HOLLYWOOD IS SLOW TO HERALD HORROR OF METH

Mainstream TV, Movies Missing Chance To Educate Us About Drug

Crystal. Tina. Crank. Ice. Glass. Speed.

Call it what you want but learn the nicknames, because in the last
few years methamphetamine has escaped its trailer park roots and
crept into mainstream America.

In August, a Newsweek magazine cover story proclaimed meth "America's
Most Dangerous Drug," and some law enforcement officials throughout
the country say it's their No. 1 drug problem. You wouldn't know it
though, judging from our usual barometer of what's "in" -- Hollywood.

The same industry that put a face on the term "crackhead" has been
unable to slam "meth mom" into our consciousness. A couple of movies
and television programs have dealt with meth, but there haven't been
any groundbreaking works to really get people talking.

That's unfortunate, because entertainers can make people pay
attention to topics they wouldn't normally care about. Take the rap
group N.W.A., for example. Its music sparked criticism because it
glorified violence and misogyny. But the group's music also exposed
middle- and upper-class Americans to how crack was ravaging poor
black neighborhoods during the late '80s and early '90s.

Movies can also have a strong impact. After seeing Chris Rock play
"Pookie" in the movie "New Jack City," I knew what a crackhead looked
like. It wasn't pretty.

The movie "Scarface" showed how cocaine destroyed an empire and
lives, and "Drugstore Cowboy" and "Requiem for a Dream" illustrated
how desperate heroin can make you.

Those movies appealed to users and nonusers, but movies and
television shows about meth rarely attract a broad audience.
Showtime's "Queer as Folk" followed along as a meth addiction
destroyed Ted, a main character, but a TV series about a hardcore gay
culture has a limited audience.

The 2002 movie "Spun," about a meth addict, his supplier and his
supplier's girlfriend, is too weird to appeal to a wide audience. The
editing and freaky animation might make you feel as high as the
characters in the movie. And people I know who have either used meth
or other drugs say "Spun" is an accurate portrayal of the drug's effects.

Accuracy is important, but so is accessibility. I don't know anyone
who doesn't do drugs who's seen that movie, which means "Spun" is
preaching to the choir.

And the choir isn't singing loud enough.

Big Problem

Meth, which makes you hyper and sexually aggressive, doesn't get the
kind of exposure that marijuana, alcohol, crack, cocaine and heroin
get. Yet all types of folks use it -- construction workers, college
students, soccer moms.In a National Association of Counties survey of
500 counties, 58 percent of law enforcement officials said meth was
their biggest drug problem, followed by cocaine, marijuana and
heroin. According to the 2003 National Survey on Drug Use and Health,
about 12 million Americans ages 12 and older had tried
methamphetamine at least once in their lifetimes, which was about
four times the number who had tried it in 1994.

"It's a bigger problem than people realize," said Ricardo Torres, of
the Chemical Dependency Center in Charlotte.

While Hollywood has all but ignored the issue, the news media has
caught on to the changing face of meth. For example, the recent
Newsweek story featured a college-educated woman who earned six
figures and lived the American dream. The mother and sales rep got
hooked on meth, was caught shoplifting several times, and eventually
was nabbed for turning her home near Chicago into a meth lab.

A suburban surprise closer to home: A federal grand jury recently
indicted Eva Piatt on charges of running a meth lab in her south
Charlotte townhome.

Art Imitating Life

Concord native Tommy Foster isn't waiting for Hollywood to catch up
to reality. He created a one-man play, "The METHod to My Madness" to
chronicle his addiction to meth, which he discovered while partying
in gay clubs in New York. During one of Foster's sex and drug binges,
he had unprotected sex and contracted HIV.

In July, Foster performed the play at Actor's Theatre of Charlotte to
raise awareness about meth, which can be snorted, smoked, injected or
taken as a pill.

Foster, who briefly moved back to Concord earlier this year, and
several Charlotteans say meth has become more accessible in clubs
here in the last few years. They've seen it used among bankers, real
estate sellers and other professionals.

"Here, it's a sex drug," said John Glorioso, program coordinator with
Metrolina AIDS Project. "It's not isolated in regards to who's doing
it, who's not."

Added Foster, "A lot of people around here, the guys who are using
don't realize they have a problem. I want people to start talking
about it before it starts exploding."