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Subjects of ice film
hit home for teens
400 students preview a new
documentary on the drug's impact
A teen with Cinderella long-blond hair kicks aside trash as she walks through a Waikiki apartment that she and friends use to smoke crystal methamphetamine.
On TV tonight
"Ice II: Life or Meth," a one-hour documentary by Edgy Lee and Jeffrey Mueller, will be simulcast commercial-free tonight at 7 on KBFD, KFVE, KGMB, KHNL, KHON, KIKU and KITV.
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"Ice II: Life or Meth," the second documentary by Edgy Lee and Jeffrey Mueller on Hawaii's ice epidemic, is aimed at reaching kids by using kids talking about their lives on ice and how everyone thinks they can control the power of the drug, but in the end the drug controls them.
The one-hour documentary, which was previewed yesterday for about 400 teens from high schools across the island at Ward Entertainment Center, will premiere at 7 tonight on seven TV stations.
On screen, the blond teen is identified as "Tina," 17, from an upper-middle-class family. She matter-of-factly recounts how she tried ice at 15 as a way to make friends and lose weight. But then she lost friends, lost track of her future and more. She's still on ice and would like to be off. She says ice is the way "to kill yourself on the inside."
"Kids who are richer, they tend to have better lives, and she just threw it all away for drugs," said Brandalynn Salzbrenner, a 15-year-old who watched Tina in the documentary.
"I know friends who do it. They had bright futures. Now they're just gone," said Tony Cabjun, 17, from Aiea High School, who also saw the screening.
"Life or Meth" quotes authorities including U.S. Attorney Edward Kubo and city Prosecutor Peter Carlisle, along with school counselors and professionals in drug rehabilitation. It also features Jasmine Trias, the Maryknoll School senior made famous last spring on "American Idol." She entreats fellow teens not to do ice.
But the kids in this audience reacted to the teens and 20-somethings who have battled ice.
Outside the screening, Travis Orozco, 17, stood in a circle with some of his friends from Roosevelt High School talking about "Nickie and Corey," two local boys who beat ice and are featured in the film.
"Seeing how Nickie and Corey lived, that's just messed up," said Orozco.
In the film, the two walk down a street to the house Corey grew up in with a father, mother and three sisters hooked on ice. There is no electricity, phone or water. He describes how his daily chore was to take a wagon to a neighbor's house and sneak water for the household from a garden hose.
The boys enter the grim house like two boys home from school looking for Oreos and milk. When they open the kitchen cupboards looking for food, they find discarded boxes, unwashed cups and rats.
"No food. It's the same old, same old," Corey says.
He describes realizing at the age of 8 that his parents were hooked on ice. He explains how he protected and covered for his family for years. He said that at 16 he finally asked the state for a foster home. But he said he still loved his parents.
Nickie understands Corey's life. It's like his own. He knows that food stamps were for drugs, not food. He even sold drugs for his mother and finally left home at 18.
At the end of their unsentimental conversation, the two go searching for food. With practiced hands they search two nearby trash bins, scoring a pizza box.
They wipe ants and what looks like mold or white debris from their slices.
"They're eating pizza taken out of a Dumpster like its an average, usual meal. That's just wrong," said Archie Aridera, 17, his face contorted in disgust as he talked about the scene after the screening.
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