HRPnews Digest April 16, 2007

News & Opinion This Week 1. Sex Abstinence Programs A Waste Of Time And Money 2. Import of Methamphetamine From Mexico Offsets Local Progress 3. Baking Soda Could Go Behind The Counter 4. L.A. Data Show MSM Five Times More Likely To Test HIV-Positive if They Used Crystal Meth 5. Nappy-headed Hos Of The World Unite! 6. Everybody Hates Don Imus B Upcoming Conferences and Events C Quote D How To Help E About HRP F Subscription Information ----- I. Sex Abstinence Programs A Waste Of Time And Money 14 Apr 2007 ~ Medical News Today Children who took part in sex abstinence classes were found to be just as likely to engage in sexual intercourse for the first time at the same age as children who did not receive these classes, say researchers from Mathematica Policy Research Inc, in a study the US Congress had ordered. According this latest research, teenagers first had sex at the age of 14.9 years, regardless of whether they attended sex abstinence classes. Abstinence programs encourage children to refrain from sexual intercourse before marriage. Despite critics saying these programs are a waste of money - money which could be directed in other more effective programs - the US federal government spends $176 million on them annually. The Bush administration seems to be saying that further abstinence programs are needed, rather than accepting the failure. Harry Wilson, Commissioner, Family and Youth Services Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, said the report confirms that these interventions are not like vaccines and that people should not expect one dose in middle school, or a small dose, to be protective all throughout the youth's high school career. In this latest study researchers examined four abstinence programs throughout the USA. The students who attended these programs were compared with others, in the same areas, who did not attend the programs - a total of 2,057 children. Those who did take part in the programs did so for 1 to 3 years, aged 11 to 12. The programs started in 1999. They were followed up in 2005/2006, by which time most of the participants, and the controls, were aged 16 and-a-half years. In both groups (those who attended the program and those who didn't) the number of children who had not engaged in sexual intercourse was identical - about half of them. Even though the researchers found the programs had no effect on childrens' sexual habits later on, they stressed that the programs did not result in an increase in the rate of unprotected sex. Critics have suggested that the sex abstinence programs could result in children engaging in unprotected sex in larger numbers. Many believe the $176 million could be better used in sponsoring comprehensive sex education - these would include abstinence, among other things. The USA has one of the highest rates of unwanted teenage pregnancies in the Western World. --- 2. Import of Methamphetamine From Mexico Offsets Local Progress By Tim Craig Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, April 13, 2007; B07 RICHMOND, April 12 -- Several of the nation's top law enforcement officials said Thursday that an influx of methamphetamine from Mexico is overshadowing their recent success in curtailing homegrown meth labs and is fueling a crime wave caused by addicts who can stay awake for days. At a day-long conference devoted to the problem, attorneys general from Virginia, Maryland and six other states met to learn about the problem and share strategies for combating methamphetamine use and trafficking. "I think my colleagues would agree it is probably the ugliest drug that has come down the pike in 40 years," said Virginia Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell (R), who hosted the conference. "It is highly addictive. It is poor man's crack." Known by a variety of names, including crystal, ice and crank, the drug is usually made in makeshift labs because it is easily produced by mixing and cooking over-the-counter medicines and other household chemicals. The labs have been associated with increased crime and addiction rates in many rural communities. But state and federal authorities say they have made significant progress in cracking down on those labs, in large part by approving laws restricting the sale of the products used to make the drug. Now, however, they say, Mexican drug gangs have stepped in and are mass-producing the drug and smuggling it over the border. It often ends up in Atlanta, where it is then distributed to cities along the East Coast, the attorneys general said. McDonnell estimates that 80 to 90 percent of the meth found in Virginia now comes from Mexico. The drug labs that once dotted rural Virginia are largely gone, he said. But the crime associated with Mexican meth appears to be worsening, officials said. Because the drug can keep