January 30, 2025 • 22 mins
Adam Zivo, founder and executive director of the Centre for Responsible Drug Policy, joins Jon Liedtke to discuss his latest article, "Meth-fueled orgies are bad", published on The Line.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Convection Plots with John lid Key. This is
an article I an interview I wasn't expecting to be
having today based on an article pitch that had shown
up in my inbox. Some you ignore, some you automatically
say yes to. This was the latter. When I saw
the headline matthueled orgies are bad, I knew I had
to figure out, quite frankly, why they sound like so
(00:25):
much fun. I'm joining me right now to discuss. Is
the founder and the executive director of the Center for
Responsible Drug Policy, a voice that I speak with often
on AM eight hundred CKLW. You can read him often
in the National Post as well. Adam zvo joins me
right now. Hey, Adam, how you doing.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I'm great. I'm tired, but not because I was in
the math field orgy because those things are bad.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
You're joining me right now from Ukraine, where those are
not taking place. I'd imagine rampantly in the streets.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I mean, not to my knowledge, but if anyone knows
is Doney it could be interesting. Journalist and angle. I'm
here visiting my boyfriend and you know, ideally soon to
be fiance for three weeks we're reconnecting. We have a
long distance relationship and it's been a few months since
we've seen each other. So now we're just enjoying splendid
bliss playing warcraft.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
That sounds lovely, if not to be added with the
meth field orgies. But okay, Adam, let's dive. Then I
need to know why is it that meth field orgies
are a bad thing? Can you summarize what this piece
is all about for people who haven't had a chance
to read it, so.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
The piece can be divided into two sections. So the
first section discusses how chem sex is a big issue
in the gay community in Canada and across the West.
More generally, chem sex is the practice of having sex
with other people, often in groups, while being high on
more dangerous forms of drugs, predominantly meth but sometimes ketamine,
(01:53):
which is a disassociated sedative often used to tranquilize horses,
and GHB, which basically makes you basic, almost comatose. You
feel like you're flying in the air. Says a friend
of mine. Well, I did it once like five years ago.
It was terrible, And the problem here is that so
since the early two thousands, you know, chem sex has
proliferated as a scourge upon the gay community, and it
(02:19):
became it's popularization and coincided with the rise of dating
websites and dating apps, which allowed gay men who were
strangers to get together, you know, just because they wanted
to have casual sex. Now, the problem with this, of course,
is that having sex with other people, and group sex
in particular, while being high on meth is reckless. You know,
(02:41):
meth destroys your life. It's highly addictive, it rots your teeth,
you get paranoid, you're up for days on end, and oftentimes,
you know, you end up homeless because your life destabilizes
or you die. So these are things that are not great,
which is why the chem sex play has been such
a huge health crisis in the gay community, which is
(03:03):
underappreciated because gay men's health is very niche. Now, I
want to imagine, given how serious the crisis is, that
public health experts working in with LGBTQ communities would be
trying to prevent this practice from happening. But that's not
what's happening. Instead, harm reduction advocates, Queer harm reduction advocates
(03:26):
are arguing that we should destigmatize chem sects, and they're
producing materials that actually glorify the practice of fucking on math.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Ok No, So when you say that they're producing materials
like glorify it, Like, what do you have an example
of something like this?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, I have. I have a few brochures that were
published recently. But I'm going to give you an example
of how I first became aware of this. So that
twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, I was helping this community organization
put together a workshop on meth abuse because I was
volunteering a lot with the gay community. I mean before
I was an evil National Post columnist, I was an
(04:05):
LGBTQ activist for many years. And you know, we put
this together and it was it was the presentation was
to be given by another volunteer with this community group,
and I assumed that they would tell people that having
sex on thatth is bad, don't do it. But that's
not what happened. Instead, he said that we should destigmatize
(04:26):
matthews and chem sex. We need to understand why people
use it. And he really emphasized the fact that math
makes sex feel amazing. It's so great, it's hotter than
anything you've ever experienced. Before it's so hot that you'll
never be able to have regular sex again, at least
not for a year. And it was basically a sales pitch,
(04:46):
and I remember leaving that session feeling ashamed that I
had supported its implementation. You know, I'd gotten the pizza,
gotten the venue, and I was like, why did I
do that? Because walking away from this, I feel more
inclined to use math than I did walking in. Before
I walked in, there was a zero percent chance. Now now
there was a zero dot, zero one percent chance, and
(05:07):
that is not good community activism. So the issue fell
off my radar for many years.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
But one secon let me just, yeah, let's put a
pin in that harm reduction should not be designed to
turn people on to the substance, right right.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Well, that's the thing. Harm reduction is about reducing the
harms associated with drug use, but it's not about actively
promoting drugs as being this, you know, great thing that
will enrich your life. And when it comes to destigmatization, yes,
of course we should destigmatize drug users so that they
feel comfortable enough to seek assistance, but we shouldn't destigmatize
(05:45):
dangerous drugs themselves, because those drugs will kill you or
ruin your life. And that's that's where we've crossed it
to dangerous territory.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Well, for sure, And i'd imagine there's the concern about
you know, HIV, the great spreading risings because of this
sexual behavior, because of this promiscuity and these uh I
guess the lack of boundaries that you would have from
the meth use itself. It seems like it's the complete
opposite that than what you would want from a public
health perspective.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Well, well, it's interesting. So chem sex is actually very
popular with HIV positive men because they are stigmatized and
they are not accepted in other sexual spaces often and
so they come together and they have math sex. Not
all of them, but some of them. Uh. And you know,
usually they're on their meds, which means that they're they're untransmissible,
(06:35):
like cannot infect other people. Right, So in that case,
the public health risk when it comes to HIV is contained.
