Crystal Meth Working Group, HUGE SALE! By Crystal, Get HIV For FREE!
ACT-UP founding member Peter R. Staley, also founder of AIDSmeds.com, saw a growing problem of crystal meth use in New York City's gay community and took matters into his own media-savvy hands. With $6,000 of his own money, he purchased ad space on several phone kiosks in the gay Chelsea neighborhood and ran controversial ads that read "HUGE SALE! By Crystal, Get HIV For FREE!" Along the right hand side, it adds, "Bonus Special - buy this trendy adccessory pipe, get a life-time addiction absolutely free." The image is a porn-like male bod in gray underwear with washboard abs, crotch prominently forward, and a disco ball for a head.
Vincent Gagliostro (one of ACT UP's renowned graphic artists) helped create the poster.
Staley, who has been HIV-positive since the mid-1980s, used crystal meth for two years, and combined his drug usage along with unprotected sex. After realizing there was a lack of formal responses from AIDS groups and public health officials, he decided to design and buy his own ads.
"The gay community is completely uncomfortable about stigmatizing a drug," Staley told PlanetOut. "I'm willing to admit there is a subset that doesn't get addicted. For some reason we want to protect that segment of our community. That doesn't make sense, because there is no way of knowing which group you don't fall into."
The ads have caused some controversy within the gay community.
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