users awake for extended periods of time, some people get bored and turn to computer crimes such as identity theft, law enforcement officials say. The drug is also linked to a surge in sex offenses, officials said. And unlike crack users during the 1980s epidemic, which was largely confined to cities, meth users span all geographic, cultural and economic backgrounds, law enforcement officials say. A 2004 study estimated that 12 million Americans, about 5 percent of the population, admitted to using the drug. "It is spread between rural areas, suburban areas and cities throughout all of our states," said Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler (D). "If you are not seeing it in your state, hold on. It's coming," said Georgia Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker (D). The attorneys general said they plan to work with the Bush administration to develop strategies for limiting the amount of the drug moving across the Mexican border. McDonnell said they would also look at "tough, rock-solid law enforcement strategies." But in an acknowledgement that past get-tough approaches have not always worked, the attorneys general say they also want to push for more funding for drug treatment. "Even as we are doing everything we can from the law enforcement aspect, we have a generation of addicts out there," said Kentucky Attorney General Gregory D. Stumbo (D). "We don't have adequate treatment facilities. We know how to put people in jail, but I think we all need to recognize there is more to this problem than incarceration." --- 3. Baking Soda Could Go Behind The Counter By Shaoshao Chen Epoch Times Houston Staff - Apr 14, 2007 GOING BEHIND THE COUNTER? Baking soda might get send behind the pharmaceutical counter if a Missouri lawmaker gets his way. The lawmaker says he wants to prevent people from using baking soda to make crack cocaine by mixing it with cocaine. A Missouri state legislator is seeking to regulate baking soda sales in hopes of curbing crack cocaine production. In a bill introduced in late March, Rep. Talibdin El-Amin (D-St. Louis) says he wants to put baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate, behind the pharmaceutical counter. Sodium bicarbonate is a key ingredient used in producing crack cocaine, which is often created by dissolving powdered cocaine in a mixture of water and baking soda. Rep. El-Amin's bill would require customers to provide photo identification when purchasing baking soda, and limit customers under the age of 18 from purchasing over two ounces. The name, address, and purchase amount of the buyer would be required to be recorded by the seller. Critics of the bill claim that crack cocaine does not only rely on baking soda, but can be produced using any form weak base. The bill follows suit of the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005 limiting cold medicine containing ephedrine or pseudoephedrine such as Sudafed and Claritin to behind the counter to control methamphetamine production. Retail regulation of methamphetamine precursors is carried out by 35 states. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), cocaine is distributed in nearly every midsize to large city in the U.S. Distribution is mainly controlled by Mexican drug traffickers, especially in the Great Lakes, the West, Southeast, Southwest and West Central regions. A 2006 report by the DEA revealed total cocaine usage in the U.S. at 36.5 percent, topped only by Methamphetamine at 38.8 percent. Cocaine remains the dominant drug in regions east of the Mississippi while Methamphetamine tops the list in the west. --- 4.| L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center Data Show MSM Five Times More Likely To Test HIV-Positive if They Used Crystal Meth Apr 12, 2007 Men who have sex with men and used crystal methamphetamine in the last year were five times more likely to test HIV-positive than MSM who did not use the drug, according to preliminary data collected by the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center, the Los Angeles Times reports. The center also found that 25% of the 6,360 MSM it tested for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections in 2006 reported using crystal meth at least once, compared with 18% of the 5,300 MSM tested in 2005. Mike Rizzo, the center's manager of crystal meth recovery services, said 43% of people newly infected with HIV report some meth use. "There's no doubt in the minds of most experts that meth contributes not only to the transmission of HIV but other" STIs, Jonathan Fielding, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, said. According to Fielding, more people who seek treatment in Los Angeles County-funded programs use meth than any other drug. He said the county has funded three new HIV and meth prevention programs targeting MSM. West