But the problem is that if someone has developed a
crippling addiction to meth or to ketamine, then that destabilizes
them and often means that they're no longer compliance with
their with their medication schedule, and so that can cause
(06:58):
their viral load to in priests over time, which makes
them a danger to other people. So now you have
someone who is addicted to math having group sex and
is you know, infectious with their HIV and usually prefers
unprotected sex, whereas before, you know, they were uninfectious. So
maybe they haven't fully adjusted their practices to account for
their new HIV status.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
So who are some of the people then that would
be spreading the benefits, if you will, of chem sex?
I mean, is it just like some randos here or there,
or is it people that like we should be paying
attention to.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Oh no, these are like, these are actually significant harm
reduction advocates. And back in twenty nineteen, there was this
interesting back and forth in Now magazine, which is a
Toronto based publication, very progressive. I'm not sure if it's
still functional. But Tim mccaskell, who was a veteran gay
(07:54):
rights activist, you know, he was there from the very beginning.
He's an old dude. He wrote an op ed saying
that it was appalling that we were not doing more
to prevent the proliferation of chem sex, and he compared
it to the HIV crisis. He said that during the eighties,
there were posters everywhere warning people, you know, not to
have unprotected sex, saying that you should use condoms. And
(08:17):
he said that based on what he saw around him,
there was no not a modicum of effort in prevention
when it comes to crystal meth. And he said we
should be screaming from the rooftops that meth kills people.
Meth is bad. It kills gay men now. In response
to that, a group of harm reduction activists wrote a
counter op ed which was obscene. Basically, they said that
(08:40):
Tim was stigmatizing myth and they argued that there is
and I'm going to quote here, there is no shortage
of shitty prejudices against meth use. And to continue the quote,
they say, you never hear the stories about how much
fun your friend had at his chem sex hookup because
the fear surrounding crystal meth use has created echo chamber.
(09:01):
To speak casually or in a positive light about such
a villified drug immediately creates a panic in those who
care about you. What the fuck right?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
So wow?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
The people who this include Zoe Dodd, who is one
of the leading harm reduction activists in Canada. She was
constantly on the CBC as well as you know Nick Boyce,
who is a senior policy analyst with a Canadian Drug
Policy Coalition, which is an influential drug legalization advocacy group.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
How do you feel, you know, just as a gay person,
when you see your community being sold this product, if
you will.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
It feels terrible. Game men go through so much in
their lives. Not so much anymore because we've mostly been accepted,
although with recent political developments, I don't know how much
that's going to hold over the next decade. But for
most of us, you know, we came of age at
a time we're being gay was not okay. You know,
it became way more okay in the mid two thousands,
(10:07):
but even when I was a kid, it was not
all right, and people would use you know, fag and
gay as a pejorative and you would feel shamed, like
ashamed of yourself. Many, many gay men are excommunicated from
their families, from their communities, from their from their religious
communities as well. And and when you have all that trauma,
and all this trauma precipitates drug use, right, because I
(10:29):
have to keep in mind that gay men often use
these drugs to deal with unaddressed trauma. You know, it
hurts them, it kills them, and then the people who
are tasked with protecting them, with saving their lives, are
enabling these self destructive, maladaptive coping mechanisms. It leads to
gay men dying. And me, as a gay man, I
don't like the I don't like the thought of gay
(10:51):
men dying. I would prefer us to live. And you
know I mentioned earlier this op ed and you think, well,
that's just an op ed. You know, I just mentioned
a presentation. So back in like last year or been
twenty twenty three, because now we're in twenty twenty five,
there were these brochures that were published by some prominence
(11:14):
gay men's health organizations in Toronto. So the first one
is by the AIDS Committee of Toronto and it's called
Safer P and P. P and P means party in play.
