Towleroad provides a good discussion of the complex and perplexing issue surrounding the use of crystal meth by gay men and the possible connection between that drug use and dangerously increased HIV exposure. Interestingly, one important point made in a couple of the comments on this issue at this site is that the gay community seems to "...take the heat..." for behaviors that are not exclusively gay. Witness this AP report that appeared in the Rocky Mountain News this morning, which reads, in part:
BOSTON (AP) -- Blacks are contracting HIV at twice the rate they were in the late 1980s and early '90s, which researchers and AIDS prevention advocates attribute to drug addiction, poverty and poor access to health care, according to government statistics.
At the same time, the HIV infection rate among whites has held steady, causing alarm among some health officials who say the racial gap in the epidemic is widening.
Other national data and published reports studied by the CDC showed that 480,000 HIV-infected people ages 15 to 49 should have been getting antiviral drugs in 2003, yet only 268,000, or 56 percent, were given such medication.
Now, should we be curious if Richard Cohen of the Washington Post and others -- see my prior posts on Being Safe -- who've lately written about gay sexual excesses might, just might, reevaluate this very complex, cross-racial, cross-sexuality issue not as a gay issue but, rather, as a human issue which sorely requires increased attention, money, conern from Dubya's minions?
But, then, Dubya's out spreading freedom and democracy in the desert and cutting domestic programs to the bare bones (or just eliminating them) because, damnit, war costs money, my fellow Americans. And, sacrifice we must if we're to going to be successful in reshaping the Nation of Islam into what God told Dubya was necessary: democracy, democracy, democracy!
I think probably, as far as gay men are concerned, we're on our own with this thing, buckaroos. And, once again, the Towleroad site offers a discussion on this issue which informs, berates, becomes pedantic, didactic, is hopefull, is discouraging, is angry, intelligent, insightful but, most of all, is informative. Please give it a look.
Be safe.
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