Hollywood, Calif., on Wednesday planned to hold a news conference to increase public awareness about meth use among MSM and to release public service announcements that aim to help combat the issue. In addition, West Hollywood officials on Wednesday scheduled a town hall forum to discuss expanded treatment options for MSM who use meth (Rosenblatt, Los Angeles Times, 4/11). --- 5. Nappy-headed Hos Of The World Unite! by Barbara Ehrenreich ~ The Nation My first thought, when the Don Imus scandal broke, was: What gives a guy with a full-frontal comb-over the right to criticize anyone's hair? Don, Don, don't you remember I am rubber, you are glue..? I had no idea what he looked like until he insulted the Rutgers women's basketball team and got all over TV, but now that I know, and now that the discourse has descended to comments about people's appearance, I see why he's been confined to radio all these years. Of course it's the ho, not the hair, part of Imus's comment that hurts, with its suggestion of unlimited sexual availability. Dream on, dirty old man, but there's no amount of money that would win you the favors of these strong, smart, athletic young women. It was the senile lechery of his "nappy-headed ho" remark that creeped me right out. What did he think-- that it was Bring Your Dotage to Work day? But I changed my mind when I saw the whole sequence on the news. Imus didn't utter those poisonous words in a tone of racist, misogynist, contempt, but with something that sounded like admiration. "That's some rough girls from Rutgers," he told producer Bernard McGuirk, "Man, they got tattoos ..." It was McGuirk who introduced the ho theme, responding, "'Some hardcore ho's." Not to be out-done in the tastelessness department, Imus then muttered appreciatively, 'That's some nappy-headed ho's there, I'm going to tell you that." In the same way, an African-American might compliment a male athlete of his own race as "one bad-ass n-word," or something like that. The Rutgers women were "rough"--which is good in an athlete, right?--inspiring McGuirk and Imus to flex their testosterone glands and act even tougher, and the only way they could think to do that was by adopting the argot of hip-hop. It was like watching a couple of suburban white boys slouching around in full ghetto get-up: Cute, in a way, but mostly pathetic. This doesn't excuse Imus, because he misses a crucial point: That an insult, used often enough, becomes the exclusive property of the insulted. Take the word "bitch," as applied to any woman with the guts to offend. At first it stung, but then we appropriated it for ourselves. Elizabeth Wurtzel wrote a feminist book called Bitch, and there's a feminist magazine of the same name. I can call my sister "bitch" in a jokey, tough-gal, way. But you can't call her that, not if you're a guy, unless you want to step outside with me. You can blame hip-hop if you want, and the cable news channels have been quick to point out that the words "ho" and "nappy-headed" abound in that genre. But hip-hop occupies the realm of the carnivalesque, which aims to up-end white middle class sensibilities in the spirit of defiance and play. I cringe at the relentless obscenity of the lyrics, the misdirected disrespect for women. But I also recognize in hip-hop an anger that is not mine to share, at least not in the same words, because it's a response to centuries of sexualized racial put-downs, often uttered by people who, embarrassingly enough, looked very much like me. This isn't only about race, though. Much of the commentary has focused on a multi-millionaire white guy's unaccountable insult to aspiring young black women. Al Sharpton held up his own college-bound daughter as one of the injured parties; Gwen Ifill offered the painful revelation that Imus once referred to her as "the cleaning lady." But at least two of the Rutgers players are white. What is the message here? That if you hang with the sistuhs your virtue will decline and your hair go bad? No, what aroused Imus's twisted admiration and antagonism (and possibly other things) was the reality of strong, determined, aggressive, women. I have straight blondish hair and have never sold any sexual services, but if the Rutgers women are "nappy-headed ho's," then I'd be proud to be one too. --- 6. Everybody Hates Don Imus April 15, 2007 Op-Ed Columnist New York Times ~ Frank Rick FAMILIAR as I am with the warp speed of media, I was still taken aback by the velocity of Don Imus’s fall after he uttered an indefensible racist and sexist slur about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. Even in that short span, there’s been an astounding display of hypocrisy, sanctimony and self-congratulation from nearly every side of the debate, starting with Al Sharpton, who has yet to apologize for his leading role in the Tawana