[PART ONE] Crystal Meth Uncensored: Susan Kingston's Remarks from the June 27 Center on Halsted Event

The following is the first installment (of 5) 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 2nd installment
Click here for the 3rd installment
Click here for the 4th installment
Click here for the 5th final...
Click here for her full remarks, all in one place. 

-------------------------

The most addictive drug is the one
you are addicted to.

Intro
I’ve been working exclusively on gay meth use for 10 years now. But my experience with gay substance use really goes all the way back to high school musicals. Who knew those innocent joints and bootlegged six-packs with the tenor section would ultimately bring us all together here to talk about speed and 24-hour erections? Who would have seen it coming?

Since then, I have proudly worn my fag hag sash, walking with one foot in my hetero world and one foot in your homo world. And this gives me a good vantage point from which to observe what’s happening in the gay community. It won’t take you long to tell that I have a big bug up my butt about what’s happening with this gay meth issue. Not with the fact that gay men are using it, but rather with how we are responding to it. My goal tonight is to have us step back a bit to get a better handle on what’s really going on. First by looking at the drug and the guys using it, then by turning the lens on ourselves.

About the drug
To start off, I’d like to take a few minutes to dispel some shamelessly wrong information that’s getting spread around about crystal meth. The media is full of sensationalism about this drug and over and over again spews out information that is often anecdotal, unsupported by facts, and at odds with existing data. I don’t expect every journalist to be a public health expert, addictions researcher, or epidemiologist, but I do expect them to actually think about what they’re saying. Take this for example:

Meth is the most addictive drug out there.
It is not. The most addictive drug is the one you are addicted to. Why is it that I have absolutely no interest in doing a line of coke, but if you put a plate of brownies in front of me I’d kill like a panther to get at them? You simply can not say that everyone will have exactly the same experience with a drug. It oversimplifies the complex nature of addiction. There is no empirical support for single use dependency with any drug, so the “one hit and you’re hooked” theory is completely false. Guys might FEEL like that, but feeling utterly overwhelmed and knocked off your feet by a drug does not mean you are addicted to it or have become dependent upon it. It takes a little more than one weekend of partying to get there.

Do you know who loves and benefits from all this negative and exaggerated press? Cocaine dealers. Meth has become so demonized that guys are simply going to the next best thing. We seem to have forgotten our Less Than Zero days and are blindly embracing coke as we did low-carb diets. We are definitely seeing this trend on the west coast. In Seattle, you could do a line in the bathroom at any gay bar and nobody would notice. Pull out a cigarette and people would look at you like you just pulled out a gun. The dissonance is amazing.

Myth #2 Meth users fail treatment.
No. It’s more likely that treatment programs are failing to provide adequate treatment. When you look at treatment success indicators like retention, program completion, recidivism, abstinence sustained after discharge, employment, etc, meth folks do just as well as all the other folks. Just like I said before, the hardest drug to quit is the one you are addicted to. Guys have to know they are not hopeless cases. I’m not saying that recovery is easy. I’m saying that it is absolutely, without a doubt possible.

Susan Kingston bio

Susan Kingston is an Educator Consultant with the Drug Use and HIV Prevention Team at Public Health – Seattle & King County and the former Director of Prevention at Stonewall Recovery Services. For ten years, she has worked primarily with gay and bisexual methamphetamine users as both a drug use and harm reduction counselor and as the coordinator of the region’s largest HIV prevention program targeting methamphetamine users. Currently she consults on several research, community intervention and treatment expansion projects related to methamphetamine in the Seattle area and guides lgbt substance use programming at Public Health. She is also a consultant to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime on efforts regarding prevention of global methamphetamine abuse.