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What in the hell was the Lifelong AIDS Alliance in Seattle thinking when they came up with this HIV prevention campaign? My guess is that they weren’t.

Dan Savage writes about this failed attempt to educate gay men about crystal meth and HIV by Lifelong.

This isn’t the first time LLAA has wrapped crystal meth use up in images of gay pride and community in a misguided effort to “de-stigmatize” crystal meth use—an activity which, when you consider the consequences for individuals and the gay community as a whole, gay health organizations should be working harder to stigmatize. An image of condom packet walking hand-in-hand with a rock of crystal will not reach men that are currently using crystal—most of whom abuse crystal meth to annihilate their inhibitions and engage in casual unprotected anal sex—while communicating to men that aren’t using crystal that they can “safely” use the drug and “FUCK without fear.”

I don’t know that I agree with Dan that we should be working harder to stigmatize meth, but this campaign is ridiculous. Surely we can do much better than this. The men who are currently using meth and need help won’t be reached by school marm wagging her finger type campaigns. Those kinds of campaigns will simply make them feel even worse about a habit that they may be embarrassed about and make them less likely to seek help. The men who are thinking about trying meth for the first time or are casual users who may not be addicted will look at the men they see using the drug and are not crystal messes and think that using meth can’t be as bad as gay health activists are making it out to be.

Jim Pickett of AIDS Foundation Chicago has quite a bit to say about gay men’s health, HIV and meth prevention. In an interview that I did with him in October he said:

Hmmm, I have seen little innovation actually – so many of our messages are just really ugly, fear-based and dehumanizing. We have moved away from that here in Chicago and I have seen this shift elsewhere – but we all still really default to the demonization of the drug, and the consequent demonization of the user. I think what is, and will be most effective, is a harm reduction approach that is asset based and empowering and addresses both the bad AND THE GOOD in crystal in a broad context of substance ab/use. After all, no one does crystal the second time because it was a horror show. They go back for more because the first time was ROCKING. That is true, and pretending it’s not is obvious to anyone who has used it, or is using. We need to meet people wherever they are on the continuum of use and abuse and provide them with appropriate, culturally literate information and support. Please, no more skeletons and crystal messes! No more “Meth = Death.”

The guys who are drawn to it are often guys who like risks and a sense of danger and being on the edge – our playing up the sssssscary aspects is an enticement. We really need to be just good presenters of clear, clean information and trust that men will make decisions for themselves using that info. They may make decisions that some of us do not fancy – tough. That’s the way it works honey. And we need to be there for everyone – whether they follow recommendations or not. We are all human, and we are all struggling with a variety of things – let’s let our response to crystal meth be led by compassion.

Related:
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Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Gay Men’s Health
Who Says Young Gay Men are Shallow?