UP FRONT

[Music] [Music] first of all i ought to tell you that the high school i go to it's one race white and fairly rich fairly well off yeah eighty percent have have tried taught i think my school is a mixture of races all kind of people and like i would say about 75 percent of them smoke weeds you know the whole school maybe 10 or 15 percent you know been on some harder stuff acid masculine hair um you know stuff like that well it's probably more i've tried weed in our school about i don't know 80 percent maybe i don't know but it's around there and i'd say about 10 have used hard stuff [Applause] [Music] oh at least half of them you know tried you know smoking a little weed here and there but i don't know about the harder stuff if they get down or anything about 90 yeah i'd say about 90. [Music] [Applause] [Music] my name is roy evans prior to just a few years ago i lived 17 years of my life as a drug dependent person which led to 87 arrests and finally a sentence in a federal penitentiary between jail sentences i found help through participation in synonym narcotics anonymous and teen challenge none of these programs solved all of my problems but each in its unique way contributed to establishing a foundation for growth three months after leaving teen challenge i was recommended for a training position with the county department of community services after a year i passed the civil service examination and was appointed to a position as community worker roy yeah did you get a copy of this letter from banning high dude they raised some questions and you're going to be covering it i thought you ought to look up okay fine i'm on my way with state training now but i'll take care of it later okay [Music] my present position is community services counselor i'm responsible for assisting agencies and community groups in planning developing training and implementing drug programs my work also requires that i communicate with young people in this film we will hear from youth who are currently drug users from those who've never used drugs and from ex-users who have received assistance from self-help programs despite their differences these young people share uniformity of opinion regarding drugs school parents and society when we're talking about drugs are we talking about drugs used for medicinal purposes are we talking about drugs used to get high as far as i'm concerned when drugs aren't used as a dependency they're okay i came up with a definition for myself you know and it it had to do with the healthy and unhealthy use of goods and i saw them as being healthy when they're used and at the same time whatever is causing the need for the use is being dealt with and unhealthy when they're being used with no consideration at all for what causes the need some of the people who use claim they go through good changes believe that's possible if you're all nervous and everything you just smoke a joint like just eases you yeah so it's like a prescription but i have to find the pharmacy talk about calming down how about speed what what way does it help you well from school yeah it makes me smart it makes you smile this makes you feel like doing the work you're just completely down and your mind just kind of wanders away from if you're not like you don't dig what you're reading like you can take some whites and like just get involved in what you're doing any kind of drug you're gonna affect you some kind of way either to them it may be good but it seems like in the long run it's bad people taking drugs aren't these insane uh hippies that run out and take drugs to lead to the road of destruction to kill themselves because there are good things about them and they feel good when i'm under the influence of something i'm different and i'm not me you know and so i'm not really responsible for what i'm doing it's an easy cop-out it's a super easy cop-out well i think like marijuana is like the same in the older generation like when they come home with a hard day at the office or something and they sit down and have a drink like we come home after a hard day we come home we fire up a joint you know it relaxes you it stops the hurt for a while maybe the hurt will be worse when you come down but for a while it's one way to stop the hurt i can recall uh you know many years that i ran around hurting you know and uh to me it wasn't hurting in fact uh as i recall uh i felt that everybody felt like i felt you know i thought that was just all a part of living no i don't think there's one answer for what hurt is though at least not for me like hurts a problem that i have to deal with at the moment something that i'm afraid to deal with and that hurts even more to work to get rid of the problems that are hurting that are making you hurt and that's you know one reason for drugs it's so easy to make that hurt go away with the drugs the hurt comes from when i'm not feeling good about myself which is you know a good part of the time teenage years was very difficult for me like you know at times i was treated like a boy and at other times i was expected to act like a man and the swing was you know most of the times too much for me that's why people that's why the kids turn to drugs i have a feeling yeah when they want to be big they're treated like little kids they're restricted and when they're when they have responsibility i think this is when they start taking drugs they don't want it that much they don't feel prepared for it yet it is thrust on them i believe that all parents mean well you know but i wonder if we can look at some of the confusion you know i think that many parents find themselves in and really in attempting to help often make things a little worse i feel like the home situation is so mixed up that after school i really don't feel like going home because usually if when i go home there's always something to argue about that's what sometimes pushes kids towards dope is all the frustrations and all the stuff piled up at them when they walk in the door at home and they just want to get away you know out of reality for a while you know the whole communication we had was she would tell me what i should be doing you know and what what i was doing was gonna lead me to you know but we never talked about what was wrong you sort of like get the feeling that they don't trust you of what you're where you're going or what you're going to be doing that they don't get you know that they have you got the feeling that they think you're going to go out and do something wrong you know like when i come home they