FEATURE-Sex, meth and Internet spark new AIDS fears
17 Jan 2007 19:45:51 GMT Source: Reuters
(Eds: note nature of subject matter throughout) By Matthew Verrinder NEW YORK, Jan 17 (Reuters) - An hour after speaking at a Crystal Meth Anonymous meeting about the benefits of sobriety to dozens of other recovering addicts, Charlie was alone in his Chelsea apartment, logged onto the Web site Adam4Adam.com. He cruised the site's profiles of muscular gay men who want to meet for sex while high on methamphetamine, and found his match: a 50-year-old man from Manhattan's Upper East Side who liked to "slam" the drug, or inject it directly into the bloodstream. "I blew two-and-a-half years of sobriety in a few hours," said Charlie, who did not want to give his last name. "All I had to do was log on, and it just so happens that it was right there." In New York, thousands of gay men use the Web sites Adam4Adam.com, Manhunt.net and Craigslist.org as an easy way to meet for sex marathons at underground orgies while high on the addictive stimulant. Similar sites exists in other cities. The phenomenon -- while affecting only a small part of the gay community -- underscores the spread of meth from the U.S. rural areas where it gained an early foothold. Health officials worry that the ease in using the Web to find meth -- which erases inhibitions and judgment and creates a voracious sexual appetite -- and people to do it will fuel a resurgence among gays in infections of HIV, the virus which causes AIDS. About half of new patients diagnosed with HIV by counselors at Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, New York's largest private clinic for gay men, said that meth or alcohol was a factor, said Gal Mayer, the center's medical director. Men who are high on meth are four times more likely to have unprotected sex than those who aren't, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "These men use meth to escape and forget about their positive HIV status," said Michael Siever, director of San Francisco's Stonewall Project, a counseling program for gay and bisexual men who use crystal meth. "They assume everyone else is positive at these parties, which isn't the case, and it leads to more infections." Also, Siever said, some long-term meth users have built up tolerance to the drug and must inject it to get high -- some using dirty needles which lead to more HIV transmission. About 45 percent of the men who sought treatment at Stonewall in the last year admitted they had injected, Siever said. The online code for mixing sex and meth is PNP, shorthand for "party 'n play." The sites are free and allow members to search for partners based on proximity, HIV status, preferences in appearance and sexual practices, whether or not they use condoms and which drugs they use. "You can literally do searches so that you're within a $5 cab ride from someone," said Bill Stackhouse, director of the Institute for Gay Men's Health at the Gay Men's Health Crisis, a group that fights AIDS in New York City. Some men, like Charlie, use the sites because they are relapsing after a period of sobriety and don't have a dealer. Others do not want to risk buying drugs on the street or are hoping to parlay sex into free drugs. "It's the fast-food version of sex and drugs," said Siever. "You can order in." Also logged on to the sites, silently waiting behind a profile that includes a headless photo displaying his fit chest and abdominal muscles, was Terry Evans, an outreach worker for Positive Health Project, a nonprofit that seeks to stem the spread of HIV in New York. Evans was trying to convince meth users to have safe sex. A message quickly popped up in his inbox from user "bkpdnyc," a 32-year-old man from Manhattan who said he likes Evans' body and soon admitted that he parties with "Tina," a nickname for meth. Evans tried to string the man along to coax him to come in for one-on-one counseling. But before Evans could reveal his identity, the man logged off. Evans sent him a message anyway with the nonprofit's mission and phone number. "Initially a lot of them feel it's a bait and switch and they get kind of angry, but more than half come back and ask questions, and after that a lot of them come in," said Evans, who noted about a dozen men have come in over the last year.