That's another term for camp sex. And you know it's
a brochure that glorified keem sex and provided a how
to guide on it. You know, some of the stuff
(11:34):
that they advised on. I mean you gave another quote,
you know, to say, loading syringes and prepping in front
of others can be difficult and take away your playtime,
especially if you're already high. Try to load syringes and
pre measure doses earlier than the party. Now, mind you,
the brochure is full of images of hot gay men
who are definitely not addicted to meth. I mean all
(11:56):
of them have really nice teeth.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
These guys all have like, you know, really like the
healthy looking bodies, not very much emaciated looking.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, you know, none of them look like they sucked
for five dollars an alley because they've given up everything
else in their life because they're addicted to meth, right, Adam, Well, yeah,
and so when you fill a brochure with really hot
gay men and describe chem sex in these terms, you're
basically producing aspirational advertising. And look, there was another thing
(12:28):
from twenty twenty three, Your Party and play Field Guide,
a brochure published by the Gay Men's Sexual Health Alliance.
And mind you, all this stuff is publicly funded. It's
all paid for with our tax dollars. And they say, look,
I'm gonna quote again. When you think about P and P,
crystal meth and GHB are the drugs that come to mind.
(12:48):
These two have a bad reputation that follows them around.
Yet guys still love to party with them. Why well,
stex on. These drugs can be hot and intense, not
to mention, it can last for hours. You feel more
connected to people and better about yourself. Of course, there
are downsides like dehydration, losing sleep, and increased anxiety. Now
(13:14):
let's pause for a second. Okay, so the downsides they
describe as dehydration, losing sleep, and increased anxiety. Math is
not fucking coffee, right. It will kill you, and they're
describing it in these terms.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Okay, So I get. We can't presume then that this
is a one off. You've shown two different examples here.
So is this something that government I mean essentially government's
funding this. So I don't know if the question is
government able to respond to this? Are you hopeful of
something like that under this current federal government?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Under this current federal government, absolutely not, because there is
no way that they're going to intervene in this. Because
you know, they love their ultra radical queer activists, and
I say, this is a gay man. I would hope
that if the Conservatives get elected that they'll clamp down.
But the problem here is that this space is so
niche and so obscure that it's hard to get people
to care. No one talks about gay men's health because
(14:13):
it impacts such a small segments of the population, which
is why it's been this petri dish for radical activism.
And even if the federal government were to intervene, I'm
concerned that the people who work in this space, and
I know many of them, they're in an echo chamber,
and I wonder if they would find ways to undermine
the implementation of change given that there isn't much There
(14:37):
aren't really an any that many people who can oversee
this effectively. As an external evaluator.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
It seems to me like the policy solution to this
is a pretty simple one, right, don't promote m sex
is like a really simple starting point. Is there anything
beyond that, whether it be messaging from the from different
levels of government or from you know, gay organizations or
(15:05):
HIV organizations, Like, what should the messaging be be on
this front? Knowing as you said, that this is a
phenomenon that does exist, people are engaging in keem.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Sex, well, I mean, I would think the most the
most obvious thing is to invest into prevention, right because
As of now, prevention is not mentioned in any of
these resources. Uh the one that was produced by the
Gay Men's Health Alliance, I believe, Uh, well, one of
the brochures. You know, they spent more time warning people
(15:36):
about the dangers of leaving with someone else's cock bring
after an orgy, or leaving out valuables right that could
be stolen while you're passed out on meth like. They
talk more about that than prevention. So I think that
there is We're at rock bottom in that space, so
we can only go up when it comes to finding
ways to dissuade men from engaging in these practices. But
(16:01):
of course there's a problem here, and as I mentioned earlier,
the people who work at these institutions are ideologically hardwired
to think that prevention is impossible and that harm reduction
is the only way to go. I was at an
addiction conference last year where there was a chem sex session,
and I asked them, what are you doing to dissuade
(16:24):
gay men from engaging in chem sex? What prevention method
what prevention initiatives you have in place? I shit you not.
