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I read this folks and had flashbacks of my past (as if they were yesterday) suddenly flooded my mind. It is very REAL and a very precise glimpse of a subculture myself and many others were and many are still involved with. A few of us will survive; a few of us will be recovering miracles "I'D DISCOVERED the answer to all my problems. Suddenly I felt smarter, funnier, sexier. I could walk into a club stone sober, feeling awkward and alien, do a bump in the bathroom - and spin out of the stall like Wonder Woman!" ~ Kevin Koffler, POZ magazine �?nbsp;Last updated March 19, 2007 (We regret that some elements of this article are out of date) "IN THE CLUB WORLD, especially in the gay club world, you hear crystal meth is equal to free HIV."
~ David Morales [US DJ] IMAGINE a dance club where the atmosphere is dark and intense. Gratingly discordant, oppressive "hate music" - like a medley of chainsaws - blasts your eardrums as the angry, detached crowd avoids eye contact, glancing at each other only to glare with empty, glazed eyes and clenched jaws. There is no fun, no laughter, no uplifting dance vibe. Just grinding, dense negativity... That was the grim reality of North America's crystal meth-afflicted gay party scene at the start of this decade, as the drug spread like a virus from the circuit parties into the dance clubs of the metropolitan cities and out into the wider communities. From Los Angeles on the west coast to New York City on the east, meth ruthlessly torn the heart out of gay neighbourhoods already devastated by AIDS, and more recently has been decimating the gay scenes of Canada's major cities, inflicting unimaginable chaos and misery in its wake. With meth also spiraling west from Asian-Pacific countries like Australia and Thailand, its relentless, pincer-like movement now casts a dark storm cloud over Europe... With Viagra's arrival in 1998, weekend long party-goers began flocking to crystal and away from comparatively expensive "fun" drugs like ecstasy and ketamine (Special K), which had reigned supreme for much of the 1990s. Providing an intense high that would last from party to party and for just a few dollars - a major consideration for young men living in expensive metropolitan areas - crystal enabled the user to start the night with a buzz and to stay awake, alert and, for many, hungry for sex all weekend long. "Tina's" entrance into the party scene was secured just prior to 9/11, when the US Government passed a Federal law forcing ketamine manufacturers to change the drug's base ingredient from water to oil, making it impossible to air dry and inhale; a move which, compounded by post 9/11 paranoia and unease, accelerated the rise of meth. “Meth has a nine-to-twelve-hour half-life, which means that weekend warriors can start on Thursday and only dose five times to make it to Sunday evening.�?BR>~ Steven Shoptaw [Psychologist] Meth's insidious, creeping influence throughout North America's gay social scene quickly exacted a physiologically and psychologically devastating toll on countless users, resulting in a hostile darkening in tone in the venues they populated. Instead of tackling the problem head-on and making crystal use untenable on their premises by exercising a zero-tolerance approach and encouraging a positive crowd ambience, gay party promoters and the DJs they book instead put personal greed before common sense and pandered to the new drug of choice by adapting to the ugly, negative meth mindset. "Before crystal, I never had a problem with any substances. I did [it] to stay awake and focused...at least, that's what I told myself at the time. I didn't realise it then, but the real reason I did crystal was because I hated my job. But for 5 years I couldn't admit it to myself, so I put myself in a waking coma in an attempt to enjoy it... I was so unattached to everything, and my music reflected that. It was detached, sporadic, boring and angry."
~ Junior Vasquez [US DJ, June 2005] Music affects mood and emotion more than any other medium, and has the power to change the way we view the world. Uplifting, feel-good genres - from classical to soulful house - are scientifically proven to act positively on the individual's subconscious, stimulating receptivity and perception which in turn help to co-ordinate breathing, cardiovascular and brainwave rhythm, each essential for good health and wellbeing. According to the US journal Heart, the effect of soothing genres of music is such that scientists now believe they can be used instead of medicine to reduce heart rate and blood pressure. "We are approaching the point where a doctor would legitimately be negligent not to actually recommend music as a therapeutic intervention," says Professor Paul Robertson, who regularly plays violin for patients in various London hospitals. Conversely, the tempo of negative, "soulless" sounds like gangsta rap and heavy metal has the opposite effect, being vibrationally manipulated to lock the listener's mind into a depressively hypnotic, trance-like state, inducing negative psychological and emotional responses which worsen the more unstable or insecure a person is. Faster music and harsher rhythms also significantly speed up breathing and circulation irrespective of style, with fast classical and techno music having the same impact. "The range of dance music is 60 to 200bpm (beats per minute), which is pretty much the range of the human heartbeat. After 200bpm your heart blows up!"
