California Targets Crystal Meth Addiction in New $11 Million Campaign

Drug officials in
California launched an $11 million campaign on Thursday
to dissuade gay men from using methamphetamine, otherwise
known as crystal, because of its connection to
unsafe sex and the transmission of HIV, according to a
story in the Los Angeles Times.

The result of the
state legislature’s 2006 California Methamphetamine
Initiative, the campaign includes billboards, bus wraps,
cable TV advertisements, and menotmeth.org, a website
where videos of real people show the dire consequences
of using the drug.

Mike Rizzo,
manager of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, praised
the campaign, telling the Times that it
depicted meth use in a way “that is real and
relatable and not easily dismissed as being overly
alarmist.”

A state-sponsored
survey of 549 men in the state found that 55% of gay
and bisexual men had used the drug, compared with 5% of the
general population. In 2004 the Gay and Lesbian
Center, which helped push the legislation, stated that
almost one in every three men who tested positive for
HIV had used meth -- three times the number in 2001. (The
Advocate)