They told me that prevention doesn't work and they only
do harm reduction and they said that we should focus
on the positive aspects of drug use and not just
say that drugs are bad. So these are the kind
(16:44):
of people who are you know, working in these institutions.
So you can change the funding, but you kind of
have to purge the staff as well. And actually, you
know what, one thing I haven't mentioned yet, and I'm
going to add thiss in is one other anecdote just
to show how fucked up this is. So at that conference, right,
the presenter said some other concerning things, you know, not
(17:07):
only saying that we should think about the positive aspects
of myth, he also said that, uh, you know, chem
sex will make you feel more connected and that it
has the added benefits of leveling the sexual playing field
because if you're old or ugly, you can have sex
with younger or prettier people at chem sex orgies because
(17:29):
everyone's fucked up and can you imagine, like, how how
how how this is? This is so obscene? Imagine if
you had a if you if you had a researcher, say,
you know in a straight context that meth fiel doorgies
are great because it allows older and ugly men to
(17:52):
fuck younger and pretty women while everyone is high. Often
by giving these younger and prettier women meth that they're
addicted to, there would be an cry. But you know,
with the gay community, it is considered fine because we're even.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
If it was even if it wasn't about meth, if
it was just say about alcohol, alcohol, it was the
great equalizer because if you get a girl so fucked up,
she won't be able to say no because she'll just
be having such a fun time. I mean, that is
something that, as you you, it would it would send
people running for the hill, screaming. And it goes back
to my question where I asked her at the outset,
(18:27):
how does it make you feel, just as a gay
man that it's being presented in this way? Why is
it that? I mean, I think you've touched on it
a bit in terms, but I'd like for you just
to answer the question head on. Why is it that
the education is presented in this way when it comes
to the gay male community versus I can't speak to
(18:51):
you know, the lesbian community or you know, I guess,
or comparatively to the straight community. Why is it that
your community is so spirit in terms of this messaging.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Well, I mean, like I just want to say the
lesbians don't have time for camp sex because they're too busy,
you know, doing plumbing and building for great we all
love the lessons, well, they get things done and they
don't have med field or no. I think that the
underlying problem here, and this is some historical context I
haven't brought up yet, is that the harm reduction movement
(19:24):
actually originates from the HIV aid space. So it began
in the eighties as a way to reduce the transmission
of HIV AIDS through needle exchanges. And then after HIV
AIDS was mostly managed by the late nineties, we had
all of these harm reduction experts had to pivot to
a new place lest they lose their jobs essentially, and
(19:45):
so they transferred their expertise to addiction because they also
worked with addicts who had HIV, and even though they
didn't have a background addiction medicine, they essentially took over
that space. So you've always had a close alliance of
queer activism harm reduction activism. And because you have this
intersection in such a niche space where there is no
(20:06):
external accountability, that's where you get this incredible radicalism. Now
in terms of how I feel about this. I think
that it betrays a certain level of homophobia. To be honest,
When I was at that conference, most of the audience
there these are all, you know, people working in healthcare,
mostly clinicians, and they were mostly women who were mostly straight,
(20:28):
and they were nodding along, you know, imbibing this information uncritically,
and I felt revolted at the thought of what they
must think of gay men, right, that we are just
drug addicted sex maniacs, and that if we destroy ourselves
through methorgies, that's okay, because from the harm reduction perspective,
(20:52):
that is a cherished cultural practice, right. And essentially, brochures
like this, educational material like this gives license to heterosexual
clinicians to give up on gay men and abandon them
to their despair and self destruction. And I think that's
the underlying pernicious aspect of it. I don't like it when,
(21:16):
you know, politically radical gay men indirectly kill gay men
through their reckless policy preferences. But I think it's even
worse when well meaning but ignorance great women working in
healthcare condemn gay men to death as well.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Adam, I want to thank you so much for your
time talking about this one. I just it's it's hard
to wrap your head around that this is actually something
that's being funded and pushed by various levels of government.
But I find myself increasingly these days saying that sentence.
Quite frankly, it seems to me as if the sea
(21:54):
change might be coming and there's going to be a
culture swing coming soon enough, at least if polling shows
anything at like that. But I really appreciate you taking
some time to talk about why methfield orgies are bad.
Learned a little bit along the way here, had some fun.
Hope you did as well well.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Thanks for having me on the show.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Absolutely, thanks so much, You have yourself a great time.
