Voiceover of Carren Clem over high school images:

Methamphetamines are in every school. Poor schools. Rich schools. Your private schools - your struggling communities, with the smallest numbers of kids in the school - I mean, it's everywhere.

Woman:

Helena has a huge population of people who are not only, you know, using Meth - but are making it.

Teen Boy:

Every week it seems like there's a meth lab being busted or a kid being affected by meth.

Mike McGrath:

The kids reported themselves that 13 percent of Montana youth were using Methamphetamine.

Tom Seibel:

They had seventeen sheriffs in Cascade County and they were spending virtually all of their time trying to grapple with this methamphetamine problem. It just got my attention and I thought that somebody needs to do something about this.

Marcy Brakefield:

My first contact with Meth - I was 16 years old, was the beginning of my junior year of high school. A friend and I one day knew somebody, and we knew where to get it, and we decided that we wanted to try it and I loved the way it made me feel, and I wanted to continue doing it.

Nitsa:

The Meth Project is a large-scale exercise in prevention and the objective of the program is to educate teens 12 to 17 about the very real risks of methamphetamine. One of the things we found was there was a lot of misinformation about methamphetamine. 25 percent said they saw little to no risk in trying the drug. This is one of the most highly addictive substances known to man. When we launched in Montana, we became the largest advertiser in the state. The campaigns were really developed with input directly from teens. We take very much a peer-to-peer approach.

 

Teen Boy II:

I work at a bar and I've seen people come in with the decaying teeth. I have seen affects on people from meth and yes they're very true and very realistic.

The Meth Project Commercial - "Sister"

Marcy Brakefield

People do sell their bodies, people do you know pick scabs, and pluck their eyebrows out and rob and steal and you know that's real and it's because of Meth that people do those things. I believe that if the Meth ads were around when I was 10-12 in my early teen years, it would completely have changed my perspective and it also would have given my parents an opportunity to look at my behaviors and the things that I was doing and it would have not gotten as far as it went if I would have had a clue how devastating it made things in my life.

Mike McGrath:

After the Montana Meth project started running its commercials, we saw a 45 percent drop in teen meth use. Attitudes changed dramatically, parents were talking to their children, kids were talking among themselves. There was an increased perception among young people that this was a dangerous product.

The Meth Project Commercial - "Friends"

Carren:

In my experience, in my using, in my period using, I did experience things that the ads present and that the ads are reenacting, and unfortunately, it’s real-life scenarios. I grew up in the Flathead Valley - in northern Montana. It really was an easy childhood. We had horses and I had a pony and I have an older sister and a younger brother. It was really easy and it was a lot of fun growing up. My dad was pensioned off of the LAPD and he didn't want us to be raised in California because it was too harsh of an environment. He definitely was trying to find one of the last places on earth that drugs were - you know, so he chose Montana.

The first time I skipped school actually - it was freshman year, it was a couple of weeks in, and I met this gal on the bus, and you know I thought she was pretty cool, you know she talked about partying and she had these boyfriends, and you know she seemed like she had a pretty cool life. And she asked me if I wanted to skip school with her one day and we were gonna go over to one of her friend's house, and when he got off of work, he was going to buy us alcohol, and then we were going to go to a football game. I started smoking pot and drinking. We were sitting there and you know, I asked this guy, I said, you know, "can you give me a boost?" and he said "oh no" but later that night at the party, he invited me to this private party. It was a rock, and they were crushing it up or they were melting it, you know, in this light bulb, and I just remember being like, 'this is kind of weird! Maybe a little sketchy?' Some of these guys are super freaky sitting in here with me - but I'd already been drinking and partying and was up for something new - and it was the first time I used Meth. I had no idea what it was. I had no idea.

MMP Commercial - "Just Once"

Carren:

As time went on, like it became more about just the feeling of the drug. And it was painful to snort it - I mean, it hurts and it tastes bad, and it's draining down your throat but you need it.

I went through my savings - I'd gone through about $6,000. I started stealing money from my parents. After awhile, you know, it got to the point where you just couldn't steal enough, and you know, because I wasn't old enough to go pawn the stuff myself, you know, you just wound up not seeing the money. And so I just figured I was going to do whatever it was going to take to have my drugs, so I started just trading myself and that's when I just gave up and I just decided that I couldn't - I just didn't want to be alive.

Text On Screen:

Carren Attemped suicide ... but she survived.

I was in rehab for eighteen months and it was the hardest thing I ever had to do. I didn't want kids to make the same choices that I did. I became involved with the Montana Meth Project. We did the paint the state campaign where we just decorated our state with the stop meth message, not even once, because it literally can steal your life away.

Nitsa:

So Paint the State was just a remarkable campaign. Thousands and thousands and thousands of teens and their parents and their families and communities got together and created over 660 pieces of monumental-scale artwork that literally blanketed the state of Montana.

