[FINAL INSTALLMENT] Crystal Meth Uncensored

The following is the FIFTH and FINAL installment of Susan Kingston's remarks from her talk at the Center on Halsted June 27 titled: "Crystal Meth Uncensored - What the DEA and the Gay Media Won't Tell You."

Click here for the 1st installment
Click here for the 2nd installment
Click here for the 3rd installment
Click here for the 4th installment

Click here for her full remarks, all in one place. 

It seems that if pleasure and thrill are part of the attraction, then we should be talking about that. Because if we did, the conversation would really stop being about crystal, wouldn’t it? It would be about what gay men are really yearning for – not getting high or getting fucked, but loving and feeling loved. And when you start talking about that, crystal starts to seem pointless. And that’s how we want men to view this drug.

I would be thrilled if I heard just one newspaper or prevention program say, “The majority of gay men don’t use drugs. The majority of gay men doesn’t have HIV and are damn careful about sexual risk. Most gay men aren’t broken or reckless or irresponsible. They go to work, shop for groceries, and value love like everyone else.” Because it’s true. You know, guys, in reality, you’re really just as boring as the rest of us. Better dressed yes, but your lives are just as deliciously uneventful. And we never hear that about gay men.

Eric Rofes called for a mindset, a new dharma with three core, guiding beliefs:


1. Gay men individually and collectively are healthy, reasonable, and successful at creating meaningful lives.



2. Gay men have more assets and strengths than they do deficits that help the community thrive.



3. All gay men have a baseline interest in and commitment to self-care and we will not separate ourselves from those whose baselines are lower than ours.



If this is how you fundamentally view the gay world, then it becomes easy to resist the urge to stigmatize this drug under the guise of “raising community awareness.” Gay history has been built upon the principles of acceptance, creativity, resiliency, and humanity. Why do we abandon these principles when it comes to gay men who use drugs?

The elephant in the room here is how great crystal feels. But we don’t dare mention that. It’s as if all the men who have survived this drug have taken a vow of silence about what was great about crystal. Or if they do recount any glory they immediately must bookend it with a horror. We might get closer towards the solution if we end this silence on the enjoyment on crystal. It seems that if pleasure and thrill are part of the attraction, then we should be talking about that. Because if we did, the conversation would really stop being about crystal, wouldn’t it? It would be about what gay men are really yearning for – not getting high or getting fucked, but loving and feeling loved. And when you start talking about that, crystal starts to seem pointless. And that’s how we want men to view this drug.

But it’s becoming more difficult to honestly talk about drug and alcohol abuse. Alcoholics and drug addicts don’t feature into the contemporary portrait of a gay man who is married, vacations in Tuscany and Puerto Vallarta, takes his dog to doggy daycare, adopts 2 children, and still has time to nursemaid the dating woes of his straight gal friends and selflessly offer male co-workers advice on grooming products. Addicted fags make the rest of us look bad.

Unfortunately, our discomfort with the topic, on whatever basis, unintentionally reinforces the acceptability of drug use. The silence only serves to substantiate and support the norm that gay men like to get high and fuck. That’s just what they do. And I don’t think that’s acceptable. And clearly you don’t either or you wouldn’t be here tonight.

The most powerful antidote we have is gay men talking to gay men. Not posters talking to gay men. Gay men talking to gay men. And their doctors talking to gay men. And their women friends talking to gay men. You know women are the real saviors and nurturers out there. We covered your sorry asses at prom, and we’re still looking out for you!

Here’s another part of the solution. Ask men who are using crystal right now what THEY think. Because we discount them as functioning, contributing beings, we discount their insight into their own experience. There is valuable, self-aware, and observant wisdom out there that should be tapped into. If you’re creating a poster campaign and ask meth users what they think only after you’ve come up with a first design, you’ve already blown it. These guys can play an active, creative and meaningful role in finding solutions.

You have to psych yourself up for a long, sustained effort here. Prevention is a process, not an event. It’s crystal today. Tomorrow it will be something else. Think about what you’ll be doing this year, next year, and the year after that. You can’t just stop at one poster campaign.

But before any of that, take a time out. Get away from all the marketing, messaging and crisis talk. Breathe. Talk with each other. Listen. Use this opportunity to do something different. Be boldly compassionate.

If your best friend or the man you loved got caught up in crystal and needed your help, what would you do? To what length would you go to help this precious person in your life? Now do exactly that for every man in your community and you’ve got this meth problem licked.

Thank you.