Videos aimed at educating students on the dangers of crystal methamphetamine are on their way to schools all around Arizona. “METH: don’t even start” – produced by the city of Phoenix – is in the mail to approximately 1,750 schools serving students in seventh through 12th grades.
The city’s PHX 11 and know99 television stations produced one video for junior high students and another for high school students. Scientific focus groups with children conducted by the Behavior Research Center crafted the videos’ messages. Both are shorter than 10 minutes, featuring interviews with teenagers who are former users.
A letter from Mayor Phil Gordon, Vice Mayor Dave Siebert and Councilman Tom Simplot included in the mailing urges schools to play the videos for students as part of an appropriate curriculum. Siebert and Simplot chaired the city’s Crystal Meth Task Force, which also contributed to a city ordinance regulating the sale of products criminals use to make the drugs in meth labs.
The Arizona Credit Union System, Phoenix Police and Fire departments and United Phoenix Fire Fighters Association sponsored the videos. The Washington Elementary and Phoenix Union High School districts provided input and participated in a screening at a northwest Phoenix school.
To view the high school video on-line, visit phoenix.gov/video.