Adam Zevo is the founder and executive director of the
Center for Responsible Drug Policy. Check out this latest article,
methfield orgies are Bad. It's online at Readthline dot ca.
Welcome to Convection Plots with John lid Key. This is
an article I an interview I wasn't expecting to be
having today based on an article pitch that had shown
up in my inbox. Some you ignore, some you automatically
say yes to. This was the latter. When I saw
the headline matthueled orgies are bad, I knew I had
to figure out, quite frankly, why they sound like so
(00:25):
much fun. I'm joining me right now to discuss. Is
the founder and the executive director of the Center for
Responsible Drug Policy, a voice that I speak with often
on AM eight hundred CKLW. You can read him often
in the National Post as well. Adam zvo joins me
right now. Hey, Adam, how you doing.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
I'm great. I'm tired, but not because I was in
the math field orgy because those things are bad.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
You're joining me right now from Ukraine, where those are
not taking place. I'd imagine rampantly in the streets.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I mean, not to my knowledge, but if anyone knows
is Doney it could be interesting. Journalist and angle. I'm
here visiting my boyfriend and you know, ideally soon to
be fiance for three weeks we're reconnecting. We have a
long distance relationship and it's been a few months since
we've seen each other. So now we're just enjoying splendid
bliss playing warcraft.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
That sounds lovely, if not to be added with the
meth field orgies. But okay, Adam, let's dive. Then I
need to know why is it that meth field orgies
are a bad thing? Can you summarize what this piece
is all about for people who haven't had a chance
to read it, so.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
The piece can be divided into two sections. So the
first section discusses how chem sex is a big issue
in the gay community in Canada and across the West.
More generally, chem sex is the practice of having sex
with other people, often in groups, while being high on
more dangerous forms of drugs, predominantly meth but sometimes ketamine,
(01:53):
which is a disassociated sedative often used to tranquilize horses,
and GHB, which basically makes you basic, almost comatose. You
feel like you're flying in the air. Says a friend
of mine. Well, I did it once like five years ago.
It was terrible, And the problem here is that so
since the early two thousands, you know, chem sex has
proliferated as a scourge upon the gay community, and it
(02:19):
became it's popularization and coincided with the rise of dating
websites and dating apps, which allowed gay men who were
strangers to get together, you know, just because they wanted
to have casual sex. Now, the problem with this, of course,
is that having sex with other people, and group sex
in particular, while being high on meth is reckless. You know,
(02:41):
meth destroys your life. It's highly addictive, it rots your teeth,
you get paranoid, you're up for days on end, and oftentimes,
you know, you end up homeless because your life destabilizes
or you die. So these are things that are not great,
which is why the chem sex play has been such
a huge health crisis in the gay community, which is
(03:03):
underappreciated because gay men's health is very niche. Now, I
want to imagine, given how serious the crisis is, that
public health experts working in with LGBTQ communities would be
trying to prevent this practice from happening. But that's not
what's happening. Instead, harm reduction advocates, Queer harm reduction advocates
(03:26):
are arguing that we should destigmatize chem sects, and they're
producing materials that actually glorify the practice of fucking on math.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Ok No, So when you say that they're producing materials
like glorify it, Like, what do you have an example
of something like this?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah, I have. I have a few brochures that were
published recently. But I'm going to give you an example
of how I first became aware of this. So that
twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, I was helping this community organization
put together a workshop on meth abuse because I was
volunteering a lot with the gay community. I mean before
I was an evil National Post columnist, I was an
(04:05):
LGBTQ activist for many years. And you know, we put
this together and it was it was the presentation was
to be given by another volunteer with this community group,
and I assumed that they would tell people that having
sex on thatth is bad, don't do it. But that's
not what happened. Instead, he said that we should destigmatize
(04:26):
matthews and chem sex. We need to understand why people
use it. And he really emphasized the fact that math
makes sex feel amazing. It's so great, it's hotter than
anything you've ever experienced. Before it's so hot that you'll
never be able to have regular sex again, at least
not for a year. And it was basically a sales pitch,
(04:46):
and I remember leaving that session feeling ashamed that I
had supported its implementation. You know, I'd gotten the pizza,
gotten the venue, and I was like, why did I
do that? Because walking away from this, I feel more
inclined to use math than I did walking in. Before
I walked in, there was a zero percent chance. Now now
there was a zero dot, zero one percent chance, and
(05:07):
that is not good community activism. So the issue fell
off my radar for many years.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
But one secon let me just, yeah, let's put a
pin in that harm reduction should not be designed to
turn people on to the substance, right right.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Well, that's the thing. Harm reduction is about reducing the
harms associated with drug use, but it's not about actively
promoting drugs as being this, you know, great thing that
will enrich your life. And when it comes to destigmatization, yes,
of course we should destigmatize drug users so that they
feel comfortable enough to seek assistance, but we shouldn't destigmatize
(05:45):
dangerous drugs themselves, because those drugs will kill you or
ruin your life. And that's that's where we've crossed it
to dangerous territory.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Well, for sure, And i'd imagine there's the concern about
you know, HIV, the great spreading risings because of this
sexual behavior, because of this promiscuity and these uh I
guess the lack of boundaries that you would have from
the meth use itself. It seems like it's the complete
opposite that than what you would want from a public
health perspective.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Well, well, it's interesting. So chem sex is actually very
popular with HIV positive men because they are stigmatized and
they are not accepted in other sexual spaces often and
so they come together and they have math sex. Not
all of them, but some of them. Uh. And you know,
usually they're on their meds, which means that they're they're untransmissible,
(06:35):
like cannot infect other people. Right, So in that case,
the public health risk when it comes to HIV is contained.