Brawley case, the 1980s racial melee prompted by unproven charges much like those that soiled the Duke lacrosse players. It’s possible that the only people in this whole sorry story who are not hypocrites are the Rutgers teammates and their coach, C. Vivian Stringer. And perhaps even Don Imus himself, who, while talking way too much about black people he has known and ill children he has helped, took full responsibility for his own catastrophic remarks and didn’t try to blame the ensuing media lynching on the press, bloggers or YouTube. Unlike Mel Gibson, Michael Richards and Isaiah Washington, to take just three entertainers who have recently delivered loud religious, racial or sexual slurs, Imus didn’t hire a P.R. crisis manager and ostentatiously enter rehab or undergo psychiatric counseling. “I dished it out for a long time,” he said on his show last week, “and now it’s my time to take it.” Among the hypocrites surrounding Imus, I’ll include myself. I’ve been a guest on his show many times since he first invited me in the early 1990s, when I was a theater critic. I’ve almost always considered him among the smarter and more authentic conversationalists I’ve encountered as an interviewee. As a book author, I could always use the publicity. Of course I was aware of many of his obnoxious comments about minority groups, including my own, Jews. Sometimes he aimed invective at me personally. I wasn’t seriously bothered by much of it, even when it was unfunny or made me wince, because I saw him as equally offensive to everyone. The show’s crudest interludes struck me as burlesque. I do not know Imus off the air and have no idea whether he is a good person, any more than I know whether Jerry Lewis, another entertainer who raises millions for sick children, is a good person. But as a listener and sometime guest, I didn’t judge Imus to be a bigot. Perhaps I felt this way in part because Imus vehemently inveighed against racism in real life, most recently in decrying the political ads in last year’s Senate campaign linking a black Tennessee congressman, Harold Ford, to white women. Perhaps I gave Imus a pass because the insults were almost always aimed at people in the public eye, whether politicians, celebrities or journalists — targets with the forums to defend themselves. And perhaps I was kidding myself. What Imus said about the Rutgers team landed differently, not least because his slur was aimed at young women who had no standing in the world of celebrity, and who had done nothing in public except behave as exemplary student athletes. The spectacle of a media star verbally assaulting them, and with a creepy, dismissive laugh, as if the whole thing were merely a disposable joke, was ugly. You couldn’t watch it without feeling that some kind of crime had been committed. That was true even before the world met his victims. So while I still don’t know whether Imus is a bigot, there was an inhuman contempt in the moment that sounded like hate to me. You can see it and hear it in the video clip in a way that isn’t conveyed by his words alone. Does that mean he should be silenced? The Rutgers team pointedly never asked for that, and I don’t think the punishment fits the crime. First, as a longtime Imus listener rather than someone who tuned in for the first time last week, I heard not only hate in his wisecrack but also honesty in his repeated vows to learn from it. Second, as a free-speech near-absolutist, I don’t believe that even Mel Gibson, to me an unambiguous anti-Semite, should be deprived of his right to say whatever the hell he wants to say. The answer to his free speech is more free speech — mine and yours. Let Bill O’Reilly talk about “wetbacks” or Rush Limbaugh accuse Michael J. Fox of exaggerating his Parkinson’s symptoms, and let the rest of us answer back. Liberals are kidding themselves if they think the Imus firing won’t have a potentially chilling effect on comics who push the line. Let’s not forget that Bill Maher, an Imus defender last week, was dropped by FedEx, Sears, ABC affiliates and eventually ABC itself after he broke the P.C. code of 9/11. Conservatives are kidding themselves if they think the Imus execution won’t impede Ann Coulter’s nasty invective on the public airwaves. As Al Franken pointed out to Larry King on Wednesday night, CNN harbors Glenn Beck, who has insinuated that the first Muslim congressman, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, is a terrorist (and who has also declared that “faggot” is nothing more than “a naughty name”). Will Time Warner and its advertisers be called to account? Already in the Imus aftermath, the born-again blogger Tom DeLay has called for the firing of Rosie O’Donnell because of her “hateful” views on Chinese-Americans, conservative Christians and President Bush. That said, corporations, whether television