Meth Addiction Not New

BY SHAWN LIPEMSKI

 

rystal meth is the party drug of the

moment, but it’s not new, as I learned

at Science and Response: The First
National Conference on Methamphetamine,
HIV and Hepatitis in August in Salt Lake City.
The conference, organized by the Harm
Reduction Project and the Harm Reduction
Coalition, was intended to provide an opportu-
nity for diverse experts in various fields to
gather for two days of information sharing.
Numerous studies have shown that HIV trans-
mission rates are higher among those who use
crystal methamphetamine than among those
who don’t use the drug.

The conference was surrounded with con-
troversy from the beginning —— mostly gener-
ated from the office of Rep. Mark E. Souder
(R-IN). A week before the conference he fired
off a letter to conference sponsor Secretary
Michael O. Leavitt from the Department of
Health and Human Services stating:  .the so
called ‘harm reduction’ ideology promoted at

the HHS-sponsored conference is that we
should not be fighting a ‘war on drugs’ but
rather limiting drugs’ harmful effects.”

In his letter, Souder demanded an official
explanation of the HHS decision to sponsor
the conference, a list of all HHS employees
attending along with their contact information
in order to “conduct interviews,” and “all doc-
uments relating to” HHS “involvement with
the conference.” He further accused Secretary
Leavitt of beingvprimarily responsible for the
lack of a federal strategy for dealing with the '
meth epidemic and of “supporting the very

' people who advocate relaxed drug laws .”

America has an odd obsession with wars:
The War on Drugs, The‘War.on Terrorism, etc.
These so-called declared “wars” are proving to
be highly ineffective. So now, we have to re-

think this “War on Drugs.” Healthcare profes- -

sionals, prevention specialists and activists are
looking for other, more effective ways to mini-
mize the harm to ourselves and our peers.
When you hear the word methampheta-

mine you may think of “Tina,” “Crystal,” or
“Speed.” but even legal drugs have nick-

names. Cigarettes are called smokes and alco-
hol has the nickname of booze and my person-
al favorite - hooch. Just like alcoholism and
tobacco addiction, the methamphetamine crisis
is not something new. Americans have been
obsessed with stimulants since the coffee trend
of the 1790’s.To prove our obsession, we now
have coffee bars on every other block in our
cities and towns. Whenever we examine cur-

’ rent  problems in our country we have to

look back and ask, “how did this happen?”
Looking back on America’s long history we
can’t point the finger at “tweakers” in urban
cities and rural youth. We need to look at these
long patterns of addiction and examine
methamphetamine use during the last century._
Methamphetamine has been available in
the United States since 1932, and over 200
million methamphetamine tablets were distrib-
uted to American soldiers during World War
II: five meth tablets were included in each sol-
dier’s field kit. As early as 1950, the
University of Maryland acknowledged a large
percentage of the students on its campus had a
meth addiction. In 1958, 3.5 billion tablets of '

legal methamphetamine were produced in the
United States. While soldiers were becoming
addicted to methamphetarnines overseas,
women at home were using these prescribed
tablets as anti-depressants and miracle weight
loss remedies. The use of methamphetamines
continued throughout the 60s and 70s. ..

Today, we hear news reports of the
“methamphetamine epidemic” in cities across
the nation. Maybe we shouldn’t_ be labeling
them as outbreaks but as a continuation of pat-
terns from our history.

Statistically, known methamphetamine use
in Vermont is very low compared to other
states in the nation. Unfortunately, other rural
states like West Virginia are seeing a signifi-
cant rise in methamphetamine use — and (no
surprise) a higher rate of newly reported HIV
infections. I am hoping Vermont will never see
the harms of crystal meth but the fact is, use
of the drug is spreading across the United
States quicker that anyone can control it;V

If you or anyone you know is concerned about
their drug use you can call The Drug and
Alcohol National Referral Hotline at I -800-
662-4357. V

Shawn Lipenski is the Health and Wellness
Coordinator at the R.U.I .2? Queer '

_ Community Center‘.

Katrina & AIDS

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Many of the
32,000 people living with HIV/AJDS
in or from Louisiana, Alabama, and
Mississippi are now at risk of serious

‘ illness caused by interruptions in their

medical treatments as well as by expo-
sure to water-borne pathogens, accord-
ing to a press release from the
National Association of People with
AIDS (NAPWA). Further, theysay,
the federal Department of Health and
Human Services has yet (as of press
time) to announce a plan to guarantee
I-IIV-positive evacuees access to anti-

' retroviral medication and medical

care.