~ Matt Black [Coldcut] There have been a number of studies into the effects of music on the listener over the years: �?nbsp;In the 1970s, Dr. John Diamond published Behavioral Kinesiology, which featured his findings into how the energy of negative genres of music, with or without lyrics, can make the body's acupuncture system go weak; �?nbsp;Numerous studies have shown how listening to aggressive forms of music slows the mental agility and performance of students of all ages by up to 50%, while listening to relaxing music can improve performance and aid concentration; �?nbsp;In 2002, an experiment by Cambridge University tested the effects of "white noise" and aggressive music like The Prodigy on mice drugged with meth and concluded: "Listening to pulsative music strengthens the toxic effects of methamphetamine." A co-author of the study was clearly convinced: "I might go to raves, but I wouldn't take methamphetamine," he said. Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 showed how a heavy metal CD featuring the numbing, soul-deadening lyrics, "Burn, motherfucker, burn", gained currency among soldiers in Iraq, detaching them emotionally as they went in for the kill, while former detainess at a US camp near Kabul have described how they were chained to walls, deprived of food and water and kept in total darkness while loud rap, heavy music and other demoniac noises blared continously from speakers. As crystal's tentacles spread throughout North America's gay party scene, so, too, did one such insidiously twisted, sensory-dulling sound that emerged to complement its sinister side... |
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| | (1 recommendation so far) | Message 2 of 6 in Discussion |
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The influence of crystal meth on gay culture has seen the excesses of ego - with all its ugly, aggressive and antisocial attributes - rise to the fore. "Music has the ability to affect our mood, our energy levels, and even our perception of the world around us. Our dance floors are where you can really see how music impacts people, [and] the music being played directly affects the perception of the party. Essentially, [the DJ] gets to play on the emotions of a cast of thousands for a few hours..."
~ Steve Kammon [Circuit Noize, 1963-2006] Ostensibly, a professional DJ sets the mood of the party, drives the energy and lifts the audience
with up-tempo tracks when the energy starts to falter. Throughout the pre-crystal North American club and circuit heyday of the 1990s when ecstasy was the drug of choice, attendees raised their spirits to uplifting dance music and an emphasis on fun and unity prevailed. As crystal began saturating the circuit around 2000, the warm glow of positive energy generated by people letting go to feel-good music receded, giving way to the cold negativity of banging, rhythmless noises and wailing diva vocals that blatantly promoted meth use; "I'm Addicted", a mantra-like homage to "Tina", among them. As meth infiltrated the metropolitan cities, DJs everywhere - aided by a harsher use of strobe lighting - seemingly conspired with meth to drain the spirit from the party scene, resulting in both light and dark mood-enhancing sounds being superseded by the angry, monotonous bass of hard tribal trance. "In recent years, there's been a shift away from that type of euphoria in favour of a speed-fueled intensity that seems to sacrifice the love of music and dancing for a darker brand of drug experience."
~ D. Michael Taylor [Circuit Noize] Devoid of energy and spirit and a noise more befitting slasher movies and overly violent computer games, pots and pans complemented crystal's speedy, twisted, aggressive vibe. The anti-social pounding of pots and pans and other aggressive, percussively overloaded sounds, which continue to permeate some elements of the circuit to this day, can induce intensely negative psychological and emotional responses among the crowd, inhibiting the effect of uppers like ecstasy and encouraging the uptake of meth in order to relate to the similarly grating, speeding, corrosive vibe. As the angry, discordant music feeds into the meth mindset, which in turn feeds into the music, less grounded and emotionally insecure users will become agitated and depressive as the brain locks into a condition of chemical or existential despair. Tina proceeds to prey on the user's fears, enticing him to binge on the drug to avoid crashing still further. Distorted, abrasive sounds can pull those who use meth compulsively to mask psychological pain into the darker recesses of the unconscious mind where deep-
rooted, painful memories and unhealed mental scars lay dormant, effectively unleashing and projecting a Pandora's box of nightmares at their environment. Former users describe such disorienting, crash-triggering experiences akin to demons being released from within, turning them into zombies or walking dead. Pre-2001, US circuit DJs were accorded star status, amassing loyal, obedient audiences who followed unquestioningly from party to party, the music almost a secondary consideration. The surrender of power that arose from such blind loyalty was seized upon by some and blatantly flaunted and abused. From 2000, as meth swept the scene - and with top DJ Junior Vasquez consumed by Tina and upfront in his intent to turn the entire gay circuit dark via meth and the music - other DJs followed suit, leading their audiences on edgy, demented journeys typified by harsh, screeching noises, sedating their crowds as the atmosphere turned sinister and hostile with the sterile crystal vibe. Meth enabled DJs on the US circuit to play longer sets. Several were known to often stumble from their booths in incoherent, intoxicated states after spinning non-stop for 12 hours or more. DJs who still follow an aggressive, meth-fueled agenda may start the night spinning a few ambient, melodic sounds and then, with little or no downward graduation in tempo, crash the music with pots and pans and other aggressive noises, visibly disorienting those high on meth. As the atmosphere thickens with tension, non-users are squeezed out until only a dense, alien darkness populated by anxious, paranoid tweakers remains. "These DJs operate under the insane notion that in order to bring a crowd up, you need first to take it to a very dark place," says 'Jake', an ex-circuit DJ. "Whatever happened to dance as a celebration of life, keeping the crowd uplifted all night long? They call it taking the crowd on a journey, but really they're just fucking with people's minds. [In the US] it's not about the music anymore; it's which DJ is the biggest prima donna or diva with the largest ego who can manipulate and control the crowds the most. The circuit today is the antithesis of what partying is about - intimidation and aggression instead of inclusiveness and fun - and sadly that mindset is now evident in the mainstream club scene in cities like New York. We've become conditioned to this insidious marketing ploy, and angry, banging beats is all today's clubbers know." "For many years I was criticised...for playing music that sounded like pots and pans, but I'm over that sound. I've noticed that kind of minimal tribal beats that I pioneered...have caught on in commercial clubs. Some of the best producer/DJs will now play a night of entirely tribal beats - frankly that bores me."
