Bay Area Reporter - March 20, 2008
Seth Hemmelgarn, s.hemmelgarn@ebar.com

The ads, which direct people to the Web site www.menotmeth.org, are part of a state-sponsored effort to prevent methamphetamine use and encourage current users to stop and seek help. The campaign cost about $11.6 million.

The 30-second TV ad features tired-looking men appearing separately in a dark room, speaking to the camera as if it were a Web cam. One says, "I lost my job, I lost my man ...," and another tells viewers, "I lost my common sense and got HIV."

The Web site invites users to submit their own stories, do a self-assessment, and find places to get help.

The TV ad was directed by Joel Schumacher, who's also responsible for movies such as Batman Forever and St. Elmo's Fire . The ad is expected to air through September.

Renee Zito, director of California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, expects the campaign to be effective.

"The whole campaign is about loss ... and the grief over the loss of your looks, your family, your friends, your career and then, finally, yourself," said Zito, who noted the campaign features real people. "It is depressing, and it was meant to be, because what research showed is in the gay community, what would be most effective would be to listen to a real person talk about the losses they've experienced in their life."

However, Michael Siever, Ph.D., director of San Francisco's Stonewall Project, said he wished the ad had more of a harm reduction component.

Siever said the TV ad is very well done, there's nothing inaccurate in it û methamphetamine use really can help ruin your life û and he's glad any time attention is called to the problem. But the ad is "a little over the top," he said. And it doesn't acknowledge people who only use the drug occasionally.

"Over time, people just kind of turn off and don't listen, particularly when everyone in [the ad] looks so bleak and sad," said Siever, whose organization and its Web site, www.tweaker.org, are both featured on the menotmeth site as possible places to seek help.

However, Dana Van Gorder, who helped promote the ad campaign to the state Legislature when he was director of state and local policy at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, said he hopes the campaign will help chip away at the number of people who use methamphetamine. The campaign is not meant to convert everyone.

"It will hopefully be enough for some people," Van Gorder, who's now executive director of Project Inform, said. "I don't think we believe every single campaign will speak to everyone and their particular issues." Project Inform is a San Francisco-based HIV/AIDS treatment information and advocacy group.

According to statewide survey estimates released in conjunction with the campaign, 55 percent of men who have sex with men have used methamphetamine.

The data were collected through phone surveys of 549 gay and bisexual men living in California. The overall margin of error is plus or minus 4.2 percent.

Siever has said research over the years has shown 15 percent to 20 percent of gay men in San Francisco use methamphetamine "at least occasionally."

Health advocates have long maintained that people who use methamphetamine are several times more likely to contract HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, since they are more likely to have multiple sex partners or practice unsafe sex. People who inject the drug can also become infected with HIV when they share needles.

Dr. Michelle Rowland, chief of the State Office of AIDS, said because of its association with HIV transmission, addressing methamphetamine use is "a very high priority."

The original plan was to spend $30 million over three years, with a different group to be targeted each year. About $9 million was spent on the campaign the first year, and another $2.5 million was spent this year "to finish things up," Zito said. Due to the state budget crisis, subsequent campaigns targeting other groups, such as women of childbearing age, have been put on hold.

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