check my eyes oh no what do you think how old should a kid be before he's allowed to trust his judgment about what he's doing it's not an age you should accept yourself i think you should be at that stage where you go well okay you know i'm not so pretty i can't help but you know you should be like that um you should feel like if you had a problem you you would have somebody to turn to you just wouldn't be alone young people mentioned to me the confusion between what parents say about responsibility and trust and how parents act communication and trust with your kids go hand in hand take you for instance if your young man comes in late do you listen to him or do you act as if you're his personal policeman well we certainly don't act like policemen but we are concerned with what they're doing you have to be in this day and age personally i believe that any real communication is the result of people trusting each other it's a two-way street young people learn trust from you and they'll be more able to confide in you when they feel they're trusted even more importantly is that they will learn to act responsibly when they are allowed to make their own decisions when they are being counted on to do the right thing if you want to be able to communicate with young people and i think all parents do you've got to learn to trust them i met a lot of students in schools all over the county they've told me of the frustration they experience in school some of it seems to be a normal reaction to growing up but much of the frustration is a result of our present educational methods drug abuse and other types of dropping out appear to me to be an attempt to alleviate this frustration what do you think came first turning off to school for the grant turning off to school because well when you get to high school you have a little idea what you want out of life and to sit in a history class or a language class a spanish class you know and learn all this spanish which you don't think you're going to be using you know it it will it's it's very disillusioned illusioning a lot of them like going to school 10 11 years they've got tired same old school man so i think i'll get loaded and be a little bit different i think it's really important in schools and other things to listen to the people's needs what are they asking for i don't know you know that's the school to me was so frustrating i just it was just a lot better when i was stoned you know at my school it's about all my partners they smoke pot i get into something you know and like i run around with them and they know that i don't you know get into these things and like it doesn't affect them and doesn't affect me they never tell me to split this is before i i tried smoking grass and so these guys had rolled up this uh tobacco you know i thought it was weed but i never seen it and so we were all sitting around and we started smoking and they they showed me how to you know hit it right and so i after a while you know i wasn't high but i i told those guys yeah i'm getting loaded man this is good and they all started laughing it says something more than you know you're wanting to smoke a joint to me it does amazing because you wanted to be a part of the group uh like i had the thing of wanting to be with the in-crowd you know with the coolest bunch all the time and like when i first started high school in the 10th grade i was with some people and i want to try because i want to be accepted by them you know and be cool with them and so then started and then my mother wasn't helping out any you know and she had taught me you know ever since i was small you used dopey dye and right then i didn't really think about that i wanted to be accepted by those people by the people i was going to be with every day and i just feel it's the right thing to do right then and then so i just started using all the time uh carlene is shy but if she takes what downers she's braver right and then she says she gets through that struggle of getting out to meet people you think it helps you in a lasting way i mean you've gotten braver and all together no not really because i have okay like i'm through with you know my high all right i'm brave well i can go back home and be reminded that i am a child you know so i have to go through those struggles again actually how do you work through the shyness if you don't suffer through the feelings of uh anger of not being 21 yet and you're still not a kid how do you work through uh wanting to be free and at the same time needing to lean on somebody how do you work through these feelings if you don't feel them in other words what i mean if you load it and you don't feel them what is that to work through if i'm uncomfortable about growing up if i'm uncomfortable about school if i'm uncomfortable about home i'm uncomfortable about my country and i'm using drugs alcohol whatever it is to calm down to relax feel comfortable what else do i do well eventually you're gonna try to attack the problem without being loaded and see if you can conquer it that way we can continue to say that you know like we can continue to say uh i'm gonna have another cocktail every evening you know because uh eventually i'm gonna start learning how to be calm in the evening when i come home without a cocktail or eventually i'm gonna walk into the classroom you know and uh not be shy because i've done something i'm not saying what that is can you start by just cutting down gradually just getting accustomed to it slowly you talking about something that's happening somebody doing that you know anybody couldn't know not really what i seem to hear is that the abuse of drugs doesn't accomplish what the drug user starts out to accomplish when he uses drugs to relieve an uncomfortable situation he still ends up with the anger the shyness the pain whatever was bugging him in the first place leaving out whether society approves or disapproves does it make sense to use a chemical that doesn't solve your problem that gives you more of them and won't let you go when you want to kick it i don't know a really you know sore spot with me is is is what society the way society handles people with the kind of problems that like i have because i spent i don't know four or five years in institutions basically behind my drug problems there wasn't always four drugs but it was drug related all the time and i sincerely believe that all that time and all the expense that that the government went through to keep me there and all the time i wasted was just that wasted time i didn't get anything