~ Junior Vasquez [US DJ, January 2006] Since 2000, dozens of once thriving US gay clubs and circuit parties have closed their doors. Of those that have survived, attendance levels have fallen by as much as 50%. In pandering to meth in this way, these DJs often argue that they merely followed the latest drug of choice and were safeguarding their jobs and careers in doing so. In truth, notes Jake, they have shot themselves in the collective foot by turning many of their followers onto meth, decimating and eroding their audiences in the process, destroying the essence of the circuit and betraying the spirit of dance music. "In abandoning their artistic integrity these DJs sold their souls," he laments. "Some would say to the devil himself"... "In the States, no one is smiling or interacting with each other right now. That monotonous tribal sound is definitely more conducive to crystal."
~ Brett Henricksen [US DJ, speaking in 2004] "I went to see [Brett Henrichsen] spin during LA Pride weekend [July 2006], expecting his trademark happy, sing-a-long style...and [he] pounded out a 90% pots and pans (and hammers and anvils and wrenches...) set that left me looking for a warm and fuzzy K-Hole to fall into. Apparently even this Mary Sunshine likes to spread a little stormy weather every now and then."
~ Jamie Nicholes [Perfect Beat] It stands to reason that bored or tweaking DJs playing marathon sets are not going to be in the appropriate mindset to spin upbeat, harmonious dance tracks, and for many clubbers who departed the scene in despair the symbiotic concordance between pots and pans and crystal meth is undeniable. Just as LSD infused acid house with psychedelic rawness, cocaine was the catalyst for hip hop, ecstasy was embraced by the rave scene and, later with ketamine, enhanced the carnival vibe of circuit parties throughout the 1990s, crystal meth paved the way for the fatalistic, post-9/11 era of pots and pans and overbearing percussion. Never before has a hard, dirty street drug in the league of heroin and crack cocaine been so obligingly funelled through the party scene by "professionals" who should have known better. Viagra and the circuit may have fueled the rampant spread of crystal meth across the States, but the party promoters who created the conditions, and the DJs who then pandered to the drug, served to fan its flames.
["Hey Mister DJ"] |
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| | (1 recommendation so far) | Message 3 of 6 in Discussion |
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Since 2000, the speed and viciousness of crystal's spread has cut a vast, soul-destroying swath through the heart of New York's social scene, draining it of energy and vitality, and threatening to turn the community in on itself. The relatively cheap, long-lasting substance soon replaced cocaine and ecstasy as the party/sex drug of choice. Faces that were once fresh and vibrant quickly became noticeably gaunt and etched with anger and anxiety as crystal took its toll. Dance venues like Roxy and Exit became darker and edgier by the week as anti-social displays of ego and power-play compensated for inner feelings of paranoia, inferiority, helplessness, agitation and sexual tension. In a statement to the New York Times in August 2004, Roxy promoter John Blair appeared to come out publicly against meth, describing it as "by far the worst drug I've ever seen happen to nightlife - it not only takes over people's lives, but it really negates what the whole scene is supposed to be about", even if he had told the New York Blade just three months earlier: "I've been in this business for a couple of decades, and I've never seen a more dangerous, more destructive or scarier drug than GHB." Blair did not mention how Roxy - dubbed The Whole Foods of crystal meth by New York's Daily News - spawned a fertile breeding ground for meth, allowing it to spread like a virus among its patrons. By turning a blind eye to what was happening, Blair and his business partner, Marc Berkley, effectively facilitated, encouraged and perpetuated its use for many years. From 2001, Roxy's dance floor began resembling a bleak no-man's land consumed by the stench of fatalism, where crashing tweakers would sway and grind zombie-like to the twisted, anxiety-inducing banging of pots and pans. Many began staying home, logging in to internet hook-up sites and bingeing all weekend long, if not already incapacitated or deceased by the wonder drug they were introduced to, and weaned on, at Roxy. In March 2007, when Roxy closed its doors for the final time, Berkley publicly conceded : "For the past few years it's been about 9/11, drug raids, crystal meth, the internet, bad music, bottle service and high prices. "While this club certainly helped us dance through the nightmare of the AIDS epidemic, it was also a context in which the strobing lights, excellent mixings of the DJs and rampant drug use of everything from alcohol to crystal meth worked synergistically to make us forget our own collective responsibilities and helped fuel the epidemic which continues to takes its toll on us today."
