Happy National Methamphetamine Awareness Day

Did you know? President Bush declared November 30 the National Methamphetamine Awareness Day. Being the nerd that I am, I attended a panel session today led by U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales discussing the production, medical consequences, and law enforcement issues surrounding methamphetamine. One of the panelists, a woman who recovered from her own meth addiction eight years ago after a ten-year history of using the drug, was actually from Iowa. She now is a licensed social worker and works as a substance abuse counselor at the Iowa Health System in Des Moines. I had to chuckle when the Attorney General pronounced Des Moines with the 's' ... hmm, apparently his script did not include the correct pronunciation!

Today marks three months that I have been in D.C. Hard to believe! It's also hard to believe that the holiday wreaths and tree went up in my office building when folks on the streets were in flip flops and enjoying the 65-degree weather. Global warming? Perhaps.

Tomorrow marks another important day on the activist/awareness scene - World AIDS Day. I attended a film tonight shown by the student public health assocation at GW called "Out of Control: AIDS in Black America." A reporter on ABC's PrimeTime picked up on a series of interviews Peter Jennings started last year before he died. The global AIDS crisis is much more present on our collective radar than is the domestic AIDS crisis. With our very short attention span, America hasn't had as large a public outcry against this epidemic as we experienced earlier on when people were dying at a greater rate. Angelina Jolie graces the cover of People with her humanitarian work overseas, but this type of leadership and/or notoriety hasn't stepped forward for AIDS in America in recent years.

I was incredibly struck by some of the facts I learned in tonight's film and thought I would share:

- African-Americans comprise 13% of our national population but 50% of new infection rates.
- Many men enter prison HIV-negative but leave HIV-positive. In federal prisons, condoms are not allowed.
- AIDS is the most common cause of death for African-American women between the ages of 25 to 44 and has been for the past eleven years.
- 1/3 of all AIDS cases among African-Americans result from injection drug use. Scientific evidence supports needle exchange programs, but federal funds are non-existent.
- 20,000 Americans will die this year from AIDS.
- More African-American men of college age are in jail rather than in college. (What? Read again.)
- Do you remember seeing reports of the National AIDS quilt? The last full display in Washington, D.C., was in October 1996, when panels sharing the stories of those who died from AIDS were displayed across the entire National Mall ... today, all those panels are housed in an Atlanta warehouse. And many would argue - American consciousness of this epidemic has been shelved along with the quilt.

In a city like Washington, there are as many organizations for every type of disease, injustice, or human tragedy as one would care to count ... all trying to get their concern to the forefront of our national agenda. We would all be in a better place if we took the time to read and learn the facts - and don't forget to act.