Series: Meth: Shattering Lives In Northern Nevada

A three-month Reno Gazette-Journal investigation found that
methamphetamine's grip on the Truckee Meadows has become a stranglehold.

IT WON'T HAPPEN TO ME, YOUNG ADDICT THOUGHT

Cyndle Bell will always hear and see things that aren't real. She's
afraid of the dark and can't walk by herself outside at night.

That's what remains after four years of methamphetamine abuse, two
rehab sessions and heart surgery, but the Carson High senior is
alive, preparing to graduate and planning to share her battle against
drugs with the world.

She's hoping she'll send the anti-drug message that she ignored to
her 11-year-old sister and other children.

"The stuff on the drugs didn't teach me anything because I already
knew it," Bell said. "I felt like all the stuff they say could happen
to me wouldn't happen to me."

But it did.

Bell is working with video production students at Carson High School
to create "An Addict's Turn," a 15-minute movie using actors that is
based on her experience with methamphetamine.

Bell's third trip to juvenile hall and another student's drug
overdose spurred video teacher Brian Reedy into action.

As Bell worked through rehab, Reedy wrote a proposal for a $30,000
Service-Learning grant.

He's used the money to buy high-end video equipment and DVD burners,
pay for Hollywood consultants and build an anti-drug resource library.

"I want a resource library that will inform teachers and parents what
to look for," Reedy said. "I confronted the young man who OD'd (on
prescription drugs) last year two weeks before it happened. The kid
looked me square in the eyes and said, 'Mr. Reedy, I would never do
drugs.' I think I just didn't know enough about the signs."

Reedy plans to produce 500 copies of the movie and distribute them
across the country to schools, libraries and treatment centers.

"I wrote it so it had a far-reaching effect, so it doesn't stop at
Carson High," Reedy said. "Peer-to-peer is far more effective than a
bunch of old farts telling the kids these things."

Cyndle's story

In December, Bell sat down and told Reedy her story so he could
understand more about the drug culture in Carson City.

Bell's story came to life in "Heather," the addict in the movie who
beats her addiction after run-ins with her probation officer and
family. By the end of it, Heather is still going to parties and
drinking, but she declines an offer of meth.

"It was eighth-grade graduation and I was with a bunch of people and
they wanted to fit into the crowd, so they were smoking meth," said
Bell, who began drinking at 11 and smoking marijuana at 12. "All I
remember was coming home and just cleaning."

Bell used drugs through the summer and through her freshman and
sophomore years at Carson High, smoking or snorting meth in the
school bathrooms.

The summer before her junior year, her addiction worsened.

"I got to a point where I overdosed, but I got up acting like it was
nothing," Bell said. "I fell and hit my head and it busted open and I
was bleeding. I just got up and smoked some more."

When school started, Bell didn't go. Her mother called the police
after Bell continued to sneak boyfriends into her room. The police
found psychedelic mushrooms, and Bell was arrested.

"That was my first time and I was freaking out," Bell said. "As soon
as I got out, all I wanted to do was get high."

After failing several urine tests, Bell spent another month in the
juvenile detention center and was sent in April to a three-month
residential rehab center in Silver Springs.

She relapsed just days after getting out.

"I thought I was strong enough because I just got out of rehab," Bell
said. "This time I went to (my parole officer) and told her I didn't
want this anymore and volunteered myself to rehab."

She re-enrolled and has been clean since August.

"What did work was how I had to go through my past and see what my
family had to go through," Bell said.

Now she keeps a photo of her family in her wallet, a reminder of what
she did to them.

Bell also had to have her heartbeat slowed down in surgery because of
her methamphetamine use.

"(The doctor) told me that if I were to keep doing meth, then I
probably would (have a heart attack)," Bell said.

Becoming a public face

The shy Bell has been interviewed multiple times by local media and
has testified at a conference about the grant work. Now, most
students at Carson High know what she's been through. When the movie
debuts in coming weeks, most of Carson City will know.

"She's kind of come into it," Reedy said. "She realized that her
stepping forward will help her put a face on everything."

Bell has rebuilt her relationship with her mother, Lora Bell, who
didn't realize how bad her daughter's problems were when she called
authorities.

"I finally had enough of her boyfriends sneaking in," Lora Bell said.
"Then I just found out she was into everything."

Lora Bell said she makes time for each of her children and is
watching for any attitude changes which could signal drug use.

"They will lie," she said. "I believed Cyndle 100 percent and kept
supporting her."

The Bell family moved to Carson City from Sacramento when Bell was in
eighth grade. Even though Bell had already started smoking marijuana
in Sacramento, her mother says Carson City helped lead her daughter to meth.

"I wouldn't have said this before, but it's because of Carson City,"
she said. "They're so much into denial about how big this problem is,
especially with the kids in high school. Now I see it everywhere.
(Cyndle) used to tell me, 'Mom, it's everywhere.' I didn't believe
her and now I do see it."

Community support

Tyler Bourns, 17, who directed the shooting and is now editing the
video, didn't realize Carson City's meth problem until he began work
on the project.

"I hadn't even heard that meth was a big problem before this year,"
Bourns said. "It's something you just can't put down and quit."

Bourns said the video includes graphic scenes such as a recreation of
a meth lab to show people the ugly sides of meth.

"Just to make sure we showed how deep and how disgusting people would
go to get meth and how it really controlled their lives," Bourns
said. "It sucks you in so you don't really care anymore."

Reedy worked with Partnership Carson City, a local meth coalition, to
get the ambulances and sheriff's uniforms used to make the movie real.

The story was spiced up a little -- in one scene Heather and her
boyfriend watch friends extract more meth out of urine in a lab --
but all the stories are real. The meth lab information came from a
member of the TriNet narcotics task force.

Members of the Academy of Digital Cinema from Los Angeles helped with
filming and supplied two actors for the project.

Bell selected cast members and watched as the actors pretended to
smoke meth, living out parts of her life.

"I didn't have any cravings at all because I knew it wasn't the real
thing," Bell said. "The hard part of it all to me was the fact that I
remember what I put my family through and where I was headed in my life."

Bell is taking night classes to make up the time she missed in school
and plans to graduate. She's been accepted at the ITT Technical
Institute in Sacramento, where she plans to study criminal justice
and possibly become a probation officer.