Of Mice and Meth
Perspective, November, 2001
An interesting little item crossed my desktop recently. It seems that a group of researchers
at Cambridge University decided to give 238 laboratory mice doses of crystal methamphetamine
and subject them to loud dance music to see what would happen.
They died.
While the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection (a fancy name for an animal cruelty
prevention organization) is claiming that giving the mice doses of crystal and "forcing"
them to endure loud music is a cruel experiment and does not justify making the mice
suffer and die in a laboratory, no report to my knowledge indicates whether it was the
A) Methamphetamine;
B) Loud music; or
C) The musical choices alone...
which killed the mice (they could have died from a fatal overdose
of Junior Vasquez remixes, for instance).
As well, no information is available to indicate whether the drug-induced mice stopped
dancing with partners and turned instead to dancing with their own reflection in the
mirrors.
Apparently the study did determine that high decibel dance music heightens the toxic
effects of crystal in animals. And in case you weren't aware, human beings are considered
"animals" by scientists, even if the Church doesn't share that view.
So now it is out. Loud music only makes meth more toxic... as if it didn't already have enough
reason attached to it to avoid using it. In Bareback Jack's Top Ten list of reasons you
shouldn't use crystal meth, the number one reason is:
#1: Your chances of getting HIV are almost 100%
Well, here I go again, being Jack the Joykill. But from what I have seen lately in my neck of
the woods, the crystal problem is hitting an all-time high (no pun intended). And while the
local powers behind the AIDS prevention organizations in Arizona are finally beginning to accept the
reality that men have never stopped having unprotected sex despite the AIDS scare, I don't
think they are prepared for what is about to happen now that "Tina" has hit it
big in town.
One reason crystal has been overlooked as a primary cause of HIV transmission is because
of the tactics used in the original AIDS scare: create a
"Stick it in plastic or pick out your casket" mentality. We now know that
this philosophy isn't an entirely true one. But a good segment of the population bought
that fear-filled idea twenty years ago and swallowed the notion that to have sex without
condoms was an immediate death sentence. If every last man, woman and pubescent teen had
bought into that scare tactic, there might not be AIDS in today's world. But that didn't happen, and
it was entirely unrealistic of anyone to think it would.
Still, the cause of new infections is not to be blamed solely on the act of barebacking. Teens
seem to get each other pregnant with astounding regularity (a fact for
which talk show hosts Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones, Rikki Lake, and Maury Povich can be thankful).
Young, single
moms abound in this day and age. And from what the media shows us, half the time the bitches
don't even know who the father is. Okay? These "young adults" are having
unprotected sex left, right and sideways and dammit, they aren't dying as predicted.
And only the absolutely idiotic followers of religious fundamentalism still believe AIDS
is a disease unleashed by God unto homosexuals as punishment for being fabulous or something.
We know better. It is the fundamentalists themselves who are God's punishment,
not HIV.
So it IS possible for people to regularly engage in unprotected sex and NOT get HIV, NOT get
AIDS and NOT (as a consequence of thoroughly enjoying one's self)
die. The fact that HIV
is again spreading in alarming numbers must be attributed to other factors as well. Perhaps
the most insidious culprit (the most insidious in my book, anyway)
is meth.
Why meth? Well, because of what it does to its users. Not only does it successfully compromise one's immune
system, it also compromises one's ability to use good judgment. It makes its users horny for
24 to 36 hours while depriving them of the ability to sleep. And the longer the meth user
is awake and horny, the more risks he is likely to take in getting the sexual satisfaction
he craves.
Meth turns tops into bottoms when it becaomes useless for them to even try to get a woody.
Bottoms look for an endless supply of cock to ravage their holes. Following such bunghole
abuse is trauma to the rectum, opening the way for any disease to enter the now-compromised
body. And while some meth users will adhere to safe-sex practices for a while, sooner or
later it is inevitable that they will cave in to the suggestion of getting fucked bareback.
At this point, they might as well just kiss their negative status adios.
I receive letters occasionally from ex-meth users. Their stories are similar, and quite
honestly, sad. Take for example this recent letter:
"Alcohol, coccaine, and crystal absolutely
brought my life to the brink of destruction, and took away my HIV negative status..."
...and this:
"I was an addict, I am an addict although I've
been clean for 5 years. I too was seduced by this evil woman whom I had met in Chicago
[Crystal, aka "Tina"], and she took my money, happiness, romance, and most
painful, my love away from me. I allowed her to seize control at a moments notice,
and allowed her to decide important choices that have affected my life to this day..."
...and saddest of all:
"I lost my lover (10 years) to Crystal when
he decided that the drug was more important than anything else and his heart gave out
one night (he was 29). I miss him and love him. we played with the drug 9 years into
our relationship because we thought it was fun we did it a couple of times...he could
not stop. one night i came home and there was 4 strange men in my house. he was crying
on the couch. I said ask why they were there and he said "it" made me. i asked
them to leave. he keep talking and i was pissed i told him i was going to bed. the next
morning i found him on the couch. He was cold and not moving. I tried to wake him and
called 911. He was DOA. I lost my love and broke my heart. Every night i cry & hug my
pillow and wish it was him... I go every day to his grave and place fresh flowers..
(for the last 2 years). I hate to tell you it's no replacement for the love i lost..."
