High Life / A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : Teens Raise Curtain on Anti-Drug ‘Choices’

For most teen-agers, a trip to the movies offers a time to relax with friends, eat popcorn and have a good laugh--or maybe even a good cry.

But for the members of the sheriff’s Orange County Student Advisory Council Against Drug Abuse, the movie theater seemed just the place to spread their message to teen-agers throughout Orange County.

For at least six months, the two-minute, anti-drug film “Choices” will be shown before each full-length feature on 70 Edwards Cinema screens across the county.

The film was produced by members of the student advisory council, which represents about 160 students from 65 high schools, with technical advice from youths from the Phoenix House, a drug rehabilitation program in Santa Ana.

Jim Edwards, president of Edwards Theaters, said the students’ film will appear as long as the acceptance level is high, noting that last year’s film, “Friends,” ran well over six months.

“I think we have a community responsibility to present media like this,” said Edwards, who added that in his theaters alone there are from 800 to 1,000 teen-agers employed at any given time. “Certainly drugs affect everyone in either a direct or indirect way.”

The film was financed by $50,000 won by the student advisory council in April in a community service competition sponsored by Disneyland.

“This is better than anything that could have been done by professionals,” Edwards said. “There’s a real sincerity to it.”

Kim Carlson, a sophomore at Orange High School, has been involved with the student advisory council for three years and now serves on its steering committee. She appears in the film and said council members basically came up with their own ideas for what was to be included.

The main focus of the film, which is directed at teen-agers who are drug abusers or are thinking about using drugs, is that “it’s your choice to decide,” Carlson said.

“Choices” depicts student actors conducting drug transactions in a high school bathroom and on a beach, but these scenes are interspersed with shots of drug-free teen-agers having fun around Orange County. The word “choices” is repeated frequently in a background rap song.

Mike Post, who graduated from Orange High last year and is now a freshman at Chapman College, appears as an actor in both this year’s and last year’s anti-drug films.

“Drugs are there, but it’s our choice whether we want to use and abuse them or stay sober,” he said.

Both Carlson and Post said the film’s message should hit home with teens because it’s not presented in a preaching style.

“It’s kids talking to kids,” Post said. “I think it’ll really make them sit down and think. . . . The kids that really care, it’ll get to them.”

Though student advisory council members hope their film will have widespread impact, Carlson said, “if it affects just one person, then we’ve accomplished our goal.”

She added: “At the end of the film, a list of names rolls down the screen. It says that this film is dedicated to our friends who have died or are dying from drug abuse.

“Everybody has a friend who is probably dying from drug abuse; they just haven’t received any help yet.”