'BLACK TAR' GRIMLY COVERS S.F. STREETS

While her toddler plays in another room, Michelle has a friend inject heroin
into a vein in her neck -- one of the few that's still functioning after
years of needles and impure dope.

Later, she admits that her little son suggested she try methadone instead.
"I've just realized that he knows more than I thought he did," Michelle says
miserably.

This is just one among many disturbing moments in Steven Okazaki's "Black
Tar Heroin: The Dark End of the Street." The television documentary, which
premieres tomorrow night at 11 as part of HBO's "America Undercover" series,
follows the lives of five bruised and ailing San Francisco junkies ages 18
to 25 as they alternately try to support their habits and kick them.
"Arguably, right now San Francisco is the heroin capital of the nation,"
says Okazaki, 47. "It has the highest hospital admissions for heroin-related
problems, and it's up there with New Jersey in overdose deaths -- about 100
a year. In January alone, when Boz Scaggs' son Oscar died, there were about
15." The Oscar-winning director, who lives in Berkeley, found his subjects
by volunteering at a youth-oriented needle exchange off Polk Street. "I
wanted to win their respect," he says. "A lot of them had contacts with
media where somebody comes in for a Thanksgiving Day story to show how
miserable people in the street are. I've heard firsthand stories about film
crews offering the kids 40 bucks to shoot up in front of the camera."

There's a lot of shooting up in "Black Tar," but the footage is far too
harrowing for a human-interest holiday special. Alice, a Seattle transplant,
spatters the walls of her hotel room with blood from syringes; Jake, an
HIV-positive addict with a blood infection, sneaks out of the hospital to
inject heroin into his IV tube. Okazaki acknowledges that following his
protagonists through their daily lives was difficult. "The streets are much
more dangerous when you're stupid."

Using digital video equipment small enough to be concealed under a jacket,
he and sound engineer Jason Cohen gained access to hotel rooms, toilets and
shooting galleries where a regular camera would have been barred. A
soundtrack that includes Bay Area bands Ovarian Trolley and the Mr. T
Experience provides a ragged musical backdrop as Okazaki captures heroin
culture in graphic close-ups of ruined veins and open sores.

"Black tar destroys veins at a much faster pace than powder, so finding a
vein is more of an issue for people who have been doing it for a couple of
years," Okazaki says. "They amputated a couple of Jake's fingers; they said
they might have to amputate his hand. Black tar is to white powder heroin
what crack is to white powder cocaine. It's quickly and cheaply refined;
it's impure but really potent." After three years of following five
young people in and out of San Francisco's judicial system, the director
says he's frustrated by its lack of counseling and rehab programs. "The
addict population has gotten much younger: The average age 10 years ago was
27; now it's 19 to 20," he says. "It's ridiculous to jail these kids and
then just kick them back out on the streets. It's so hard to kick heroin,
and almost everybody gets busted fairly regularly and has to (go through
withdrawal) in jail. It's such a prime opportunity. But the prison system
just says, `Oh, screw 'em.' The mayor and the city government people should
be ashamed. They're part of the problem."
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DOCUMENTARY

BLACK TAR HEROIN: THE DARK END OF THE STREET: The documentary airs on HBO at
11 p.m. tomorrow and again at 10 p.m. Monday, at 3:15 a.m. April 23, at
12:10 a.m. April 27 and at 4:40 a.m. April 29.