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| The Atlanta Meth Task Force plans to unveil an anti-meth billboard campaign similar to these magazine advertisements in November. |
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HOME > NEWS > LOCAL
By: RYAN LEE
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In November 1999, a young gay man named Skanda sat in the passenger seat of a car headed cross-country to Atlanta, dreadfully afraid that he was leaving the party behind in Phoenix.
“To be honest, I didn’t want to move to Atlanta because I didn’t think crystal meth would be big here, and so I was scared,” said Skanda, who asked that his last name not be used. “Little did I know how huge it would be here — it’s everywhere, and not just with the gay community.”
Like many gay men who use crystal meth, Skanda was introduced to the drug as a powerful stimulant during sex.
“It was like you wanted to engage with as many partners as possible,” Skanda said. “And you wanted it to be raw as it possibly could be.”
Skanda’s initial fears of living in Atlanta minus crystal meth were erased within weeks upon his arrival, after he discovered a couple of sure-fire locations for him to score the drug.
“It was pretty common — if I wouldn’t find it with the drug dealer I could go to the club and easily find it in the club,” he said.
During about eight years of using crystal meth, Skanda lost a dizzying number of jobs, was on the brink of homelessness and had a trio of friends launch an intervention in his sparsely decorated apartment. After hitting bottom once again in 2002, Skanda embraced a 12-step program to fight his addiction, with the help of his yoga instructor and other close friends.
“I started losing my mind — I was filled with fear, paranoia and self-hatred,” Skanda said. “I had nothing, I was losing everything all over again, I had been here before, and knew I needed to do something about it.”
Despite the surge in crystal meth use and distribution in Atlanta, the city “is very much behind the times” when it comes to heightening awareness and prevention, according to Brian Dew, an assistant professor in the Department of Counseling and Psychological Services at Georgia State University.
Dew, who is also the founder and president of the Atlanta Meth Task Force, is scheduled to speak about the impact of crystal meth use on gay men at the Atlanta Executive Network, a gay business group, on Sept. 28.
“I think the GLBT community — not just Atlanta, but at large — has been quite slow in critiquing behaviors that are not conducive to positive mental health, and some forms of physical health as well,” Dew said.
According to several recent studies that Dew will partly present at the AEN meeting, 65 to 70 percent of gay and bisexual men in Atlanta has at least one friend who has used crystal meth, and 75 percent believe the drug is responsible for the rise in HIV among gay men in Atlanta. Another study indicates that almost four out of every five gay and bisexual men surveyed said they desire more educational campaigns about the risk of crystal meth.
“That says that even within our own community, there is a recognized need to do more,” Dew said. “This is not just a small group of people sitting on the outside saying, ‘Oh, you need to change your behavior.’”
Atlanta’s location along several interstates has made the city the crystal meth hub of the southeast, and is one of the reasons it “has the fastest growing rates of meth use than any metropolitan area in the country,” according to Dew.
Various measures indicate elevations in meth use over the last five years, including emergency room admissions, the amount of confiscated drugs, Drug Enforcement Agency data and the number of people seeking public substance abuse treatment, Dew said.
But whereas crystal meth use was once synonymous with the gay party scene, currently among the state’s most affected regions are rural areas like the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in north Georgia.
“Five years ago, I would’ve said meth problem, especially in metro Atlanta, had been focused largely in [gay and bisexual men],” Dew said. “I can’t say that anymore.”
One of the things that continues to make crystal meth use among gay men worrisome is its impact on the safer sex practices of many users, Dew said.
“We know that just a small amount of meth, even a recreational amount such as using one time a weekend, that individuals are less likely to protect themselves because of the drug’s impact on the limbic system, which controls your reasoning and memory,” said Dew, who also noted the unique circumstances for HIV-positive meth users.
“Meth reduces the stigmatization and shame they feel about being ...
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