It’s safe to say a large number of gay men tuned into Monday’s hour-long episode of MTV’s “The Hills.” The show’s glam factor and pseudo reality drama appeal to gay audiences. They equally appeal to a number of teenage girls and heterosexual 20-somethings (the show’s a guilty pleasure for some 30 year olds, too).

So the “I lost me to meth” commercial viewers saw between clips of Lauren and Whitney’s romp in Paris was oddly placed, and may have perpetuated an ugly stereotype of the gay community.

The Me Not Meth campaign, launched by the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, targets gay and bisexual men. The billboards and television commercials are tough to miss. They’re large as life along University Avenue and popping up on San Diego television affiliates.

The concern, though, is that the ads lack balance. San Diego was long the crystal methamphetamine capital of the country, and meth use has never been exclusive to the gay community.

The ad campaign, however, leads you to believe otherwise.

In it (on the off chance you’re not an avid watcher of “The Hills” and haven’t seen the ads – note the sarcasm), a circuit boy twink turned meth addict says, “It was amazing at first … [then] I lost my common sense and got HIV.” Another young Latino man says, “I lost my job, I lost my man.” And when the jolted close-ups of the “addicts” faces fades to black, a voiceover says, “I lost me to meth.”

Now, this is a necessary campaign – meth addiction is an epidemic in the gay community, and, the fact is, meth use is a risk factor in the spread of HIV/AIDS. It eliminates inhibitions, alters judgment, wreaks havoc on one’s personal and professional lives, and has dire health implications.

Another fact to consider, though: meth addiction doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t single out a gender, race or community – but this ad campaign does.

The important question that must be asked is: does this ad campaign do more harm than good? For the vast majority of heterosexual TV viewers, what message does the campaign send about our community?

Again, it’s no secret: meth is a problem in the gay community, as much as it’s a problem in the straight community, the Latino community, the Native American community, the black community – the risks are as monumental for us all.

But, the well-intended ads, inadvertently we think, send a mixed message; one, that meth abuse is a problem exclusively in the gay community; and two, that the gay community is characterized by drug use and HIV/AIDS.

A more effective campaign would have included women and straight men, parents, partners and children of addicts, and the overarching theme that meth does not discriminate.

The gay community has nothing to hide when it comes to meth abuse. It’s not a dirty little secret. This kind of ad campaign is a necessary tool in the war on meth – but the war on meth isn’t being fought by our community alone.

According to the campaign’s Web site, this is the “current stage” of the campaign, and the producers tested the ads among members of the target audience via focus groups and one-on-one interviews, in addition to other methods. A link on the Web site takes viewers to a page of stories submitted by addicts, a far more effective and thought-provoking tool than the Joel Schumacher-directed commercial. [Schumacher is openly gay.] The true stories (save for the fact they lack diversity – again they’re all submitted by, presumedly, gay men) aren’t told in sound bites or with dark lighting and a load of eye makeup. They’re told by real addicts, real people battling the odds to stay clean.

Those videos tell the real story, and the real story is: meth is an epidemic destroying lives and communities. However, it’s not exclusive to our community.