But the problem is that if someone has developed a
crippling addiction to meth or to ketamine, then that destabilizes
them and often means that they're no longer compliance with
their with their medication schedule, and so that can cause
(06:58):
their viral load to in priests over time, which makes
them a danger to other people. So now you have
someone who is addicted to math having group sex and
is you know, infectious with their HIV and usually prefers
unprotected sex, whereas before, you know, they were uninfectious. So
maybe they haven't fully adjusted their practices to account for
their new HIV status.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
So who are some of the people then that would
be spreading the benefits, if you will, of chem sex?
I mean, is it just like some randos here or there,
or is it people that like we should be paying
attention to.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Oh no, these are like, these are actually significant harm
reduction advocates. And back in twenty nineteen, there was this
interesting back and forth in Now magazine, which is a
Toronto based publication, very progressive. I'm not sure if it's
still functional. But Tim mccaskell, who was a veteran gay
(07:54):
rights activist, you know, he was there from the very beginning.
He's an old dude. He wrote an op ed saying
that it was appalling that we were not doing more
to prevent the proliferation of chem sex, and he compared
it to the HIV crisis. He said that during the eighties,
there were posters everywhere warning people, you know, not to
have unprotected sex, saying that you should use condoms. And
(08:17):
he said that based on what he saw around him,
there was no not a modicum of effort in prevention
when it comes to crystal meth. And he said we
should be screaming from the rooftops that meth kills people.
Meth is bad. It kills gay men now. In response
to that, a group of harm reduction activists wrote a
counter op ed which was obscene. Basically, they said that
(08:40):
Tim was stigmatizing myth and they argued that there is
and I'm going to quote here, there is no shortage
of shitty prejudices against meth use. And to continue the quote,
they say, you never hear the stories about how much
fun your friend had at his chem sex hookup because
the fear surrounding crystal meth use has created echo chamber.
(09:01):
To speak casually or in a positive light about such
a villified drug immediately creates a panic in those who
care about you. What the fuck right?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
So wow?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
The people who this include Zoe Dodd, who is one
of the leading harm reduction activists in Canada. She was
constantly on the CBC as well as you know Nick Boyce,
who is a senior policy analyst with a Canadian Drug
Policy Coalition, which is an influential drug legalization advocacy group.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
How do you feel, you know, just as a gay person,
when you see your community being sold this product, if
you will.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
It feels terrible. Game men go through so much in
their lives. Not so much anymore because we've mostly been accepted,
although with recent political developments, I don't know how much
that's going to hold over the next decade. But for
most of us, you know, we came of age at
a time we're being gay was not okay. You know,
it became way more okay in the mid two thousands,
(10:07):
but even when I was a kid, it was not
all right, and people would use you know, fag and
gay as a pejorative and you would feel shamed, like
ashamed of yourself. Many, many gay men are excommunicated from
their families, from their communities, from their from their religious
communities as well. And and when you have all that trauma,
and all this trauma precipitates drug use, right, because I
(10:29):
have to keep in mind that gay men often use
these drugs to deal with unaddressed trauma. You know, it
hurts them, it kills them, and then the people who
are tasked with protecting them, with saving their lives, are
enabling these self destructive, maladaptive coping mechanisms. It leads to
gay men dying. And me, as a gay man, I
don't like the I don't like the thought of gay
(10:51):
men dying. I would prefer us to live. And you
know I mentioned earlier this op ed and you think, well,
that's just an op ed. You know, I just mentioned
a presentation. So back in like last year or been
twenty twenty three, because now we're in twenty twenty five,
there were these brochures that were published by some prominence
(11:14):
gay men's health organizations in Toronto. So the first one
is by the AIDS Committee of Toronto and it's called
Safer P and P. P and P means party in play.