~ Dr. Perry N. Halkitis PhD, MS Quitting the New York scene after ten years, DJ Julian Marsh told New York Blade of his disillusionment with today's US club music, largely reduced, to pots and pans, he says, due to the influence of DJs like Junior Vasquez. "I just never went that route," says Marsh. "I stayed with all the happy music... Back in 1995, pretty much everybody played upbeat, happy music. It was a wonderful time. Then things began to get dark. Now, with everyone doing crystal, they can't handle more than a rhythm." Marsh blames pots and pans for the ruination of the circuit scene, which he says is in a state of terminal decline. "Club promoters themselves need to stay off crystal, and for my part I've curtailed the hours I play. Playing after noon is just ridiculous and hypocritical if I'm anti-crystal, which I most definitely am, because the only people there will be those who can't come down..."
~ DJ Junior Vasquez [US DJ, September 2005] Alegria's Ric Sena has spearheaded the assault against crystal among Manhattan's gay club promoters, adorning his Crobar parties with LIFE OR METH posters and including anti-meth messages in his email updates. "Crystal meth is really hurting our community and we need to do something to help so many of our friends in trouble," said Sena in 2005. "Go out of your way, give a hand and show you care. We should not let something like this keep hurting our community so bad. Love each other and, most important of all, love yourself." In reverse gear, the 2006 Black Party enlisted tweaker-supremo DJ Peter Rauhofer, whose banging eight-hour set annoyed many attracted back to the event following Chus & Ceballos's spirited headline gig a year earlier. "[Rauhofer] played quite a few completely skull crushing, damaging hard house records that sounded like they came from the pits of hell," noted an approving Rauhofer fan on the DJ's official web site, prompting Black Party producer, Steven Pevner, to publicly decree "No pots and pans" in the run-up to the 2007 event. Between May 2001 and May 2002, Manhattan's Crystal Meth Anonymous meetings exploded from one a week to eight, with attendance quadrupling from 15 to as many as 60 people per session. Today there are 30 meetings a week as a growing tide of gay men in the city awaken to their problem and empower themselves to overcome meth addiction. The strong sense of spirit and comradery that pervades these meetings has revealed a positive flip side to crystal abuse. Despite the many casualties and fatalities associated with meth, for some it has inadvertently provided the catalyst for healing, transformation and awakening where previously no spiritual awareness existed. A growing legion of gay men, once helpless meth abusers, are reaching within and discovering a whole new meaning, clarity and dimension to the quality and substance of their lives, rising from the blackest of despair to truly love and respect themselves and others, and to live life to the full. Paradoxically, meth has provided the key, or wake-up call, through which growing numbers of gay men are learning to come to terms with - and overcoming - their addictive, compulsive and obsessive behavioural patterns, in the process discovering their capacity for empathy, compassion and love. Yet, for every abuser who sees light at the end of the tunnel, many others are still plunging. "Suicide Tuesday" is the most popular CMA meeting, drawing up to 100 users recovering from the previous weekend; a far cry from the city's first weekly meeting in 1998, the year of Viagra's arrival, attended by just a handful of people. "I just got off the C train. From 23rd to 42nd Street, I watched a guy fondle himself, eyes black disks, as he tried to lure any man back to his lair... I walked on 22nd from 8th Avenue to 7th Avenue �?"Tweakers�?Row" �?and on a Wednesday night it was lively. Who has guts to call the game over?"
~ Scott Wager [New York Blade, May 5th 2006] Triggering the anti-crystal backlash in New York, in January 2004 local AIDS activist Peter Staley launched a self-funded, $6,000 poster campaign blitzing Chelsea's Verizon phone booths with the message Huge Sale! Buy crystal, get HIV Free! in an effort to demonise meth. This followed the first ever, LIFE OR METH-inspired national poster campaign, Meth = Death, launched in 2003 by former meth addicts in conjunction with New York's Gay Men's Health Crisis and Miami's United Foundation of AIDS. In November 2004, federal prosecutors postponed a radical poster campaign, Faces of Meth, depicting the names and faces of actual convicted meth dealers alongside messages such as Over six years for selling crystal meth. Was it worth it? Due to be posted around meth-ravaged neighbourhoods, the posters provoked outrage from local activists who claimed that "non-violent" gay men who sell small quantities of meth to finance their habit would feel threatened and intimidated by the campaign's forthright approach. The inspiration for Faces of Meth followed the clamping down by Federal Law Enforcement on meth dealers in the city. Earlier, in an operation dubbed "Operation Chelsea Connection", law enforcement officers arrested eight men for possessing and supplying the drug, including a 46-year-old Manhattan artist jailed for seven years for selling one ounce of crystal to an undercover agent for $2,800. Peter Staley's Crystal Meth Working Group joined forces with HIV Forum for his second poster campaign in December 2004; a radical new approach depicting healthy, clean-cut men with placards proclaiming Crystal Free and Sexy (above). The approach received initial acclaim for its use of positive imagery but failed to register with meth abusers themselves, while critics suggested such campaigns send the wrong message. “The ads are saying ‘I’m sexy and there are a lot of people who are doing meth that look like this but I’m not one of them, believe it or not.�?It doesn’t work,�?argues Dan Savage, a Seattle-based, nationally syndicated sex columnist. “You’re an idiot if you do crystal meth, and that should be the campaign.�? HIV Forum's follow-up campaign, Crystal Meth Makes Me Sexy (right), reverted to provocative, in-your-face basics to provoke a community conversation about the drug. "Our ads are invariably controversial," Staley says. "In fact, we design them hoping they will be," while HIV Forum's Dan Carlson hopes such ads will attract the attention of gay men, "by challenging socially accepted norms and behaviours around crystal use.�?/DIV> Elsewhere, several groups teamed up in 2005 to address meth use by African-Americans in Manhattan after research showed a dramatic increase in use among black gay men. Correspondingly, The Centers of Disease Control announced that 46% of all black gay men living in New York City were HIV-positive, prompting a two-hour forum in November 2005 - sponsored by People of Color in Crisis, Gay Men of African Descent and the New York State Black Gay Network - to confront the issue. Most recently, the city's LGBT Community Centre launched Silence = Meth, a reinterpretation of ACT UP's famous 1980s campaign when posters bearing the words "Silence=Death" provoked a wake-up call to action. Said Richard Burns, executive director of the Centre: "Just as the ACT UP campaign alerted the gay community to AIDS, [this] campaign will focus attention on the danger of crystal meth and what the entire community must do to help prevent abuse and addiction to this drug." In Manhattan, the proportion of new diagnoses attributable to MSM increased from 26% of all new diagnoses to 39% between July 2003 and July 2004, the highest rates of infection among 35-49 year olds - the generation that avoided the virus for over 20 years.. "It is tragic to see the spread of HIV in countries where people don't have an education and there aren't good communications and hospitals and doctors. To see it here in New York City, I think, is much more tragic because shame on us. We certainly should be able to stop the spread."
~ Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg The city's health department has reported an increase in new diagnoses among men who have sex with men (MSM) under 30 from 2001 to 2004, while new diagoses among MSM over 30 declined, fueling speculation that most MSM over 30 who stood to be infected are now infected, and that the virus is now filtering beyond this core pool to uninfected groups. "[These statistics] are deeply, deeply troubling," said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, "because it's clear that the message is not getting out to younger people in this city, the message about how severe HIV and AIDS can be if you contract it, the message that you can protect yourself and prevent that from happening." After three years of increasing sexual liberalism and corresponding increases in STDs and drug use following the appointment of Michael Bloomberg as Mayor of New York, the city's Department of Health has been monitoring and shutting down venues which blatantly promote public sex. The long-established Wall Street Sauna - one of several in the city notorious for meth-fueled barebacking among patrons - was forced to close down in 2004 on health grounds after more than 30 incidences of high-risk sex were recorded by undercover inspectors in the preceeding 12 months. "We have evolved from almost complete intolerance of commercial multi-partner sex (1986) to muted tolerance so long as it was scrupulously safe (1987-88) to denial and confusion when it entered the grey zone of possibly unsafe (1989) to indifference when it became blatantly unsafe (1990-today)."
~ Gabriel Rotello [Author, Sexual Ecology] According to the Centre for Health, Identity, Behaviour and Prevention Studies at New York University, three-quarters of gay meth users snort the drug, half smoke it and 7% inject. Corresponding with a dramatic increase in hepatitis C infection among gay men in the city, Manhattan's Department of Health has noted a marked increase in the numbers of men injecting, or "slamming", meth in recent years, as have several harm-reduction centres which operate needle exchange programs. Injecting is widely practised among gay men on the west coast but a relatively new phenomenon on the east, prompting Eleanor Nealy, director of Mental Health & Social Services at the LGBT Centre, to call for aggressive intervention now "rather than waiting for an explosion of injection use here." "It started out everyone was snorting, and if you smoked it you were an addict. Then everyone was smoking it and if you shot it you were an addict. The last time I went out, everyone was shooting."
~ A recovered New York crystal meth addict Filmmaker Jay Corcoran's new documentary film, Rock Bottom, chronicles the traumatising impact of crystal meth on the lives of a handful of gay men in New York City, who were filmed between March 2004 and February 2006. Ranging from poignant to shocking, as various men reveal how the insidious drug took control of their minds and bodies in ways they never expected, Corcoran says he was motivated to make Rock Bottom because, "After everything we [as gay men] went through with AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s... why are certain gay men suddenly self-destructing? I wanted to make an explicitly gay male film that could look at the sexuality in a way most gay films shy away from. This is not prurient - it gets at the issues behind gay male sex and addresses them in a very sober way. I really wanted to do something this wrenching and truthful, living in America where the media shies away from everything raw and honest."
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| | (1 recommendation so far) | Message 4 of 6 in Discussion |
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"We gotta return to that feeling,
That feeling that's been gone for way too long..."
~ DJ Chus [That Feeling, Defected Records] A 2001 study by Dr. Grant N. Colfax of the San Francisco Department of Public Health reported that 43% of circuit party attendees in the States used crystal meth. The study concluded that gay men are far more likely to use recreational drugs and have high-risk sex at these parties which, ironically, began as fund-raisers for various AIDS causes. "Circuit parties are an important and often positive influence on the gay community,'' Colfax wrote in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, but added, "a substantial proportion of party participants report high-risk HIV-transmitting behaviours, often in relation to substance abuse.'' Surveying nearly 300 gay and bisexual men in the San Francisco area, most reported using at least one recreational drug when attending a circuit party, where 21% of HIV+ men and 9% of HIV- men had anal sex without a condom with a partner whose HIV status was unknown or different from their own. Reasons given for unsafe behaviour varied between increased drug use, anonymity, and the availability of new sexual partners. "There needs to be a greater focus within the public health community on the high prevalence of club drug use in relation to high-risk sexual behaviour,'' concluded Colfax at the time, a call that would fall on deaf ears; a subsequent study by the Centre for HIV/AIDS Education Studies and Training at New York University found that around 62% of participants on the circuit party and club scene in 2005 were significant and frequent users of meth, half of whom were HIV+. Fresh research unveiled by Dr. Colfax at the 12th Annual Retrovirus Conference in Boston in February 2005 concluded that using crystal meth or cocaine is the biggest single risk factor for becoming HIV+ among US gay men, contributing 29% of the overall risk of becoming positive and 28% of the overall risk of being passive in bareback sex. "Circuit parties are an issue because HIV+ men are particularly likely to attend them, to engage in risky sex practices while there, to have more sex partners, and to have more serodiscordant or serounknown sex partners than their HIV- counterparts... Research has shown that some HIV+ men use the tribal experience engendered at circuit parties as a type of coping mechanism... Participants become so immersed in the party atmosphere that they forget about the immediate threat of HIV/AIDS or no longer care about it."
~ Amin Ghaziani and Thomas D. Cook, PhD [Reducing HIV Infection at Circuit Parties PDF, left] "Gay men especially seem to have ignored the hard facts and embraced crystal meth as the hip drug du jour on the circuit party scene," wrote leading AIDS specialist Gary R. Cohan, MD in +hivplus magazine. "One wonders how a group with a heightened sense of its own mortality - after 20 years of bearing the brunt of the domestic AIDS epidemic - has now fallen victim to what is essentially a glamorised version of a boil-it-in-your-trailer biker drug." "A friend who was [at The Black Party] this year said that it was almost impossible to find a condom or information about HIV, but that crystal meth was for sale everywhere and sexual activities ranged from unbelievable to outrageous."
~ A 2005 New York Black Party attendee For much of the 1990s, circuit parties were escapist, tribal havens for brotherhoods of gay men who flocked to these AIDS charity fund-
raisers and clubs like New York City's legendary Twilo, brimming with fun and a tolerable emphasis on sex. "When people were doing X and drinking, it was fun. People were having a good time—hands up in the air. And then these alternative drugs came into the scene. The mood changed and closed people off. Tina is a big problem because it is a very non-emotional thing. There’s this wall of energy, but no connection, so to speak. People don’t connect to each other.�?BR>~ Manny Lehman [US DJ] Around the mid-1990s, ketamine arrived and instilled a spiritual if dissociative edge to the circuit, as users experienced a separation between perception and sensation caused by the blockage of pain receptors. Then crystal and GHB began to emerge, along with exploitative businessmen who disregarded their obligation to provide for their patrons' wellbeing while also substantially reducing the share of proceeds they donated to AIDS charities in their relentless pursuit of profits. Up until 2001, for example, the Hearts Foundation's annual Fireball event in Chicago raised upwards of $200,000 annually from 1998 for various AIDS causes. In 2003, on revenues of $443,000, it donated just $28,000... "A party whose point is really drug use has no place benefiting an organisation that is fighting for intelligent decisions that lead to safe sex."
