From talking to models of ours that have either had their own problems with crystal, or had friends who did, I'm told that the desire to have sex after doing crystal is almost uncontrollable, and that normal responsibility (safer sex) goes out the window.

I remember having also read a study in which the incidence of unsafe sex with an unknown (or barely known) partner are shown to be dramatically higher when one or both partners are high on crystal... substantially higher than on, say, alcohol alone.

In my opinion, one of the worst issues with syphillis is that although easily treated if caught soon after infection, it is similar to Lyme disease in that it is a spirochete bacteria that can burrow and hide, and if not caught quickly, it becomes very difficult to treat, requiring massive IV antibiotics and extensive, long-term treatment that often requires in-hospital administration of the antibiotics. That's one of the reasons we added syphillis to the STI screening we do with our models prior to working with us.