out of it the time i spent i really think the short time i spent in the house compared to that time it's just you know immeasurably more effective in what it's doing because you can't i really you can't treat people for what's you know with my kind of problems by locking them up the kind of house mario is talking about is a self-help house crisis house in hollywood is an example of a self-supporting live-in facility where young people are provided with a home-like atmosphere and assume the responsibility for cooking cleaning and the upkeep of the house yeah [Music] i've decided you know that like cooking isn't the hardest lucha in east l.a is a self-help house in the chicano community i got out of jail and i can't find no job i never knew never learned anything in jail came out to the parole officer asking for help he didn't give me no help told me to get a job i can't even get my license to drive a car you know i just hit the hell with it we can clean you up if you want to clean up and after that i know you ran from your parole officer so we can go over there in bed for you and try to get you reinstated and from there we can get you a job you can start working if you want to get involved in what we're doing our doors are open so everything is all up to you what do you want to do i'm tired you know i want to kick andele carnell simone the main tool is education in other words you got to know where narcotics addiction leads to and what problems it will create for you and if you have a specific interest in this it can only come through self-introspection because self-introspection is again the educational tool that will help you prevent you know you're getting into any narcotic usage we are not only interested in the prevention of narcotics addiction but in our opinion we're interested in developing the future out of our classes the future experts on narcotics addiction a young person with a family emotional or drug problem can seek information concerning self-help houses or other services by calling a hotline oh oh hi joel hotline well hotline is a service where people call in if they have problems if they want to rap is there something you wanted to talk about yes yes we know about drugs here [Applause] well what is that you would like to know joel the hotline may refer him to a free clinic where counseling and medical assistance is available doctors and staff personnel donate their time to provide free services have anyone ever mentioned to you that your eyes seem to be a little bit yellow no [Music] you have noticed yourself in the mirror you want to look up at the ceiling oh yeah this little how long have you noticed that oh [Music] some self-help houses such as teen challenge are religiously oriented [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] way [Music] [Music] bridge back is a self-help house in the black community almost all of these houses and services exist without sufficient funds a factor which hampers their effectiveness and limits the intake of youth seeking help despite this young people are learning methods of communication that establishes the basis for trust self-respect and friendship to have a friend like wow that that's to me the most important thing to be able to turn around and say well i'm feeling bad or i'm not really feeling either way at all but i know i've got that person there that i can really trust and talk to and feel good with or something i don't know just the person that you're close to what happens when that person lets you down you know even the real person the one you really trust and want what happens when they're distant from you well i think what happens is it hurts but i think then what has to happen is you have to learn how to deal with hurt and by that time hopefully you've gotten enough tools and enough faith in yourself that you can fall back on you a little bit with almost every risk i've taken such as getting jobs meeting people or doing things that i didn't want to do support helped so much someone to help me take that risk not someone to do it for me or to tell me to do it but someone to help me with it and just support me and be backing me up you know it feels good for people to say i respect what he's doing whether whether i agree with it or not but you know maybe it's good for the person i think that's really important i used to think when i get done i didn't really think it but i thought everybody respected me you know you've come big time fat pushing you know or whatever and like you know when that when i did come down and start thinking about it and everything i didn't even respect myself you know i didn't care that much about myself i guess what helped me was when i started listening to people and really seeing what they were saying and you know what they were coming off with and understanding their needs and how they were relating to me and the reasons they were relating to me and that really helped because they were trying to tell me something about them but it's so easy to get knocked on the defensive especially when you're always knocking yourself down there on that defensive but if they're people you trust who will tell you what you are and you can be you can get some feedback and you can yeah you can begin to believe in yourself because you see yourself through other people people who are with it and honest yeah if you take the time to listen to it you've got to be in a situation where you can't and where you care about each other yeah and the last thing in the world you can do is turn to your friend and say hey i hurt you know i don't feel good about about you and me or me and somebody else because that's dropping that's dropping your friends yeah what happens if they get to know me god they might not like me or just it it's really hard to say i'm afraid i'm scared it's harder for a guy it's hard for anyone to speak openly yet it's only through honest discussions that we can begin to find ways of solving our problems many young people are taking drugs to alleviate the hurt that problems create but drugs can only relieve for a while the necessity to confront our troubles there's no one answer but i found that places such as the ones we've seen in this film provide a minimum of criticism and a maximum of support here we can express ourselves openly be listened to and listen to others with similar problems home does not often provide this unique atmosphere so more places like lucha bridge back and crisis house must be created and supported if we are to have an effective alternative to drug abuse foreign