I don't see how it could be otherwise. Kate Fordham, my predecessor in writing this column, has addressed drug abuse issues pertinent to gay youth before, but I feel like the overall situation of drug use deserves further commentary, especially in light of what I observed the other night. In the clinical medical sciences, it is most often considered very poor form to evaluate a supposed trend based on isolated personal experience, and that would include me presupposing that drug use is wide-spread just because I consistently keep meeting young gay men who are consistently high. However, my personal encounters seem to be well-supported by statistical data on youth drug use in general and anecdotal information that I gleam from listservers on gay medical issues and from friends and colleagues all over the world. And that alone is reason for grave concern, because researchers have well-established corellations between drug use and sexual promiscuity as well as dangerous and sometimes violent physical acts.
Drugs offer a sensation of euphoria and often a feeling of invincibility, even of immortality.
They promote our desires to take risks that we might otherwise shun as foolish and hazardous to our health and the health of others. Some researchers in the biomedical and social sciences have indeed tried to walk down this path, and I commend them, but the type of data we really need is still spotty and riddled with more holes than solid structures. Here it seems, hard drugs such as crack cocaine and heroin are finding there way off the streets of the inner city and out of the projects and are enjoying a new and affluent market of middle-class gay consumers who can afford these pharmaceuticals in regular doses. Maybe it's apathy, a lack of concern and regard for health in general. Maybe it's related to why some gay men have resorted to knowingly, even intentionally, having sex without a condom with men who are likely to be HIV-positive.