~ Adam R. Rose [Former GMFA donor] From around 2000 the circuit lost sight of its direction and soul as party after party descended into bleak, alien environments saturated by the wailing of fog horns and thunderous bass, and populated by legions of emotionally-detached, sexually aggressive men who travelled from party to party with seemingly limitless supplies of crystal meth, Viagra and GHB. A quasi-fascistic pecking order emerged as the circuit became immersed in meth, adopting hierarchal, judgemental codes of flesh that drowned out the spirit of fun. "I was obsessed with New York City for many years, but the music [in the US] is just hideous; it reflects the mentality of the scene. Americans seem to have a lot of hang-ups about showing off. So you'll have 2000 Muscle Marys in a club and no-one's smiling. In the UK we're not about intimidation - we just want to party!"
~ Steve Pitron [UK DJ] The rapid decline of the US circuit scene - and the willingness of so many to embrace any new substance to lose themselves in regardless of the consequences - exposed an element of gay society that is literally partying to destruction. To concerned observers, it is small consolation that many North American clubs and events that pandered to short-term greed and turned a blind eye to the rampant spread of crystal meth have paid the long-term price for their negligence, nowadays playing host to dwindling crowds if they haven't been forced to close down altogether. However, an air of change is increasingly discernable as the circuit shows signs of returning to its fun-loving, spirited origins... Our overall nightlife options continue to dwindle here, leaving the once-thriving scene to struggle as if on life support. So at the urging of a couple friends living abroad, I finally decided to cross the Atlantic to see what all the hype was about. I was utterly blown away by the sheer magnitude and superiority of London’s dynamic club scene... Friendly smiles and Old World politeness permeated every dance floor.
~ Matt Kalkhoff [The New York Blade] Enlightened by his New Year 2005 experience in London, Steve Kammon - who edited the circuit 'bible', Circuit Noize, up until his untimely death in September, - used his considerable influence to encourage positive change. "There's an overwhelming barrage of bouncy, funky, poppy house that's gushing forth from [Europe]," he wrote of his London experience. "It is a huge contrast to the more severe trance sound that was so trademark a few years back. This sound really gets back to the circuit's old-skool origins, when the goal was escape and freedom and unity. "Of all the elements that go into the creation of a dance party, music is the most fundamental," noted the spiritual warrior. "Many feel that the music of the circuit is becoming stale, that it is time for a change. There seems to be a big pink cloud of fun-ness floating across the Atlantic where funky house is all the rage, smelling of strawberries, shaped like a heart. Several of the top DJs clearly see this change coming as well, so keep your ears on the dance floors because real change is finally on the way." "We're all getting bored with beat after beat. It needs to be more spiritual, more people feeling the music and getting into it. I saw it recently in London, and it's beginning to cross over. We need more songs, more lyrics and melodies. I need more vocals!"
~ Abel [US DJ] Breaking with the usual roster of US DJs who have dominated the circuit for so long, internationally-renowned Spanish house DJs Chus & Ceballos were flown to an enthusiastic audience of thousands at Black & Blue in Montreal in 2004, where they shared top billing with house legend Roger Sanchez, and headlined Black & Blue again in 2005 and 2006, and spun at Black Party New York (2005) and White Party Miami (2006). "People like music that feels good," DJ Paulo told Circuit Noize, "music that is rich and melodic, but not necessarily all vocally. DJs like Chus & Ceballos [are] all the buzz." "In a time when dark, brooding progressive music threatened to rule the scene, Chus & Ceballos continue to be a much-welcomed breath of fresh air."
~ Black & Blue [2005 brochure] |
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Perversely, co-conspirators in the culture of denial have been many gay men's health and AIDS agencies, whose inertia has allowed meth to reach near-pandemic proportions. Entrusted with public and private funding to identify the root causes of HIV infection and react accordingly, only recently have many within the HIV began to accept what has been obvious to so many crystal users for years; that meth use can, and often does, lead to unsafe sex and potential HIV infection. Anecdotal evidence has long supported this fact, yet only with the emergence of conclusive scientific studies and statistical data are many of the bureacratic barriers to effective action giving way and the crisis being acknowledged and challenged. Epidemics of complacency and "inside the box" thinking have erected major obstacles to public awareness and prevention programs, and are still frighteningly and frustratingly evident in countries experiencing a first wave of meth abuse. In London, The Terrence Higgins Trust (THT) and GMFA (Gay Men Fighting AIDS) have adopted a head-in-the-sand attitude to meth, citing mainstream coverage of the spread of the drug throughout the UK as "hysteria", despite a plethora of tangible evidence within the city's club and sauna scenes and as crystal continues to spread its tentacles into other major cities like Manchester and Glasgow.
