Former child star Danny Pintauro recently told Oprah Winfrey of his past crystal methamphetamine use and how it directly led to his HIV diagnosis. While the world tries to wrap its head around the Who’s the Boss? cherub’s hard-core drug dependency, it’s clear our society still fails to see how intertwined gay life and crystal methamphetamine is.

While we would never allow the erasure of the LGBT story from the official reportage about the spread of AIDS, we are passive about the exclusion of the LGBT community from the facts about crystal meth.

The International Antiviral Society-USA reported in 2006 that the use of methamphetamine is five to 10x more common in urban gay and bisexual men than in the general U.S. population. Counselors at Gay Men of African Descent, a New York-based service agency, say between 20 to 40% of their clients are addicted to the drug.

Yet depictions of meth on film often portray users as poor, uneducated, and straight. Read More via the Advocate