Pubdate: Thu, 20 Jan 2005
Source: Gay City News (NY)
Volume 4, Issue 3
Copyright: 2005 Gay City News
Contact:  http://www.gaycitynews.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3651
Author: Duncan Osborne
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/racial.htm (Racial Issues)

HARLEM MEETING ADDRESSES METH USE

Health Experts Debunk Notion That The Drug's Use Is a White-Only Phenomenon

A town meeting exploring how the use of crystal meth affects gay and
bisexual men of color drew roughly 75 people to the National Black
Theater in Harlem on January 11.

"One of the things that we rarely get to hear about is crystal and
African-American and Latino men who have sex with men," said Soraya
Elcock, deputy director for prevention services at Harlem United, an
AIDS service organization and one of three sponsors of the event.

After welcoming the crowd, Elcock urged them to act, saying, "I don't
want to wake up ten years from now and see a crisis in my community."

That crisis may have already arrived.

Following an overview on crystal from Damien Caruth, a community
health specialist at Harlem United, Dr. L. Jeannine Bookhardt-Murray,
the agency's medical director, told the crowd that she has been
working in Harlem since 1984 and had witnessed the wreckage caused by
other drugs.

"I have seen this community devastated time and time again," she said.
"I have seen heroin, I have seen PCP, I have seen crack."

Bookhardt-Murray is seeing men of color who are dealing with
crystal.

"This drug has made its way across the country and uptown," she
said.

Bookhardt-Murray presented data on how meth works, its effects on the
body and noted that meth users can have a difficult time quitting.

"It is a jones," she said. "It is a real drive to get that thing that
makes you feel better."

Kelly Green, a research associate at the Center for HIV/AIDS
Educational Studies and Training (CHEST) and one of five presenters at
the town meeting, discussed data from a 1999 CHEST study.

Of the 49 men recruited for that study, 12, or 26 percent, were
African American and five, or 10 percent, were Latino. While those
numbers are provocative, the entire sample is too small to generalize
though Green said that the perception that meth is a white gay man's
drug was not accurate.

"What we are seeing lately is that is really not true," she
said.

Green noted the "complex interplay" of meth, other drugs, and sex.
Meth users tend to use crystal with other drugs, they associate sex
with meth and they tend to have far more sex partners than men who use
other drugs. That poses serious hurdles for treatment programs.

"You're really saying to these men you need to drop everybody you
know," Green said. "I really think that treatment and prevention
programs need to address the sex and meth link."

Michael Kelly, the panel's one meth user and a self-described "harm
reductionist," said that he used crystal while avoiding the damage
noted by Bookhardt-Murray.

"Certain drugs can be used intelligently and without the bad effects
the doctor described before," he said. "If you use it, please use it
intelligently."

Kelly said he had used a number of drugs and that he does not
experience the craving to get high on meth that he felt when he was
using crack cocaine.

"I've used meth, I've used crack, I've used marijuana, etcetera,
etcetera, etcetera," he said. "That does not happen to me with crystal
meth... I take holidays from my use."

Andres Hoyos, a social worker at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgender Community Center, another sponsor of the town meeting,
described the range of services available at the Center for meth users
including harm reduction groups, recovery readiness groups, 12-step
groups and referrals to programs that can help with meth detox and
treatment.

The event's third sponsor was the New York Panthers Leather Club and
Caesar, the club's treasurer, told Gay City News that the club was
concerned about meth use.

"We do realize that it's a problem," he said. "We wanted to support
the effort to get the word out."

When the audience participation began, one attendee asked why there
had been no discussion of the role that racism and heterosexism might
play in meth use.

"What is your responsibility as a researcher to fight racism and
heterosexism particularly when the people who fund you are
perpetuating racism and heterosexism?" he said.

Bookhardt-Murray responded forcefully to the implication that funders
were silencing her.

"As a physician in my room, my examining room, I can talk to you about
whatever I want to talk to you about and it's nobody's business," she
said.

Donald Suggs, a longtime gay activist, called on the audience to
respond to meth use.

"It's up to us, as black gay men, to make decisions about how we want
to socialize," he said. "We have to save our selves."
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager