2000s

1980s

The San Francisco Department of Public Health reported new HIV infections among MSM citywide were 20% lower in 2006 than in 2001, due to the city's graphic, upfront campaigning. During the same five-year period, new HIV cases in London - which shuns such campaigns - soared by 58%.

Indeed, so effective have hardhitting campaigns been at reducing HIV infections among gay men in San Francisco that the epidemic has been demoted to endemic status by the city's leading health officials. Likewise, the number of HIV- men in the city who use crystal meth halved between 2003 and 2006.

“Truth itself is very stigmatising. Some people call that wagging your finger, but it’s just gay men looking out for each other.”

~ Peter Staley [AIDS/crystal meth activist]

Our groups' singling out of crystal when it is AID$ Inc. policy to maintain that all drugs are equally potentially dangerous, period - even though meth possesses unique chemical properties that sets it far apart from "recreational" drugs like ecstasy and ketamine - is another convenient excuse for them to look the other way and do nothing. Where less harmful drugs are concerned, scare campaigns fail because the message does not equate with the experience of most users - London's "G = Liquid Suicide" campaign being a case in point - whereas harder drugs demand a hard-line approach because a far higher proportion of users identify with their downside.

The famous UK campaign that centred on the death of teenager Leah Betts - who drowned drinking too much water while experimenting with ecstasy - backfired  spectacularly because most young people know that a few ecstasy tablets won't kill you or inflict severe damage. By contrast, a 22-minute video depicting the transformation of Rachel Whitear - from a bright teenager to a 21-year-old ravaged by heroin addiction and circulated to schools three years after her death - caused shockwaves that reverberate to this day.

In December 2006, I alerted Gaydar - the UK's leading cruise website - that some profiles were blatantly soliciting non-users to "meth-up and fuck raw", and to attend weekend long meth-fuelled sex parties. I suggested that it implement banners pointing members to graphic information about crystal and the potential risks from which to make informed choices should they come into contact with the drug. Gaydar then consulted THT and GMFA, who said in one voice that the problem was overstated and that no action was necessary. Thankfully, a central London STI clinician on the front line was also consulted and informed Gaydar that, contrary to the deception being spun by the leading gay men's sexual health charities, worrying numbers of seroconverting MSM were citing meth as a prime factor, and a meeting was arranged wherein I was invited to put forward the case for Gaydar to run a high-profile meth awareness campaign.

On February 9, 2007 I found myself up against a wall of militant resistance from THT spin doctor Will Nutland and GMFA's Matthew Hodson, who tried to jeopardise my case at every turn by citing out-of-date statistics and meaningless jargon, all the while obfuscating wildly in a seemingly desperate bid to prove no threat existed. Nevertheless I won the argument and Gaydar agreed to sanction a graphic banner campaign with LIFE OR METH's involvement, but it was a Pyrrhic victory. Its corporate obligation to refer only to government-sanctioned public information channels meant that Gaydar's members' sole source of meth information would be contained within a generic A-Z drugs website mooted by THT and GMFA, which Gaydar's banners would, in theory, click through to. I argued that such information would be obscured and devalued if sandwiched between less addictive and harmful drugs, and that meth required a site in its own right. However, despite the site being commissioned with public funding with a launch date set for Summer 2007, "Drugfucked" didn't materialise until May 2008, and Gaydar reneged on its agreement to display clearly signposted crystal meth banners.

By some macabre twist of fate, one day after the heated meeting at Gaydar HQ, its chairman and co-founder, Gary Frisch, killed himself by somersaulting from the balcony of his eighth floor London penthouse while intoxicated from a week-long drugs binge...

15 months earlier, the UKC (UK Coalition of People Living with HIV and AIDS) had received thousands of pounds of public money to establish a "benchmark" on meth use in London's gay community - funds the charity largely diverted elsewhere - around the same time its project co-ordinator, Jack Summerside, told The Scottish Herald: "Some of the claims about [meth] are straight out of the 18th century and what people were saying about drinking gin. Every drug that comes out is claimed to be more addictive, uniquely more harmful and presenting more uniform social dangers than all drugs it follows." LIFE OR METH countered by telling the Herald: "Agencies like the UKC, THT and GMFA are not taking meth seriously enough. They are part of the cause of the epidemic to come by not acting soon enough. Meth is deadly, end of story." The UKC was liquidated in July 2007 following the discovery of the misappropriation of several hundred thousand pounds of HIV funds by its disgraced Chief Executive, Steve Bitti. [See Statistics and Lies]

"Mind manipulation techniques like neuro-linguistic programming, or NLP, are employed in language to engineer consensus. NLP is a technique of using words to reprogram the [mind] to accept another perception of reality (i.e. the consensus agreed by the manipulators); a prefabricated, “politically correct” blanket “pop”, “opinion”, “view” or “take” upon a particular issue of general interest which is designed to preclude further consideration, analysis or investigation of the issue in question. In other words, a collectivised mental position which is never to be questioned."

~ H. Hoffman [Manufacturing Orwellian Consent]

Designed ostensibly to suppress diverse opinion and freedom of expression, political correctness is used by large, powerful bodies to spin, twist and reverse truth to bolster counter-productive agendas and destructive policies, using smears, lies and bullying tactics to drag people into line. Political correctness's most notable characteristic is its total intolerance for any viewpoint but its own. Where AID$ Inc. is concerned, speaking honestly about the state of, and threats to, public sexual health has become an Orwellian thought crime, wherein being frank and open about the dangers of HIV and/or crystal meth is equated with moralising and fear-mongering in order to demonise truth itself, thereby covering up its failures and negligence. Those who do stigmatise public health threats are instantly vilified and labeled judgmental, and their deglamorising, realistic campaigns dismissed as scare tactics even though they are proven, time and again, to be the most effective forms of prevention.

"There's an acute difference between being judgmental and being truthful, and if the AIDS lobby can't grasp that simple concept in order to save lives then, frankly, they shouldn't be in receipt of public funds."

~ Anon [Former GMHC worker]

Television ads for speeding and drink driving are designed to shock with maximum impact because they make people pause, think and take stock of the carnage their recklessness behind the wheel is capable of causing. There would be uproar if such campaigns sought to legitimise reckless drivers on the pretext that stigmatisation would only drive them underground. Shouldn't at risk and vulnerable gay men too be given the opportunity to reflect on the potential consequences of using hard drugs like meth via well co-ordinated and hardhitting campaigns, instead of reflexively ingesting the most dangerous letter in the drug alphabet amid a climate of thinly-veiled acceptance, totally oblivious to the risks they face?

Following the success of its last hardhitting anti-smoking campaign, which resulted in 60,000 people kicking their habit, the UK government has announced that a series of 15 "gruesome" images, such as diseased lungs, that highlight the harmful effects of smoking will be printed on all cigarette packets by the end of 2009, each accompanying text warnings about smoking-related diseases. The charity, Cancer Research UK, estimates the images could help an additional 10,000 smokers in England to quit, but - much in the same way that HIV charities claim that HIVers are stigmatised by graphic HIV prevention campaigns - the tobacco industry's lobby group, Forest, ludicrously argued that smokers will be "victimised" by the life-saving messages. In  Australia, graphic health warnings on cigarette packs and aggresive campaigns that demonised tobacco resulted in calls to the national Quitline doubling in 2006.

"There hasn't been a decent HIV campaign [in the UK] for years and the 1980s adverts with tombstones still stick in people's minds... I'm sure anyone with HIV would say there should be more negative campaigns. Some of my patients would say: 'I wish there was more warning as I'd have thought about things more.'... Perhaps if images such as the tombstone had been in the back of their minds they'd have used a condom."

~ Dr. Christian Jessen [Television medical expert and GP with an MSc in sexual health and HIV]

"I don't think that evidence bears out that hardhitting adverts work alone, right down to the government's multi-million pound smoking advert with the fishhooks in mouths. And showing tombstones and people dying of AIDS doesn't make people stop barebacking."

~ Mark Thompson [Spin doctor for the THT, which receives millions of pounds to provide HIV services]

[Note: In the UK, the number of smokers has been in freefall for many years thanks to graphic ad campaigns, and hardhitting HIV campaigns in the late 1980s reduced infection rates to their lowest level]

In light of a successful anti-meth campaign across the US state of Montana - whose confronting approach (above) slashed usage rates by 38%, changed perceptions among teenagers (87% said peers who tried meth would face disapproval) and cut meth-related crime by around 53% - plans in Australia to spend $30 million of a $150m budget allocated to tackling hard drugs on a "terrifying" meth awareness campaign have culminated in a graphic TV commercial outlining the potentially dire consequences of dallying with meth. [View here]

The ad emulates the no-holds approach of Australia's 1987 Grim Reaper campaign (right), which was widely criticised at the time as being melodramatic and alarmist but proved resoundingly successful in curbing the spread of AIDS. "Ice destroys lives, it tears families

apart," says the ad, which shows an office worker unable to sleep after smoking meth; a man flying into a psychotic rage in a hospital; a young woman compulsively picking at her skin; and a young man fighting with his mother. The Australian National Council on Drugs advised the Federal Government on the campaign. Its chairman, John Herron, maintains that while the ads are graphic, the information is based on fact, not on hype. "I think you've got to take the gloves off," he said.

"We now have a perverse situation where the NSW Government is paying ACON (The AIDS Council of NSW) over $8 million a year to talk down meth with a modality of 'don't stigmatise/demonise the drug and alienate users', while the Feds [have spent] $30m to scare everyone's pants off!"

~ Shayne Chester [CAAMA]

In the UK, political correctness runs amok within an HIV sector that has actively resisted raising the alarm about the potential dangers associated with using meth while being vocal in its criticism of those who do take a stand.

"In the UK, the absence of much discourse on crystal meth has seen scare approaches being used by the creators of LIFE OR METH - a website that uses extreme accounts of the impact of crystal meth - an approach that Nancy Reagan with her "just say no" mantra would be likely to support."

~ The Terrence Higgins Trust [New Prevention Technologies]

Based on its atrotious track record, it far behooves The Terrence Higgins Trust (THT) to do what it accuses LIFE OR METH of doing and pass judgment on the efforts of those who are working for little financial renumeration to raise awareness about threats to public health that it downplays or ignores entirely. THT conveniently forgets that all HIV campaigns, some of its own included, were hardhitting and "extreme" in the 1980s, not unlike the long overdue Australian TV meth campaign, instilling in many the need to play safe; messages that embedded deep into that generation's collective psyche and served to keep many, myself - a sexually-adventurous teenager - included, HIV- to this day. Yet how many of my peers have since seroconverted in the wake of HIV campaigns that have sought to legitimise and sexualise the virus, and/or in the absence of upfront education around the intoxicating effects of meth? Had I been a sexually active teenager these last few years instead of during the 1980s, I have no doubt whatsoever that I, too, would have been exposed to HIV by now many times over...

The UK Conservative party leader, David Cameron,  invoked the memory of the UK's 1985 AIDS tombstone ad in 2007 to highlight how the dearth of effective campaigns that "scared us all to death" have contributed to soaring rates of public health epidemics, ranging from sexual diseases to obesity, and in January 2008, gay men also made their voices heard loud and clear when 82% of the UK Pink Paper’s readers voted in an online survey for harder-hitting HIV campaigns.

"So long as a campaign is directed at those genuinely at high risk of infection, there's nothing wrong with employing harder-hitting tactics to induce a bit of fright. If that protects health and saves lives, then frankly, the end justifies the means, and we shouldn't shy away from it."

~ Peter Gill [Body Count: How they turned AIDS into a Catastrophe]

Nowhere, of course, does LIFE OR METH advocate a proselytising "Just say no" approach, wag a finger or seek to demonise meth users; a fallacy frequently perpetuated by patronising, science/theory/logic-driven critics of our work, whose robotic, closed minds are incapable of comprehending the spiritually decimating impact of crystal in our world and so fail to grasp the reasoning for, or meaning of, the empowering, holistic approach needed to penetrate and unravel the heart of the problem. One which this site embraces.

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

- Albert Einstein

"Neurologists have identified part of the brain that defines us as human and allows emotion and intuition to work in tandem with logic to solve moral dilemmas...

This component is one among several that contribute to our wisdom and humanity, [indicating] that purely rational accounts of moral judgments do not describe all the possible conditions humans face."

~ Lewis Smith [The Times, London, March 22, 2007]

Emotion and intuition are qualities frowned upon within bureaucratised HIV agencies mandated to safeguard public health, which is why they remain obstinate and righteous even in the face of great suffering. Treatment of a habitual meth user necessitates thinking outside of the box and applying an empowering approach to encourage him towards self-respecting behaviours and abstinence. This includes providing the hard, non-sugar-coated facts of the consequences of his addiction as well as encouraging him to explore the underlying issues that define his compulsive behaviour. But, in their scramble for a scientific/rational solution (i.e. one devoid of emotion or intuition), the autocratic, knee-jerk response of many large AIDS agencies has instead conspired to maintain the user in his addiction in the defeatist guise of "harm reduction".

[See Dereliction of Duty].

"Harm reduction is totally inappropriate to a drug of meth's pharmacological uniqueness. It is a modality designed by academics who seek to advocate on behalf of those that they can only understand theoretically. And it is costing lives."

~ Shayne Chester

"In the gay community, we censor ourselves. We have to start being responsible, by telling the truth, and it's not pretty. We've got to wake up."

~ Jay Corcoran [Director, Rock Bottom]

Even when such organisations do act, time and again they will glamorise and even "sex up" the problem, such is their aversion to stigmatising it and telling the simple truth. For example:

• THT's token contribution to crystal awareness in the UK - a flier/booklet depicting two muscled action figures in an explicit, penetrative embrace (above), accompanied by a long list of the enticing reasons why MSM are seduced into using alongside only a few of the less serious side effects - clearly promotes meth as a 'wonder sex drug' rather than one that should be avoided. A participant in the UKC's aforementioned benchmark study into meth use in London commented: "My interest [in meth]'s been raised by the gay press. They put out their warning and I'm afraid it has the opposite effect: it makes me curious. They put this [meth flier] on the cover of QX [magazine] - it told you all about how to take it! That was one of the factors. That's why I decided to inject it, cos I hadn't thought of that before."

• Another THT effort - a booklet entitled Your Feelings - purports to provide sound advice to enhance emotional wellbeing and is clearly targeted at HIVers, yet instead of advising against using drugs like meth to self-medicate depressive feelings - as 20% of HIV+ men in London do at extreme risk to their already compromised immune systems - it merely states instead that using "too much can sometimes cause problems with our emotional wellbeing", and then likens meth to the "similar but milder" effects of energy drinks like Red Bull!

"The first casualty in any war is truth, closely followed by common sense..."

~ Hiram Johnson [American Senator]