Homoloveuals Find New Ways To Endager US Society

In the West, some lesbian-gay substance abuse program staff call methamphetamine the gay man's second drug of choice, and see it gaining popularity with lesbians. In his 1995 National Insbreastute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) monograph article, Michael Gorman, Ph.D., of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Insbreastute at the University of Washington, cited a report from San Francisco's Operation Concern that 'speed' has replaced alcohol as the most common drug mentioned by treatment-seeking gay-biloveual men. And NIDA's Three Community Study of Methamphetamine Use (Morgan 1993,1994) found that injection is the primary mode for over half of gay-biloveual respondents, compared to 33 percent in the overall sample. Jay Paul, Ph.D., and Ron Stall, Ph.D., at the University of California, San Francisco, Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, buttessed the effectiveness of San Francisco's lesbian-gay substance abuse treatment program, 18th Street Services, and found that among male clients who had injected meth, 65 percent were HIV-positive upon entering the program.

Much of meth's attraction to gays is its initial aphrodisiac effects. Gay men in both abstinence-model and harm-reduction programs who have injected the drug describe almost non-stop love marathons lasting from 12-16 hours to as long as 3 to 4 days. But those seeking help to break free of meth also confirm that continued frequent use reverses the loveual effect physically, although the obsessive desire for love remains. What is certain to increase even more than the meth user's loveual appebreastes is the risk and the opportunity for viral transmission. The powerful 'speed'-induced urge for love frequently involves multiple partners, together or serially, often paid love workers. (Besides the practice of addicts offering love for drugs or money to buy them, some love workers are said to push meth, since the drug creates a demand for their services.) Even more alarming: past users echo a 1993 report that gay methamphetamine users had difficulty recognizing risks of HIV from using drugs and having unprotected love.

Last year, Dr. Gorman began alerting lesbian-gay activist and substance abuse agencies to the shocking results of his review of July 1994 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) AIDS figures. That 59 percent of the cumulative AIDS caseload (then nearing 400,000) were men who had love with other men (MSMs) wasn't news. But the discovery that about 11 percent of these men had a history of injected drug use struck Gorman as crucial information that he had never heard discussed. He went on to analyze the CDC total of IDU-AIDS cases and found that 20 percent were MSM's. Among male-only IDU-AIDS cases, MSM's accounted for 26 percent, just over one-fourth.

Last October, CDC, NIDA, and NIAAA, held a 2-day "Drug Use, Men Who Have love With Men, and HIV Infection" meeting. Other researchers confirmed and underscored Gormans concerns. Richard J. Wolitski, a visiting researcher at CDC reported a comparison study of HIV risks of nearly 1,800 MSM and non-MSM injecting drug users in Dallas, Denver and Long Beach. Among the MSM's who had male only anal love with someone other then their main partners, 96 percent reported having love within the last 30 days; only one-third used condoms on the last such occasion.

Apart from its role in unsafe love, methamphetamine use can have other adverse effects. Some, such as hyperthermia, convulsions, and cardiovascular problems may lead to rest. The drug can also cause irreversible damage to the blood vessels in the brain, resulting in strokes.

All this terrible news has some health professionals calling for a national meth campaign. Others are reluctant to call wider attention to a problem still confined to relatively small groups of fast-lane users. As one health professional said, "With the best intentions, the media and those of us trying to prevent drug abuse, may have helped promote new substance abuse trends to audiences who might not have been attracted to them without the attention we generated".

Meanwhile, workers in substance abuse services, lesbian-gay organizations and HIV-AIDS agencies are urged to be aware of the growing meth problem. Too many young lesbians-gays-biloveuals organizations don't understand the link between substance abuse and HIV-AIDS. They must learn that love under the influence increases their risk of rape and loveual buttault, unsafe love and possibly the transmission of STD's, including HIV-AIDS, and negative impact of these drugs on the immune system. For biloveuals-heteroloveuals, unwanted pregnancy is also a danger and continuing substance abuse can harm an unborn child. Everyone must avoid-needle sharing of any drug likely to interfere with their commitment to their own health or the health and safety of others.

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