Suicide Tuesday: Gay Men and the Crystal Meth Scare

The meat of this book is in the last chapter, in which Osborne calls for a nuanced approach to meth use in the gay community: education in harm reduction for occasional users, drug abuse treatment for chronic users. In the main, however, this effort to get beyond the "ignorance and hysteria" surrounding the drug and its link to increased HIV transmission reads like an unconvincing—and often confusing—attempt to say that meth isn't that bad. Osborne does establish that most gay men don't use meth; that most who do, use it only occasionally; and that other drugs are also linked to unsafe sex, especially alcohol. Osborne has clearly done a lot of research. He puts meth use into historical context: in the 1940s, advertisements touted speed as "for fun and going on forever." About one quarter of the book is a history of AIDS and the controversies surrounding safe sex campaigns; similar controversies surround meth use. But Osborne's argument often gets lost in pages of undigested summaries of studies, most of which are too vaguely cited for serious readers to follow up on. The book feels rushed into publication, and many of its sentences have to be read two or three times to be unraveled. What does come clear is a picture of a community hamstrung by fears that naming harmful behavior will provide fuel to conservatives all too willing to stigmatize gays, or may alienate gay men who are deadly serious about their fun. (Feb.)