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The Trump administration has declared a โWar on the Opioid Epidemic,โ a fight against the influx of prescription and non-prescription opioid drugs that have made there way into North America and Canada.
As this โepidemicโ continues to primarily affect white communities, the Black community and its 40-plus-years war on drugs continues to rage on, with no support from our federal government. Unfortunately for us, our epidemic has never ended and has now morphed into a new crisis against methamphetamines, which quietly is intersecting marginalized populations and becoming the new drug of choice, rivaling that of heroine and cocaine.
Black Americaโs problem with narcotics is nothing new, and unfortunately by design. Itโs was the 1970s and โ80s when a surplus of cocaine made its way to North America and found its way into Black communities, destroying family dynamics and pipelining many Black men and women into the criminal justice system.
I donโt recall in my 32 years knowing a Black family that hasnโt been affected in some way by the crack epidemic. My family has buried several at the hands of the addiction, with survivors now facing serious health complications much later in life, often attributed to the years of prior drug use. The โchasing of the highโ is a term you will hear, which describes peoples desire to get to the same place and feeling they were when they first got high. It often leads to overdose, or the transition to a new drug of choice to achieve that feeling.
Meth is the new Black; better yet the new crack that has found its way into Black communities without much information on the how it arrived, and its increase in the number of users over the past 10 years. A google search on this problem will only bring back a few documented instances of how bad it is becoming for Black folks in major metro areas.ย
A 2015 New York Timespieceย reported on the agency, Gay Men of African Descent, which counsels gay Black menโmany of whom shared their experiences of sex binges โfueled by meth.โ The number of clients who began sharing these experiences triggered GMADโs staff to recognize that meth was moving away from being just a casual drug to becoming a part of a public health crisis. Another article titled,ย โMeth Comes to The Hood,โ points out that while meth is traditionally considered a white drug, it appears to be โovertaking crack and powder cocaine in LAโs Black neighborhoods.โ
In speaking with a member of the Bloodโs, โB-Rightโ states โBecause on crack you can smoke for a few years and bounce back but with crystal you smoke it and you are goneโno teeth, lose all your weight, itโs a bunch of zombies out here. They selling it for $3,200 a pound. Young dudes are getting rich off it.โ More reports have come from places like Atlanta and DC, echoing the same sentiments of the drug with effects more powerful than anything our community has ever seen.
For more insight I spoke with friend and HIV activist, Christopher Barnhill, who candidly shared his struggles with addiction and how he functioned in society while hiding it. โI first started using meth when I was 20 years old from a person I met off the chat line. At first the meth use started as a weekend and holiday recreation which blinded me to the fact that I had a problem,โ Barnhill shares. โI placed rules for myself like not buying it, only doing it with the same person, never injecting it.ย Within five years of using I broke every single rule and even then I didnโt realize I had a problem.โ Barnhill adds that he was โtoo concerned about my public persona and judgement from my peers if I sought help.โ
It wasnโt until suicide became an option of escape, that Barnhill knew he had to make a change. He went to rehab twice and relocated to Florida, where he was able to start doing the work to gain control of the addiction. โUsing for 10 years since I was 20 meant I didnโt know my adult life without it,โ he admits, and therefore โmost of my sexual encounters had been tied to use of the drug.โ For recovery, Barnhill knew that he would have to fully โsurrender himselfโ to a program and take control of his mental health.
His advice, is to tell someone and seek help. Nothing more, nothing less.
Barnhillโs correlation to the drug and sex isnโt uncommon as it is often tied in the conversation around meth use and a scene known as โParty and Playโ or PNP. I spoke to F. Antonio Burt, Director of Testing & Counseling at Us Helping Us People Into Living, who explains that there are two ways the drug is being used in that way. First there is the private sex party aspect in which men who have sex with men (MSM) disclose high-risk sexual and drug behaviors โ to include the use of meth together in group-sex-environment and sharing of โtools.โ Burt says that there are several sex party groups like this in the D.C. area that host these type of parties โquarterly.โ
The second, being people who describe themselves as โmassage therapistsโ and/or offer โmassage services.โ They โuse meth with massage clients, charging a higher fee as opposed to clients who donโt participate in meth,โ he says. Burtโs accounts directly coincides with an August report in theย L.A. Weeklyย about the death of Gemmel Moore, a 26-year-old gay Black man found dead in the West Hollywood apartment of a prominent Democratic Party Donor.
The case was initially ruled a meth overdose, but there was more to the story. As journalists began to investigate, it was found that Ed Buck (the Donor) was known for picking up young gay Black men, providing them with meth and using them for sexual favors. The case has now been ruled a homicide and is being further investigated, with many comparisons to the Harvey Weinstein case in how power and wealth play a role in controlling of oneโs sexual agency. ย
The need to write this piece is more apparent than ever, as white epidemics continue to drown out Black epidemics in the headlines, which limit our resources and education needed for us to combat these problems, which have plagued us for so long.
Personally, my life has been affected by this drug as well. For anonymity Iโll use the name Jay. Jay and I have been friends for over 10 years. He has been at every birthday and major milestone in my life. That all changed about 18 months ago.
The signs were all there, but unfortunately, the education on what to look for was not. It was August of 2016 when I last had dinner with Jay. It was a good dinner, but there was some noticeable weight loss, which Jay attributed to diet and exercise. We left like it was all good, but little did I know it wasnโt. Jay later missed a yearly get together among our group of friends, and then my birthday for the first time in 10 years. Then Thanksgiving and Christmas, and before I knew it I hadnโt seen Jay in four months. We would, however, text all the time. The promises of โI miss youโ and โI canโt wait to see youโ were only met with cancellations. Then other friends started calling me saying, โwhen was the last time you seen Jay?โ
Then Jay missed another close friendโs birthday and we knew something was wrong. Texts eventually became infrequent, full of typos and misspellings. After eight months, my friends and I were able to trick Jay into coming out to see us. The purple blemishes were starting to show on his face and I already knew what was up, and it just continued to spiral downhill. Jayโs personal life has become one of a recluse nature, and our relationship has forever been damaged.
When I do text Jay, it can be days before response, until I finally send the โare you aliveโ text for which he always responds. Iโm usually talking to the drugs that have inhabited the mind that used to be, so the conversations remain short in text. I often mourn for the friendship and find myself grieving for a person who is still very much alive, but not the same.
My fear is of the day that I send the โare you aliveโ text and there is no response.
It is more necessary than ever for us to continue to speak on problems that exist, but often go under the radar until it is far too late. In the words of my grandmother โif you see something, say somethingโ has to become the approach we take when protecting the lives of our brothers and sisters who are being taken daily by this new addiction. Meth is here, and if we donโt begin to address the problem, our community will continue to be destroyed, one โhitโ at a time.
George M. Johnsonย is the Managing Editor of BroadwayBlack.com. ย He has written for Ebony, TheGrio, TeenVogue, NBC News and several other major publications. Follow him onย Facebook,ย Twitter, orย Instagram.