[See London Burning and Sydney Backlash!] In failing to act now, these AIDS organisations threaten the health and wellbeing of the very communities they purport to serve through their inaction and evasiveness. In Toronto, Canada, meth has hit hard from Alberta and Vancouver. One resident was so angered by the passive response of his city's health department that, in late 2005, he took to warning gay men of the dangers via LIFE OR METH's poster campaign. "The problem," explained local resident Andrew Hwang, "is that no one has been doing anything to bring attention to this problem. Gay men here know about meth, but many don't understand how destructive it can be. I figure this is a small step but a good beginning to raise some awareness with LIFE OR METH's colourful posters, before a full-scale epidemic hits." In the US, Washington DC's slow response to tackling the upsurge in HIV transmissions in the city was highly criticised in a report by the DC Appleseed Center for "not systematically collecting and analysing data about the epidemic in a way that would allow it to plan prevention and care effectively." The report highlighted an obvious key failing of such organisations; to reach out to, and share, vital information with cities not yet decimated by crystal meth, enablng them to plan awareness and education strategies before they are hit by the drug. Thankfully, there are enlightened AIDS and community health groups doing sterling work in the realm of meth and HIV prevention; organisations that don't indulge in, nor get distracted by, institutionalised barriers, petty politics or internal disputes that prevent different departments communicating effectively with each other, or who have lost sight of their objectives and principles by placing self-interest above their stated cause. Instead, they focus on the heart of the matter and deal swiftly with the task in hand above all other considerations; the safeguarding of their respective community's health and wellbeing. Notable among them are UFA in Miami, Stop AIDS in San Francisco and Boston Public Health Commission, whose director John Auerbach, in 2003, spearheaded a grassroots movement involving a co-ordinated effort to tackle crystal meth abuse from every angle: residential, outreach and prevention. In the experience of LIFE OR METH, forward-thinking organisations such as these are the exception to the rule. In fact, many large AIDS agencies have viewed LIFE OR METH with a suspicion bordering on contempt for its hard-hitting but honest approach; one that isn't diluted, weakened or sanitised by political correctness or bureaucratic meddling. That LIFE OR METH favours truth and abstinence over the defeatist harm reduction/ risk minimalisation approach - which serves only to enable the problem to sustain and perpetuate - speaks for itself: 70% of meth users accessing this site are inspired or empowered by its message to quit...
[See AID$ INC. UNCOVERED] Due to the alarming levels of intransigence and unresponsiveness outlined in this section, across North America today more gay men are now hooked on crystal meth than died of AIDS throughout the 1980/90s. However, since LIFE OR METH's launch in November 2002, in every corner of gay America - from San Francisco to New York via Miami Beach - impassioned campaigners and committed groups and individuals alike have become inspired to take its lead and are speaking out against meth, petitioning local AIDS and health agencies to take action, and plastering the sidewalks of gay neighbourhoods with messages that don't shirk from depicting the harsh reality and the overwhelming human tragedy of crystal meth abuse, and the horror, social blight and devastation wreaked in its path. The truth, finally, is out. �?nbsp; �?Please MAKE A DONATION and help keep LIFE OR METH's message alive! ---------------------------------------------------------------
HOW YOU CAN HELP STOP TINA �?nbsp;If you are offered crystal, the choice whether or not to use is yours and yours alone. Don't allow others to influence your decision, and remember Tina's long-term intention long after the short-term high has worn off: to damage your body, enslave your mind and, ultimately, kill you; �?nbsp;Do not accept a bump or a line of a powdered substance from someone you do not know or fully trust. It may be offered to you as a less harmful drug like ketamine or cocaine, but you could end up awake, wired and suicidally depressed for days on end; �?nbsp;Wherever and whenever you hear meth mentioned, have the courage to say it as it really is: that crystal abuse is a debilitating, devastating and deadly disease. Remember: Your silence = Tina's victory = death; �?nbsp;Make sure everyone you think may be at risk of meth abuse, today or in future, has access to the facts from which to make an informed choice; �?nbsp;If you notice any of your friends displaying symptoms of meth abuse, again, provide them with information about the drug's long-term effects. If they are in the advanced stages of abuse and beyond help, seek professional advice. Don't attempt to rescue them or you may be rendered physically, mentally and emotionally drained. �?/DIV> |
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