafe multipartner sex and thus increases the risk of HIV transmission.

In New York, alarm over meth intensified in February, when health officials reported a rare strain of highly resistant, rapidly progressing HIV in a gay man who regularly engaged in meth-fueled sex parties. But the tide began turning against the drug a year earlier, when gay activists held the first of several forums on the epidemic and an ex-addict named Peter Staley circulated posters with an eye-catching message: "Buy Crystal. Get HIV Free."

Staley, a bond trader-turned-AIDS activist, is guardedly optimistic that the forums and ad campaigns are helping stigmatize the drug.

"A year and a half ago, this was a whispered-about epidemic," he said. "If it came up, it was someone bragging about their wild weekend on meth, and no one had the courage to say, 'What the hell are you laughing about?' That's completely changed."

One indicator that the anti-meth message is spreading is a surge of addicts seeking help at Crystal Meth Anonymous and other recovery programs.

Meth Anonymous started in New York six years ago with one weekly meeting, attended by a half-dozen men. It now offers 24 meetings a week, attended by anywhere from a dozen to more than 100 people.

Some of the men at the recent Friday meeting, clearly on edge, were just beginning their attempt to quit; others had been off meth for two years, yet still embraced the intensive group support in trying to stay sober.

The evening's speaker, a former flight attendant celebrating a year off meth, riveted the audience with a wrenching account of his life. "Darkness" was how he described his life at the nadir.

The spiritual, abstinence-only philosophy of Meth Anonymous works for some, repels others. Some counselors espouse an alternative known as "harm reduction," cautioning users about meth's risks while encouraging addicts who can't quit to avoid overdoses, take care of their health and -- to the extent possible -- engage in safe sex even while high.

Jean Malpas, a gay psychotherapist in New York, has been handling meth-related cases for four years. He won't condemn harm reduction, but says he has yet to encounter anyone who can use meth recreationally without developing an addiction.

"At some point, when Friday night comes along, they don't know what else to do," he said.

Increased publicity about the gay meth epidemic comes at an awkward time for the national gay-rights movement as it pushes for same-sex marriage rights.

"There is anger at the opportunity this phenomenon is giving the rest of the world to associate the gay identity with promiscuous sex, with out-of-control behavior," Malpas said. "We don't need additional opportunities to be perceived negatively."

Kathleen Watt, who runs the Van Ness addiction-recovery center in Los Angeles, believes some major gay advocacy groups have tried to play down the epidemic.

"They're afraid people are going to say, 'Why should we put money into HIV treatment when these guys are knowingly going out and having sex and infecting other people?"' she said.

Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said some accounts of the gay meth problem had been "salacious" and "overjudgmental" -- highlighting the role of promiscuous sex while underplaying the destructive addictiveness of meth for any user, gay or straight.

Foreman and other gay-rights leaders also note that even in the hardest-hit communities, most gay men don't use meth. Estimates have ranged from 10 percent or 20 percent of all gay men, and as high as 40 percent in San Francisco -- by any measure a problem that can't be wished away.

New York City's health department contributed $300,000 last year to support the activists' education campaigns. More money is coming this year.

One of the celebrities who enlisted in the campaign is John Cameron Mitchell, director and star of the hit film "Hedwig and the Angry Inch."

"I've seen a lot of friends wasting away -- they start to look like a ghost and can't even see it," he said. "What we need are intelligent scare tactics, to convince people the drug is uncool."