While on an assignment six months ago I had the pleasure of spending a lot of time talking with a researcher from the Harvard School of Medicine. She was just finishing up a two city study of young men who have sex with men and their use of club drugs and how it influenced their sexual behavior. The two cities were NYC and Boston.
She's very clear on a lot of things. And one of them is that it does nobody any good to assume the role of disapproving school marm with arms crossed over ample bosoms and tsk tsk tsking "the young people of today."
She had no patience for people "of a certain age" saying "after all we went through in the AIDS epidemic, how dare these young people take foolish risks?"
She points out again and again that young people's bodies are HARD WIRED to want sex. And lots of it. With lots of partners. And it's young people's JOBS to experiment with drugs and altered states of consciousness. It's what they DO!
No amount of hand-wringing and criticizing the way "these young people" behave will do a thing to change behaviors. No amount of fear-mongering will steer them clear of certain dangerous drugs, thanks to the outlaw mystique that gets created by certain nerdy types from older generations who use fear tactics and simple sloganeering like "Just Say No" to something as exciting as sex and drugs.
People (and it may be linked to genetic origins) tend to want one of two types of altered states. Some want to speed up, to feel confident, and sexual, and electric and alive. Others want to slow down. To quiet the endless monolgue in their heads, to disassociate a bit from the hyper-mediated jump cut world of today, to feel warm, and sleepy and calm. And there is a WHOLE HOST of chemicals that provide those feelings for people.
For the former, you've got caffeine, cocaine, ephedrine, amphetamine.
For the latter, you've got alcohol, benzodiazapines, marijuana, opiate derviatives like heroin.
Obviously, all of these things are not like the others. Heroin and Crystal are the two most extreme variations on the opposite ends of the spectrum and they provide INCREDIBLE pleasure at first, and then quickly have people in their grips before they are able to get out.
The other drugs, without so much of a chemical dependency, are, in general, the drugs that most people leave behind in their 20s and 30s, just because it gets harder get out of bed the morning after and longer to recover from a night of fun and frolic.
But some don't get out because they are caught in addiction. And there isn't actually a lot of support for people to help them get off drugs. And that's because as a culture, we have great difficulty dealing with the idea of pleasure. Or with spending money to HELP people when they need it.
Remember, people do drugs because they feel REALLY good. And anybody who says that isn't true, hasn't done the right drugs for them.
It's pretty hard to tell "young people" that they oughtn't do them at all, when every other ad is telling you to ask your doctor if this pill or that pill is right for you.
Crystal is dangerous as hell because it rewires brain chemistry (as does the whole class of SSRIs that doctors give out like candy, but I digress) and it is very hard for people to feel human again after feeling such intense pleasure. Sex off crystal simply cannot compare to sex on crystal. And it's very hard for people not to slip back into using, because it so messes up the production and release of dopamine, the pleasure chemicals in the brain.
My advice? Do what you want, kids, just not Crystal or Heroin. Those are the BIG baddies. And know about the others. And plan what you are going to do, what's acceptable to you, and be PREPARED. Do whatever it takes to reduce the possibility of harm to yourself or anybody else.
Be real.
Dance Safe
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