“People living with HIV who stop
antiretroviral therapy againstmedical
advice can and will get ‘very sick, and
some will die,” according to Academy
of HIV Medicine President Dr.
Howard Gross_man. “HHS has long
considered HIV treatment a high-pri-
ority, and now they must do every-
thing in their power to ensure Katrina
survivors have continued access to
medicine and care.”

_ Community-based organizations
have been told by Health Resources
and Services Administration staff that
no provision has been made for emer-
gency flexibility of Ryan White

CARE Act funds to allow neighboring
states to care for HIV-positive Katrina‘
survivors. “Organizations in neighbor-
ing states are providing care and treat-
ment for evacuees, even without iden-
tified financial resources," reports
Terje Anderson, NAPWA’s executive
director. -

“AIDS  Assistance Programs
(ADAPs) in affected states are starting
to get HIV medications to evacuees,”
he adds. “But even before this disaster,
Alabama’s ADAP had more than 500
people on a waiting list, and the rest of
the affected and neighboring states
were already filled to capacity.”

Diagnosing HIV-positive Katrina
survivors who don’t know their status
is another urgent public health need.
“People with damaged immune sys-

tems are far more likely to suffer from
dysentery, tuberculosis, specific pneu-
monias, and diseases caused by expo-
sure to pathogen-laden flood waters,”
according to Julie Davids, executive
director of the Community HIV/AIDS
Mobilization Project. “And _medical
personnel may not realize that one in
four I-IIV-positive people in our coun-
try don’t knowthey are infected.”

A CDC study cited by the Black
AIDS institute showed the infection,
rate among gay and bisexual black
men is even higher, at 46 percent, and
two thirds of the infected black men
in the study did not know they were
infected. “Thus, the risks for Katrina
survivors remaining unaware of their
HIV status are serious and enor-
mous,” Davids concluded. She urged

the CDC to “step up. efforts to pro-
vide an adequate supply of rapid HIV
testing kits to community organiza-
tions throughout the region and
around the country to ensure that
counseling and testing are available
for evacuees near and far from the
disaster and educate providers about
how to recognize infections in
immune-suppressed people.”

“People living with HIV/AIDS
who have been evacuated from New
Orleans or elsewhere are going to need
housing and transportation to get to
medical appointments. The affected .
states will need new medical and
social service ‘facilities ,” observes
Damon Dozier, the congressional liai-
son for the National Minority AIDS
Council.'V_

Johnson Leaves ‘AIDS Project of Southern VT

BRATTLEBORO — It’s been six years
since Glenn Johnson arrived in
Vermont to work as an HIV prevention
specialist at .the AIDS Project of
Southern Vermont. It’s time, he says,
for him to take a break.

It's not, he-says, because funding
priorities for prevention have changed
his job. In fact, “Funding priorities
from the CDC align well with my
‘work he says, empowering members
of the community through activities
and weaving HIV prevention messages
into them. “It isn’t without its frustra-

tions, especially under me Bush
administration. It has not made the job
any easier.” Despite that, the Southern
Vermont AIDS Project’s prevention
funding was doubled last year by the

‘ Vermont Department of Health.

V He is leaving, he insists, because he
needs to “rest and recharge” before tak-
ing on some other activist challenge.
Sue Bell, the director of the AIDS
Project of Southern Vermont, agrees

that his successor will have big shoes ‘

to fill. “We are grateful to Glenn; he
has brought us to a wonderful spot

with his leadership in prevention,
especially in the Empowerment
Project. Glenn connected us to the
national Empowerment model, which
has proven successful in many differ-
ent places : That connection has broad-
ened our vision and made us more
effective.” , ,

The agencyis casting a wide net
and had already received a resume
from “someone who is temporarily in
Romania,” Bell said. While Bell hopes
to hire someone before Johnson
leaves, there will be continuity in the

program through the activities of Alex
Potter, who began working with the
newsletter and social activities for the

' agency in April. _ .

And that is the highlight, Johnso

says, of his time at APSV, the success '

his program had in the last round of
CDC funding administered by the
Department of Health. “I will miss the
people, the AIDS activists, it’s an
amazing community.”

The hardest part of the last six
years has been “dealing with gay
oppression, from the overt sources like
the Bush administration to the unchal-
lenged assumptions of people who‘
would think of themselves as liberals,

to the internalized gay oppression of
our own community.” He adds,
Vermont has been a great place to
learn how to be a gay activist.

Johnson, who attended Vassar
College and graduated in 1994 with a ‘
B.A. in Creative Writing and Social
Activism from UMass-Amherst,
would be quite a catch for any organi-
zation: he says he loves to write
grants. But he’s in no hurry to take on
another cause right away. After
October 6, he will be “resting and
recharging my batteries“ at home in
Greenfield, Massachusetts.

Oh, and did we mention that he's
single’? V