NATIVE DOCUMENTARY 'G' PREMIERES IN TUBA CITY

Rez meth tragedies exposed through personal interviews

The bottom-line: Methamphetamine (meth) use causes permanent brain damage,
which results in permanent personality disorders. Meth is extremely
addictive from even first time use. It's cheap, made from highly corrosive
materials like household lye, ethyl alcohol, methanol hydrochloric acid and
acetone. It produces a powerful euphoric high that can eventually result in
symptoms that resemble Parkinson's disease in affecting movement disorder.

Meth often times called "G," or "Glass," or "Ice," is the subject of a
focused, on-point, personal interview based documentary by Shonie DeLarosa,
Navajo/Hispanic filmmaker.

This documentary, "G," premiered in Tuba City on Oct. 28 at Greyhills
Academy High School auditorium to a packed house filled with
cross-generational community members, parents, students, health service
providers and teachers.

The message in "G" was powerful, tragic and deeply felt by the audience as
the after-movie panel discussion continued for almost 90 minutes after the
film. Questions from the Tuba City audience focused on specific information
about the drug, drug rehabilitation and recovery as well as what the
audience as a community could do about meth. Female users

The movie, which featured former addicts of meth, showed that about half of
the current users of this drug are women--young women in the 20-30-age
category most often times young mothers.

This statistic alone is shocking since most of the heavy drug users in the
U.S. have historically been male.

Reservation statistics for drug use for both Navajo and Hopi, as well as
reservations in North and South Dakota pretty much follow this same pattern.

The interviews that brought the movie audience to tears were mostly
centered around the women filmed and interviewed who were involved in this
drug activity.

One woman described her addiction and cried because she said she didn't
realize that you could get hooked so quickly.

She said that while she was "high" and babysitting, her stepfather molested
one of her nieces. Because she was just so out of it, she said she didn't
stop the molestation.

Another woman who was in her early 20s said that her own mother-in-law, was
the one who introduced the drug to her. Eventually arrested at gunpoint
with 50 firearms in hers possession, she had for a period of two years,
written bad checks and sold guns.

She said when arrested, her own mother and young son were present. Her
parents never even knew she was involved with drugs.

Most of the former addicts interviewed said that they literally just
abandon their families for meth.

"G" stressed the drug propelled them to become essentially unfit. Unfit in
what they ate, unfit in how they took care of themselves, unfit in the
decisions they made and unfit in how they affected those that loved them
and were trying to help.

One woman said that she ended up quitting because the drug literally almost
killed her. She was drunk along with her boyfriend, and they decided to
inject their doses of meth.

She mistakenly picked up his syringe filled with meth, it contained 25 ccs
of the drug. She had never injected that much before, but because she was
already drunk, she didn't bother to look at the measurement.

As soon as she shot up, she said the room went black, started spinning and
she fell to the ground. She said she was barely awake, her heart was
pounding so hard she couldn't hear anything and could feel something
running from her ears.

It was blood.

She ended up in ER in critical condition and has since quit.

One woman worked two jobs to keep up with her meth habit--one job to pay
the rent and bills, the other job to pay for meth.

She said she turned to prostitution to pay for her habit at one time. And
she also admitted that several of her clients were "really skanky people"
but she didn't care.

Panel discussion

A question posed to filmmaker DeLarosa in the panel discussion asked
whether the film was difficult to make since he is also part Native
American and most of the subjects in the film were predominantly all Navajo
tribal members.

"Yes, it became difficult at several points, because these were very human
stories and I was moved to tears during some of the interviews." DeLarosa
said. "But I would try to focus because I knew the end story and message of
my film is so important."

Additional panelists in the after-movie discussion included Greg Adair,
Tuba City Police Department Head Drug-Criminal Investigator; Dr. Thom
Drouhard, Surgeon for Tuba City Regional Health Care Corporation; Gail
Hadley of Window Rock; and Micky Preston of Chinle.

This documentary was financed by and is the brainchild of the Health
Promotion Program at Tuba City Regional Health Care Corp., under the
direction of Michelle Archuleta and Shannon Tracy.

The "G" documentary also featured a specially created song by Hopi-Navajo
hip-hop artist, Gabriel Yaiva of Hotevilla titled "Natural High".

Yaiva, who himself leads a drug and alcohol-free life, is quickly becoming
a hot commodity in native music circles that features musical material that
focus specifically on native tradition, native language and positive
healthy ways to promote a healthy creative lifestyle.

DeLarosa said he selected Yaiva's song for promoting and keeping with the
theme of recovery and finding alternatives to drugs and alcohol.

Both Archuleta and Tracy have worked diligently within the Tuba City
community and the surrounding Hopi and Navajo reservations, to provide drug
awareness and prevention along with fellow staffer Dr. Drouhard.

For more information about the film and for future showings or requests for
film community showings, call the Michelle Archuleta at the TCRHCC Health
Promotions 928-283-3076.