The Dangers of “Party and Play”

Gay men, meth, and the staying power of stigma

While it’s difficult to know exactly what percentage of gay men use what drugs, Development Director of the Harm Reduction Action Center (HRAC) Preston Murray says, “Most of the gay male participants at HRAC use meth.”

Murray, a 32-year-old gay man, loves his work with HRAC, a nonprofit dedicated to preventing the transmission of HIV and hepatitis C by providing education and sterile supplies to people who inject drugs. HRAC also provides naloxone, which reverses an opiate overdose.

The International AIDS Society — USA said use of methamphetamines, also known as “meth,” “Tina,” and “T,” is five to 10 times more common in urban gay and bisexual men than in the general population. The prevalence of meth in the gay community has LGBTIQ advocates worried, and Grindr has been facing increasing scrutiny for allegedly facilitating the sale of the drug. 

“While this is not the case for all, many gay men get involved in using meth within the party-and-play scene,” Murray says.

John, a gay man and HRAC client, was introduced to meth 15 years ago. “A friend gave it to me and said, ‘Try this,’ so I did,” he says. Today, John is 44 and homeless. He comes to HRAC because, “it gives me a place that is safe, and it gives me the facts I need to stay safe.”

Sarah Axelrath, a medical student interested in internal medicine and primary care, regularly volunteers with HRAC. She believes gay men who use face a “double-stigma: If you have sex with men (especially more than one, or without condoms), you are ‘risky.’ If you use drugs, you’re also ‘non-compliant.’ These are stigmatizing terms the healthcare system uses against patients who make choices that it disagrees with, with the effect of driving away from doctors’ offices patients who are most likely to benefit from access to healthcare.”

Axelrath’s comments highlight healthcare’s checkered past with LGBT communities, from the late removal of homosexuality as a mental disorder from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1973 to the cruel way people living with HIV and AIDS were treated during the epidemic.

HRAC is emblematic of efforts to help bridge the resulting gap between marginalized people and the healthcare community, providing people who use a nonjudgmental space where they can learn how to reduce their risk of contracting disease and connect to resources in the community.

HRAC meets people where they are, not where society thinks they should be. Many consider this attitude to be more helpful to people who use than traditional “abstinence only” approaches.

Murray recommends that gay men who use drugs or who have unprotected sex, no matter how infrequently, come to HRAC for free supplies and education. “If you don’t use condoms and you sometimes share needles, you are at a high enough risk point that you should consider PrEP and syringe-access services,” he says. “Keep in mind that if your risk factors change, you can stop taking PrEP. No syringe-access program mandates you to come more than once.”

“I hope more people will understand the struggles we face,” John says. “And I hope more of the gay community helps out where they can.”

Harm Reduction Action Center is located at 231 E. Colfax Ave. They are open Monday through Friday, from 9am–noon and offer free safer shooting supplies, vein care, overdose prevention training, referrals for PrEP, and classes on how to prevent HIV and Hepatitis C.