Detroit Youth Bluntly Reject Marijuana in New Documentary

For many Detroit, Mich. teens, pot is all relative. When it's your relatives—your aunts, uncles, parents, and grandparents—with the joint in their hand, just saying no isn't always easy. That's why three years ago, the Detroit Recovery Project Coalition began the Love Detroit Youth Initiative as a way to intervene in the destructive path many youth in the area were taking and to change community norms.

“When almost every rap, some R&B songs, movies and celebrities are referencing pot and their family members smoke and the liquor store or gas station stores sell blunt rappers and blunts, it can be difficult to turn away. Our youth are bombarded with these messages all over their neighborhoods and schools,” said April Woodard, Project Coordinator with the Detroit Recovery Project Coalition.

So Woodard spoke to students at area schools, spreading her message. She worked with educators and parents to identify youth who would like to join the Drug-Free Communities grant-funded project, Love Detroit Youth Initiative, what Woodard refers to as the Love Detroit Youth Street Team.

With the Street Team’s peer-to-peer educational approach and Woodard’s experience in the local music industry’s street promotion, they decided that the best way to get the message across to youth that smoking marijuana is not harmless was through the same medium that the music industry uses to reach youth – through video. So they collaborated with a partner organization called Youthville Detroit, an AT&T grant-funded digital arts program that, and produced a multi-media, anti-marijuana documentary to counter the pro-drug media encountered everywhere.

The tech center staff trained Love Detroit’s youth on all aspects of video creation, from pre-to-post production including the camera work, lighting, editing, and adding special effects and a timely soundtrack. The result was a 45-minute documentary called “Where Will You Be When the Smoke Clears?” which is definitely blunt about the blunt.

“I really feel this is the most ground-breaking, cutting edge documentary that youth, especially African- Americans, will ever see,” Woodard said.

The well-researched documentary explores the history of marijuana in all its forms, from hemp’s early American use, to the development of the DEA, to the cross-cultural acceptance of the drug in the 1970’s, to the government’s war on drugs campaign to the health-related, financial, and sometimes criminal consequences even recreational use can cause. Real student coalition members are featured in the DVD with their neighborhood places providing subtle visual messages such as a stop and a dead end sign in the background as students narrate and interview experts from law enforcement, the judicial system, students, community advocates, and marijuana abusers, both current and those in recovery for the drug.

The documentary is part of a communitywide campaign that the coalition developed, dubbed “Be Blunt about Blunts.”

“Our campaign, Be Blunt about Blunts, and our documentary, ‘Where Will You Be When the Smoke Clears?’ hopes to increase teens' awareness that smoking marijuana is not harmless,” Woodard said. “Our goal is to educate teens about the immediate, short and long-term effects of marijuana, debunk marijuana myths, and encourage youth to live a healthy, drug-free lifestyle.”

In a survey conducted in Detroit, the average age of first-time marijuana use is 13 to 15, Woodard said. Students who are not regularly monitored by a parent or guardian are four times more likely to smoke a blunt, according to language from the coalition’s media campaign posters.

In addition to trying to get their documentary shown to more school and parent groups since its September debut, the students are interested in airing it on HBO and entering it in film competitions, Woodard said.
In addition to the documentary project, students are trained on marijuana, alcohol, tobacco, and other drug prevention strategies such as peer and community outreach, media literacy, public policy and public speaking, just like their adult counterparts and mentors. They are planning to use those skills to go to city hall to attempt to pass an ordinance prohibiting retailers from displaying and selling drug paraphernalia, especially blunts and blunt wrappers.

The Love Detroit Youth Street Team also has another marijuana-related documentary in the works.

To view a free copy of “Where Will You Be When the Smoke Clears?” check out www.KeepPushin.org. Click on My Library tab, click MyPDA, click on marijuana icon, click Show Me, and the documentary chapters will appear. It is also viewable on You Tube in five "chapters." To purchase the DVD, contact Woodard at 313-868-0721, or aprilwoodarddrp@yahoo.com.