Asheville School senior creates anti-opioids video

If Whitney Stewart had known how powerful addiction was, she says she would never have experimented with opioids. She began with a legal prescription; but when it expired, she turned to street drugs and eventually became homeless. Today, Whitney is in recovery in West Virginia.

Fellow West Virginian Ryan Brown, however, didn’t manage to survive: He died of a heroin overdose. To honor his memory, his brokenhearted parents, Cecilia and Bobby Brown, established Ryan’s Hope to promote awareness of the problem. Adam Stewart, a senior at Asheville School, shares these stories and more in his powerful video One Decision.

“I want people to know that opioids aren’t something you should experiment with,” says Stewart. “Being a teen, I don’t like being told what to do, but I do like being informed. I think teens should make their own decisions, but they should be informed ones. I wanted to share something that is fact-based and have it be about people’s stories.”

Stewart created the film as an Eagle Scout service project in his home state of West Virginia. He raised the money, hired a videographer, conducted interviews and produced One Decision.

In the video, Dr. Rahul Gupta sums up the horrors of addiction, saying, “It’s one of those things that creeps inside your body and turns into a brain disease, which you cannot control at all.”

To view the video, visit www.onedecisionfilm.com.