That's another term for camp sex. And you know it's
a brochure that glorified keem sex and provided a how
to guide on it. You know, some of the stuff
(11:34):
that they advised on. I mean you gave another quote,
you know, to say, loading syringes and prepping in front
of others can be difficult and take away your playtime,
especially if you're already high. Try to load syringes and
pre measure doses earlier than the party. Now, mind you,
the brochure is full of images of hot gay men
who are definitely not addicted to meth. I mean all
(11:56):
of them have really nice teeth.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
These guys all have like, you know, really like the
healthy looking bodies, not very much emaciated looking.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Yeah, you know, none of them look like they sucked
for five dollars an alley because they've given up everything
else in their life because they're addicted to meth, right, Adam, Well, yeah,
and so when you fill a brochure with really hot
gay men and describe chem sex in these terms, you're
basically producing aspirational advertising. And look, there was another thing
(12:28):
from twenty twenty three, Your Party and play Field Guide,
a brochure published by the Gay Men's Sexual Health Alliance.
And mind you, all this stuff is publicly funded. It's
all paid for with our tax dollars. And they say, look,
I'm gonna quote again. When you think about P and P,
crystal meth and GHB are the drugs that come to mind.
(12:48):
These two have a bad reputation that follows them around.
Yet guys still love to party with them. Why well,
stex on. These drugs can be hot and intense, not
to mention, it can last for hours. You feel more
connected to people and better about yourself. Of course, there
are downsides like dehydration, losing sleep, and increased anxiety. Now
(13:14):
let's pause for a second. Okay, so the downsides they
describe as dehydration, losing sleep, and increased anxiety. Math is
not fucking coffee, right. It will kill you, and they're
describing it in these terms.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Okay, So I get. We can't presume then that this
is a one off. You've shown two different examples here.
So is this something that government I mean essentially government's
funding this. So I don't know if the question is
government able to respond to this? Are you hopeful of
something like that under this current federal government?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Under this current federal government, absolutely not, because there is
no way that they're going to intervene in this. Because
you know, they love their ultra radical queer activists, and
I say, this is a gay man. I would hope
that if the Conservatives get elected that they'll clamp down.
But the problem here is that this space is so
niche and so obscure that it's hard to get people
to care. No one talks about gay men's health because
(14:13):
it impacts such a small segments of the population, which
is why it's been this petri dish for radical activism.
And even if the federal government were to intervene, I'm
concerned that the people who work in this space, and
I know many of them, they're in an echo chamber,
and I wonder if they would find ways to undermine
the implementation of change given that there isn't much There
(14:37):
aren't really an any that many people who can oversee
this effectively. As an external evaluator.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
It seems to me like the policy solution to this
is a pretty simple one, right, don't promote m sex
is like a really simple starting point. Is there anything
beyond that, whether it be messaging from the from different
levels of government or from you know, gay organizations or
(15:05):
HIV organizations, Like, what should the messaging be be on
this front? Knowing as you said, that this is a
phenomenon that does exist, people are engaging in keem.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Sex, well, I mean, I would think the most the
most obvious thing is to invest into prevention, right because
As of now, prevention is not mentioned in any of
these resources. Uh the one that was produced by the
Gay Men's Health Alliance, I believe, Uh, well, one of
the brochures. You know, they spent more time warning people
(15:36):
about the dangers of leaving with someone else's cock bring
after an orgy, or leaving out valuables right that could
be stolen while you're passed out on meth like. They
talk more about that than prevention. So I think that
there is We're at rock bottom in that space, so
we can only go up when it comes to finding
ways to dissuade men from engaging in these practices. But
(16:01):
of course there's a problem here, and as I mentioned earlier,
the people who work at these institutions are ideologically hardwired
to think that prevention is impossible and that harm reduction
is the only way to go. I was at an
addiction conference last year where there was a chem sex session,
and I asked them, what are you doing to dissuade
(16:24):
gay men from engaging in chem sex? What prevention method
what prevention initiatives you have in place? I shit you not.