Tim Seery:

My motivation to become involved with the Meth Project was that very first summer that it had started. I was inspired by its ability to really correct a problem that was going to become a huge issue if not dealt with. I painted a 10' by 10' mural that hung on one of our local architect’s buildings. And they were popping up around Great Falls, really creating a message that teens were speaking out against methamphetamine.

Carren Clem:

This doesn't feel like an advertisement – you know, this is a mark that’s been left on fences, on the sides of barns, on brick buildings as you're going through towns. You know, it’s billboards, and it's signs on fence posts, and it's just things that are painted, that force people - even adults - it's a constant reminder. And I think for kids to be able to get involved, and leave their mark on something - it's kind of like "tagging" but in a positive form.

Teenage Boy:

The paint the state helped kids talk to their parents because it really broke the ice, because the kids had information, the parents had information and the exchange of that of what the kids didn't know and what the parents didn't know really helped them out.

Nitsa:

So following Paint the State, teens came to us and said "we want to continue to be involved. We want our brothers and sisters to see this campaign.” And so they decided that they were going to petition the state legislature to continue funding the Meth Project.

White teen boy:

Meth is just the worst drug and I would like the program to keep going because it sounds like the program is working, that's why I signed it.

Kaylie Barringer:

Meth can destroy lives. It's not anything that I want anyone I know to be a part of or anything.

Javon Johnson - African American teen boy:

Meth is like a really bad deal you know, and people shouldn’t be doing that kind of stuff - it can mess up their system.

Nitsa:

Teens went to extraordinary lengths to gather these signatures. They went to shopping malls. In one school they created commercials to raise awareness for the march.

Pat Murphy:

We have two classes working on this to come up with some commercials in house to work on the March on Meth. We've been working for about a week and a half right now – we’re gonna plan on working another week. There are some that are advertising the actual march and the sign-up dates and trying to push people to get them to sign up. These will be aired over announcement time during homeroom.

CUT TO class at work editing videotape, and to one of the ad produced by the teens at Capitol High School

Boy 1:

You know putting your own video together - it's just kind of a start. You know, hopefully people will get the idea, you know, that Meth ain’t the coolest thing.

Boy 2:

I'm making a before and after picture of a Meth addict. Trying to take a Meth picture and recreate it like a normal person would look and show the difference after they’ve started using Meth.

Boy 3:

We did this one where we have these bunch of broken tapes, and we're all showing how stupid things are and it says would you rather do this or Meth. Either one is dumb, and it talks about the March Against Meth and all that stuff.

Marcy Brakefield:

The Paint the State campaign was great momentum and energy - great expression, and the March Against Meth really was able to turn that expression and took political action to the state and said "help fund this project."

CUT TO pre-march activities at CM Russel High School, Great Falls, and shots of setting up the booth

Text On Screen:

February 16th

Day of the March Against Meth

Tom Siebel:

The March Against Meth is one of the great grassroot uprising in history. Thousands of people getting in buses, traveling hundreds of miles, sleeping on the floors of motel rooms, getting up at 6 in the morning, marching on the capitol, beseeching their legislators, beseeching their governor.

Keeting Kruger: 9th grader riding on bus:

I'm participating in the March Against Meth because it’s kind of ruined my life - my parents used to do it and I got taken away.

CUT TO kids getting off bus, crowding into Helena High School

Roxanne Smithftchet:

We are expecting 41 buses, over 2,100 kids. It will be a great turnout

Merrow Woodson from Cascade Schools:

I support the Meth Project. I think it's pretty cool. I've never been to anything like this.

Savannah from Helena High:

Once I heard about it, I just thought that it was a really good thing. As a child my parents used it, so I had to be removed from the situation. It makes me want to help the kids that don’t get so lucky.

Group of Girls:

Say "no" to meth!

CUT TO inside Helena High School - we see crowded gym, signs saying "Helena" and "Central Montana" and Senator Max Baucus speaking to the crowd. Then there is the big crowd.

Senator Baucus:

Isn't this great! 2,000 kids here to combat methamphetamine! Let's hear it! 2,000!

 

CUT TO crowd approaching capitol, massing on capitol steps. Speakers begin.

Carren Clem:

My name is Carren Clem, I'm from Kalispell, Montana, and I started using Meth when I was seventeen years old. It is amazing what we as Montanans have been able to achieve in bringing the ugliness of Meth to our state and to the world. We have led other states across our country to start this fight as well, and we are here again today to set another example.

Nitsa:

In the state of Montana, we’ve seen to date, a 63 percent reduction in teen meth use and a 62 percent decrease in meth-related crime. The teens of the state of Montana and in all of the other states where the program has now been adopted have really taken a leadership position. They are the ones communicating to their leaders, to their parents, to their friends—“Not meth. Not in our state. We’re not gonna have it here.”

 

 

Carren Clem:

One thing I could say to kids it would definitely be get the information, know the information. We say not even once because not even once the one time that you could use could be something that's affecting you ten, fifteen, twenty-five years down the road. Telling my story is - each time I do it - it's as though I'm going back reliving it. But, if it helps somebody from going through that and from having to live that life, then for me it's worth it.