The sad truth is that crystal is devious shit. You think you are a sexual superstar while
on it because you aren't able to recognize your own lack of performance. You are euphoric, and
after you come down and get over the grisly part of crashing you feel as if no damage was
done so there can be no harm in doing it again. And seductively and surely it will addict you
while causing you to create lie upon lie to yourself and those around you about your
usage and your ability to control it. One of my best friends recently decided to try self-controlled
use of crystal. Up until then, he (like me) had been adamant against the use of meth and
didn't like playing with "partiers". He felt he had the strength of character
to withstand addiction. He was wrong, and has spent the last two months trying to break
his addiction. It has been, by his own confession, one of the hardest things he has had to
deal with, and the cravings have still not subsided. Make no mistake... that innocent-looking
white powder is stronger than most any man. It will ruin you.
If you start using meth as an HIV negative person, your chances of coming out of long-term
use as HIV-negative are slim to none. If you're already positive by the time you start using it
you can only further the damage done to your immune system and your body and shorten your
lifespan. The comment I hear over and again from ex-addicts is,
"If I had never used crystal I don't think I would be HIV Positive today."
Perhaps it wouldn't be fair to put all the blame for HIV conversions on crystal entirely.
There's another drug that is helping to fuel the fire. This drug has gained such widespread
popularity in our community, and for obvious reasons. The drug? Viagra.
Vitamin V.
Viagra is the wonder drug for gay men of the 21st Century just as valium was the
wonder drug for housewives of the 1960's. Viagra does the one thing for male virility no hair
restoration program could ever legally promise: it gets and keeps your cock hard! On Viagra
you can fuck the UGLIEST dawg of a man without losing your woody, or you
can screw like the energizer bunny... and keep going...and going... much to the delight of
any bottom in the middle of his crystal buzz.
Viagra, however, has fueled the meth fire in at least two ways. By allowing tops to last longer
and keep harder, viagra has given bottoms the need to be more lasting, to take a fuck longer,
harder and deeper. Crystal can usually do that for you when your own muscle control won't. Also, as an adjunct to crystal meth,
viagra can sometimes restore hardness to the man suffering from "crystal dick" ~
that condition caused by speed whereby the user's dick not only won't get hard for all the
crisco in San Francisco, but it shrivels up and becomes entirely worthless as a sexual organ. Viagra can
sometimes reverse the crystal dick condition long enough for a versatile chap to return the
fuck favor. Thus, more gay boys start using crystal in hopes they get more out of their
sex, or maybe just more sex, period. And they eventually
do get more out of their crystal-induced sex.
They get pozzed.
You know, I have a funny little observation about crystal dick. When I lived in Hollywood, I saw more
ads from men who claimed to have 9" cocks. Like, half of the gay men in LA had 9"
cocks. By 6", of course. So, if you believe everything you read, the gay male population of L.A.
has the highest average penis size per capita in North America. The few 9" claimants I
did meet were almost all "partying" pretty heavy and had crystal dick so bad
that nobody ever had the ability to prove their claims wrong. If it never got hard, you
could never actually measure it. But if you were to ask 'How big does it get?', you would get, "...when I'm not partying
my dick is, like, 9 or 9-1/2 inches, dude.". It's a pretty standard reply.
I think that's how the whole size estimation thing fell so far off the mark.
Anyway, with this in mind I think I would like to see more precise experiments performed
with lab mice, despite what the animal cruelty people have to say. I want to see what
happens when a group of gay HIV-negative mice are given crystal and put together in a black, mazelike
box with a group of HIV-positive mice and then have thumping disco music played in the background
and the smell of poppers dispersed thru the air in the maze.
Oh hell, I don't need mice for that experiment. All I have to do is spend a weekend at any
gay bath house to see where that will lead.
While I make light of the mouse study, there is one serious point to keep in mind. Crystal's
toxicity escalates in a loud music environment. The article I read wasn't detailed, so it is
not clear if the toxicity raises with the user's adrenaline rate or by some other factor
outside of volume in decibels. Nonetheless, it is worth pointing out and keeping in mind if you
are a raver and a tweaker. Remember, the mice died.
Another thing worth mentioning is that, because crystal users are extremely likely to
sero-convert during their use/abuse period, and because crystal use is a growing fad
(in particular among college-age men), there is already an upswing in the number of
new conversion cases the local AIDS projects are having to take in. That can put a
strain on resources that are currently available to PWA's. And unfortunately I feel that
the blame will not be assigned to the use of crystal meth, but to the barebackers as has
been the case before. What the dolts who shake their fingers at barebacking and sweep the
crystal problem under the carpet seem to forget is that the drug prevents one from making
clear or responsible choices. And that leads to group fucking and barebacking without the
concern of communication. It also leads to a blurred perception between fantasy and reality:
the guy who you think is bullshitting you by saying he's gonna poz you up while he is unloading
himself into your ass actually means it. And that in turn leads to your
sero-conversion.
Hey, tweakers... in case you've forgotten, once you convert you can't un-convert.
Following the September 11th attacks, many, many Americans donated blood. I am told by a
researcher at Body Positive in Phoenix that this has produced a larger number of new HIV
patients than normal, the result of having found out their status when they
tried to donate blood.
These things are happening. They don't need to happen.
Let's work on improving our image a bit. Let's try to get our friends off of crystal for
everyone's benefit. Let's start being more responsible to the men we exchange fluids with.
And let's still fuck our balls off while we achieve these goals!
You can be a man about it.... or you can be a mouse.
Bareback Jack
- Read "The Other Woman",
Jack's personal story about crystal.
- Visit Jack's Meth Lab to get the cold hard facts
about fagdom's favorite brainfuck.
I think that's how the whole size estimation thing fell so far off the mark.
Jack's personal story about crystal.