They told me that prevention doesn't work and they only
do harm reduction and they said that we should focus
on the positive aspects of drug use and not just
say that drugs are bad. So these are the kind
(16:44):
of people who are you know, working in these institutions.
So you can change the funding, but you kind of
have to purge the staff as well. And actually, you
know what, one thing I haven't mentioned yet, and I'm
going to add thiss in is one other anecdote just
to show how fucked up this is. So at that conference, right,
the presenter said some other concerning things, you know, not
(17:07):
only saying that we should think about the positive aspects
of myth, he also said that, uh, you know, chem
sex will make you feel more connected and that it
has the added benefits of leveling the sexual playing field
because if you're old or ugly, you can have sex
with younger or prettier people at chem sex orgies because
(17:29):
everyone's fucked up and can you imagine, like, how how
how how this is? This is so obscene? Imagine if
you had a if you if you had a researcher, say,
you know in a straight context that meth fiel doorgies
are great because it allows older and ugly men to
(17:52):
fuck younger and pretty women while everyone is high. Often
by giving these younger and prettier women meth that they're
addicted to, there would be an cry. But you know,
with the gay community, it is considered fine because we're even.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
If it was even if it wasn't about meth, if
it was just say about alcohol, alcohol, it was the
great equalizer because if you get a girl so fucked up,
she won't be able to say no because she'll just
be having such a fun time. I mean, that is
something that, as you you, it would it would send
people running for the hill, screaming. And it goes back
to my question where I asked her at the outset,
(18:27):
how does it make you feel, just as a gay
man that it's being presented in this way? Why is
it that? I mean, I think you've touched on it
a bit in terms, but I'd like for you just
to answer the question head on. Why is it that
the education is presented in this way when it comes
to the gay male community versus I can't speak to
(18:51):
you know, the lesbian community or you know, I guess,
or comparatively to the straight community. Why is it that
your community is so spirit in terms of this messaging.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Well, I mean, like I just want to say the
lesbians don't have time for camp sex because they're too busy,
you know, doing plumbing and building for great we all
love the lessons, well, they get things done and they
don't have med field or no. I think that the
underlying problem here, and this is some historical context I
haven't brought up yet, is that the harm reduction movement
(19:24):
actually originates from the HIV aid space. So it began
in the eighties as a way to reduce the transmission
of HIV AIDS through needle exchanges. And then after HIV
AIDS was mostly managed by the late nineties, we had
all of these harm reduction experts had to pivot to
a new place lest they lose their jobs essentially, and
(19:45):
so they transferred their expertise to addiction because they also
worked with addicts who had HIV, and even though they
didn't have a background addiction medicine, they essentially took over
that space. So you've always had a close alliance of
queer activism harm reduction activism. And because you have this
intersection in such a niche space where there is no
(20:06):
external accountability, that's where you get this incredible radicalism. Now
in terms of how I feel about this. I think
that it betrays a certain level of homophobia. To be honest,
When I was at that conference, most of the audience
there these are all, you know, people working in healthcare,
mostly clinicians, and they were mostly women who were mostly straight,
(20:28):
and they were nodding along, you know, imbibing this information uncritically,
and I felt revolted at the thought of what they
must think of gay men, right, that we are just
drug addicted sex maniacs, and that if we destroy ourselves
through methorgies, that's okay, because from the harm reduction perspective,
(20:52):
that is a cherished cultural practice, right. And essentially, brochures
like this, educational material like this gives license to heterosexual
clinicians to give up on gay men and abandon them
to their despair and self destruction. And I think that's
the underlying pernicious aspect of it. I don't like it when,
(21:16):
you know, politically radical gay men indirectly kill gay men
through their reckless policy preferences. But I think it's even
worse when well meaning but ignorance great women working in
healthcare condemn gay men to death as well.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Adam, I want to thank you so much for your
time talking about this one. I just it's it's hard
to wrap your head around that this is actually something
that's being funded and pushed by various levels of government.
But I find myself increasingly these days saying that sentence.
Quite frankly, it seems to me as if the sea
(21:54):
change might be coming and there's going to be a
culture swing coming soon enough, at least if polling shows
anything at like that. But I really appreciate you taking
some time to talk about why methfield orgies are bad.
Learned a little bit along the way here, had some fun.
Hope you did as well well.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Thanks for having me on the show.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Absolutely, thanks so much, You have yourself a great time.
Adam Zevo is the founder and executive director of the
Center for Responsible Drug Policy. Check out this latest article,
methfield orgies are Bad. It's online at Readthline dot ca.
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