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

The following is the second 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 3rd installment
Click here for the 4th installment
Click here for the 5th and final

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

 

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...if you’re on a mission to rid the gay community of meth, you better also be prepared to start crowbar-ing guys out of bars, stop accepting Miller Light sponsorship of gay pride, stop letting Absolut financially prop up your local gay newspaper, and start a campaign to eliminate the sale of poppers in sex clubs.

Myth #3 Meth is the worst drug problem to ever hit the gay community.

Do you know which substance sends more gay men to drug treatment than any other? Yes, alcohol. Alcohol is the #1 drug of abuse among admits in treatment centers gay and straight. Always has been, and probably always will be. Alcohol dependence affects far more people than meth. Physical damage from chronic alcohol use is just as serious, and in many cases even MORE serious and permanent, than meth. More of your tax money is spent on responding to public health and safety consequences of alcohol than meth. Things like detox, drug treatment, DUI arrests and prosecutions, sales regulations, liver disease, multi-drug overdose which almost always involves alcohol, car accidents, property damage from accidents, you get the idea here. Our gay community is swimming in problematic alcohol use, and the reasons are fairly obvious. It really becomes obvious when we see ads like a rainbow Absolute bottle and The Bud Light logo wrapped in a rainbow swirl. Beer and liquor companies are making lots of profit marketing their wares directly to gays and lesbians. And we love it. We love the money they give us to sponsor AIDS fundraisers and beer gardens at Pride.

This week I did a search of gay pride websites of the 20 largest cities across the country.

The list included: NY, Dallas, Austin LA, Detroit, Memphis Chicago, Indianapolis, Baltimore Houston, Salt Lake City, Seattle Philly, Denver, Charlotte San Antonio, San Fran, Boston San Diego, Columbus

Out of 20 Gay Prides, how many had Bud Light or Miller as a “proud corporate sponsor?” 18 Out of 20 Gay Prides, how many had Stoli, Skyy, Smirnoff or Absolut as a “proud corporate sponsor?” 14

How many had both? Over half-12.

ow many of these sites had a corporate alcohol logo featured prominently on their homepage? One-third 6.

It’s no wonder that while we’re marching we don’t chant, “We’re here. We’re Queer. We’ve got cirrhosis.” Sort of bites the hand that feeds us, right? So it’s OK to spend Pride weekend getting smashed on cheap beer and Cosmos as long as we’re not snorting crystal.

While you’re savoring our hypocrisy with alcohol, let’s not forget our dear friend poppers. You guys have a death grip on those little bottles like a steel trap. And they are just as commonly associated with sexual risk behavior and seroconversion as crystal is. Read your research literature, folks, it’s all there. And again, more guys use poppers than meth. On average, about 10% of gay men have used crystal in the past year. It’s 2-4 times that with poppers. Take one look at Craigslist and you’ll see ads all over that say “no PNP. Poppers OK.”

Is this really OK? Is it really OK that guys feel like they can’t have the sex they want without inhaling chemicals? I realize that no one is losing a job to poppers addiction, but plenty are getting HIV.

Is this really OK?

So if you’re on a mission to rid the gay community of meth, you better also be prepared to start crowbar-ing guys out of bars, stop accepting Miller Light sponsorship of gay pride, stop letting Absolut financially prop up your local gay newspaper, and start a campaign to eliminate the sale of poppers in sex clubs. Are you all ready to do that? Makes you want to have a drink just thinking about it, doesn’t it?

I’ve got one more word on rampant gay drug use and then I’ll move on…Viagra.

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.