Just when you think you’ve heard the dumbest idea since the Susan B. Anthony silver dollar, the latest government misadventure raises the bar. The LA Times reported Friday that “California drug officials launched an $11 million barrage of billboards, bus wraps, cable TV ads and a website Thursday aimed at discouraging gay men from using methamphetamine…” What’s next, a multi-million dollar campaign warning lesbians to look both ways before crossing the street? How about spending a small fortune telling gang-bangers that bullets kill people? Reading the details of “Anti-meth campaign aimed at gay men” convinces me we are going to rat-hole every penny in the latest incarnation of good-hearted but wrong-headed government.
No doubt about it, there are big problems within California’s gay community. A recently released survey “found that crystal meth use was 11 times more common among gay men than in the California population overall.” Almost one in three gay and bisexual men testing positive for HIV use meth, according to the Gay & Lesbian’s Center’s 2004 testing program — “a threefold increase over 2001.” Such numbers reveal a bonafide human tragedy, a community living beyond the norms of prudent behavior. That help is needed is unquestioned, but what kind of help will make a difference? Will another ad campaign succeed where many others have failed? Not likely. Once more, California is going to try to frighten gays into safer sex and recreation, but gays have shown themselves highly resistant to scare tactics.
What can be scarier than a life-expectancy reaching only to the mid-40s? Young gays have been dying in disproportionally high numbers for decades. A new, repackaged message of ”this can kill you” will be no more successful today.
For example, the following is from a 2004 article by Michael Applebaum and published in Brandweek: “Meth’s arrival on the dance club scene can be traced back to the mid ’90s. More recently, it has undergone wider experimentation within the gay population. The message that crystal meth is dangerous, meanwhile, has remained dormant in a gay community that celebrates sexual liberation and whose instinct is to fight for its right to party.” (Emphasis added) With that mentality, $11 billion won’t to the trick, pardon the expression.
Sexual promiscuity and illegal drug use represent moral failures, but the media blitz will not address moral issues, and therefore will not have one chance in a thousand of success.
The larger issue here is that a government would be compelled to try to control personal behavior. According to the Times, California’s ultimate goal is to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS. Unprotected sex and sex with multiple partners is a major cause of infection, and meth usage promotes those behaviors. Exposing the dangers of meth, the thinking goes, will reduce promiscuity and simultaneously curb the spread of HIV/AIDS. The government’s real concern therefore is a health issue, not the morality of drug use or indiscriminate trysts. Yet, controlling personal behavior is a must for the state to achieve its ends.
Because the cost of treating HIV/AIDS patients is increasingly falling on government agencies, government has a stake in determining our sex partners, a troubling thought to say the least. So much for keeping government out of the bedroom. Moreover, the impending arrival of universal health care means that reducing risky behavior of all types is in the government’s best interest. Requiring motor cycle helmets and automobile seatbelts is just the beginning. Big Brother is just getting warmed up. The anti-meth message, then, is really a cost-saving measure; we’ll spend $11 million now to save who-knows-how-much in the future. We have actually uncovered a government effort to save money!
Controlling sexual behavior is just the tip of a huge iceberg of coming government control aimed at reducing health care expenses. Already, examples of otherwise inexplicable government meddling in private choices abound. To cut back on obesity, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom “is proposing a tax on beverages high in fructose corn syrup,” according to a KCBS report on December 17, 2007. Proving our point, Newsom said “obesity accounts for tens of millions of dollars in city health care costs.” We can’t have that! The dispatch concludes with, “This comes as the state of California is considering slapping caffeine-infused sodas and energy drinks with warning labels, saying consumption can contribute to diabetes.” When Hillary-care becomes law, you will drink what the government says you can drink, and be happy about it!
In this brave new world, only the fit will be allowed to eat, at least in Mississippi restaurants if some Stalinist lawmakers get their way. “Mississippi legislators this week [February 1, 2008 on TheSmokingGun.com] introduced a bill that would make it illegal for state-licensed restaurants to serve obese patrons.” Fat people unite!
The following smoking bans are now the law: outdoor areas in Oakland, within private residences in multi-unit apartments in Belmont, California, and “Starting January 1, 2008, Californians caught smoking in a car with someone under the age of 18 will face a $100 fine.” Government intrusion of this extent hasn’t been seen outside of totalitarian dictatorship, until now.
Perhaps the greatest cost of universal health care will be government’s corresponding need to determine personal choice. If that isn’t enough to scare you, please move to the next line for your Party badge.
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Posted by Jerry Pomeroy in Budgets, Cultural Insanity, Economics, Video