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Eames Yates is the Director/Producer of the HBO documentary about methamphetamine abuse: "Crank: Made in America."
Methamphetamine, commonly known as "crank," "speed," and "meth," is an extremely powerful stimulant with a high potential for abuse.1 It usually comes in the form of a white crystalline powder and is snorted, injected, smoked, or taken orally.2 Originally confined to the west coast and certain rural mid-western areas, crank is spreading east, and is turning up more in all major U.S. cities.3 In fact, an estimated 8.8 million Americans have tried crank at some point in their lives.4
Q: What inspired you to make the Crank documentary?
EY: I was born and raised in New York. I had only heard vague whispers about this drug Crank. No one had a clue what it was. So I talked to HBO about it and told them I wanted to go out there to do a documentary about it. And when I did it just blew my mind. It was everywhere.
Q: How did you find the subjects of the Crank documentary?
EY: When I got to Iowa, it was like looking at people who belonged on the cover of a Wheaties box. It seemed so weird to have such a big drug epidemic there. I originally thought it was going to be very difficult to get people to talk to me about it [but] I found that I had to choose who to include. It's such an insidious drug, so toxic, so instantaneously addictive, that folks wanted to do this because they thought if they did, they'd have to quit. Some people felt that if they told their story, that it might help others not to do it.
Q: Were the users who appeared in the film concerned about being prosecuted as a result of their participation?
EY: I would say repeatedly to them: "You don't have to do this, I don't want to ruin your life." But prosecution by the law was so secondary to them compared to the prison they were already living in by being addicted to this stuff. I would think that they would decline to participate because it'd be embarrassing. But they would tell me: "We're beyond embarrassment. We're already drug addicts." I always try to be as non-judgmental and objective as possible. But now that I've been around this stuff, I'm all for trying to de-glamorize it by showing the people whose lives were caught up in it.
Q: Other than the fact that most Crank is manufactured in America, is there anything else that you see as being particularly American about the drug?
EY: Sure - the naïve, arrogant sense of invincibility… the rugged individualism, the freedom to get on your motorcycle, carry your gun, and cook up your meth. There's a bit of the self-sufficient, Western-frontiersman thing to it.
Q: Do you have any advice to documentary filmmakers who are just getting started?
EY: At the age of 47 I'm finally starting to figure it out. Documentary films happen because you're invited in as a guest. It's due to the kindness of strangers that you're allowed to make your living. These are tragic people, and you've got to treat them with nothing but respect. You have to be polite. You have to listen. The less of you that's in the film, the better. Let the story do the work
1 Methamphetamine Abuse and Addiction (Revised January 2002) National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
2 Infofax: Methamphetamine (Revised June, 2003). National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). [Online: http://www.drugabuse.gov/Infofax/methamphetamine.html]
3 Methamphetamine Abuse and Addiction, op. cit.
4 Ibid.
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