or radio networks or movie studios or commercial sponsors, are free to edit or cancel any content. No one has an inalienable right to be broadcast or published or given a movie or music contract. Whether MSNBC and CBS acted out of genuine principle or economic necessity is a debate already raging. Just as Imus’s show defied easy political definition — he has both kissed up to Dick Cheney as a guest and called him a war criminal — so does the chatter about what happened over the past week. MSNBC, forever unsure of its identity, seems to have found a new calling by turning that debate into a running series, and I say, go for it. The biggest cliché of the debate so far is the constant reiteration that this will be a moment for a national “conversation” about race and sex and culture. Do people really want to have this conversation, or just talk about having it? If they really want to, it means we have to ask ourselves why this debacle has given permission to talking heads on television to repeat Imus’s offensive words so insistently that cable news could hardly take time out to note the shocking bombing in the Baghdad Green Zone. Some even upped the ante: Donna Brazile managed to drag “jigaboo” into Wolf Blitzer’s sedate “Situation Room” on CNN. If we really want to have this conversation, it also means we have to have a nonposturing talk about hip-hop lyrics, “Borat,” “South Park” and maybe Larry David, too. As James Poniewozik pointed out in his smart cover article for Time last week, an important question emerged from an Imus on-air soliloquy as he tried to defend himself: “This phrase that I use, it originated in the black community. That didn’t give me a right to use it, but that’s where it originated. Who calls who that and why? We need to know that. I need to know that.” My 22-year-old son, a humor writer who finds Imus an anachronistic and unfunny throwback to the racial-insult humor of the Frank Sinatra-Sammy Davis Jr. Rat Pack ilk, raises a complementary issue. He argues that when Sacha Baron Cohen makes fun of Jews and gays, he can do so because he’s not doing it as himself but as a fictional character. But try telling that to the Anti-Defamation League, which criticized Mr. Baron Cohen, an observant Jew, for making sport of a real country (Kazakhstan) and worried that the “Borat” audience “may not always be sophisticated enough to get the joke, and that some may even find it reinforcing their bigotry.” So if we really want to have this national “conversation” about race and culture and all the rest of it that everyone keeps telling us that this incident has prompted, let’s get it on, no holds barred. And the fewer moralizing pundits and politicians, the better. Hillary Clinton, an Imus denouncer who has also called for federal regulation of violent television and video games, counts among her Hollywood fat cats Haim Saban, who made his fortune from “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.” Listening to Les Moonves of CBS speak with such apparent sincerity of how his network was helping to change the culture by firing Imus, I couldn’t help but remember that one of CBS’s own cultural gifts to America has been “Big Brother,” the reality game show that cloisters a dozen or so strangers in a house for weeks to see how they get along. Maybe Mr. Moonves could put his prime-time schedule where his mouth is and stop milking that format merely for the fun of humiliation, voyeurism and sexual high jinks. If locking Imus and his team in a house with Coach Stringer and her team 24/7 isn’t must-see TV that moves this conversation forward, then I don’t know what is. --- B Upcoming Conferences and Events 18th International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm – "Harm Reduction: Coming of Age" May 13, 2007 - May 17, 2007 Location: GROMADA Conference Centre, Warsaw, Poland Contact: +48 22 640 82 71, [email protected] More Info: http://www.harmreduction2007.org --- C Quote “Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ” - Kurt Vonnegut, from his 1965 novel, “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, or Pearls Before Swine.” --- D How To Help The Harm Reduction Project is able to provide services through the support of individuals such as yourself. Please help us make a difference and pledge your support today! PLEASE CLICK HERE TO DONATE or call 801-355-0234 ext 1# for more information. --- E About HRP The Harm Reduction Project works for the enhancement of services available to marginalized populations. HARM REDUCTION PROJECT | SALT LAKE CITY | TEL (801) 355.0234 FAX (801) 355.0291 | 235 West 100 South, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101 HARM REDUCTION PROJECT | DENVER | TEL (303) 572.7800 FAX (303) 572.7800 | 775 Lipan Street, Denver, Colorado 80204 Please visit us at www.harmredux.org for more information.