Educational Media Reviews Online

Starting with live footage of police raiding a methamphetamine (meth) laboratory in a Salt Lake City home, this film grabs the viewer’s attention and keeps it. The knowledge and experience imparted by several rehabilitated drug addicts adds tremendous power to this docu-drama. The viewer is persuaded through their real life stories that even just trying meth once, is one time too many.

This highly addictive drug wreaks havoc in the life of the user. Their lives as they knew them become an all-encompassing passion for the next meth high. The film discusses the ramifications of both personal and physical deterioration.

The film relates one tragic story of a young mother who overdoses; and, one addict in recovery who expects to become a drug counselor in the future, among others.

An empathetic addiction counselor and a doctor are interviewed and discuss the long term physical and mental health damages of meth usage. Graphics and statistics emphasize the meth epidemic in America. It knows no social, political, financial or geographic boundaries. It is everywhere, and our young adolescents need to have the knowledge and information to resist peer pressure to try it.

HRM delivers the video with a current curriculum to lead discussions and engage students in the classroom, including an extensive bibliography with resources that are packaged in a 3-ring binder. The Teacher’s Resource Book is well done. The production of the video is professional and of high quality. But, it should be noted that some of the video clips are used in other HRM videos on substance abuse.

This particular video is specific enough to stand on its own merit as it relates to one powerful drug, methamphetamine. It can also be paired with other HRM drug education videos, for use in the classroom or other educational setting.

This resource is highly recommended for school media centers.