Selling Drugs On The Movie Screen

[greenbuddha]

 

 

US WI: Shining A Light On The Insanity Of The Drug War

 

 

 

 

•Get Active

•Subscribe

•Support Us

 

Share on Facebook Share on stumbleupon digg it Share on reddit Share on del.icio.us

 

 

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v13/n301/a04.html

Newshawk: Kirk

Votes: 0

Pubdate: Wed, 26 Jun 2013

Source: Wisconsin State Journal (WI)

Copyright: 2013 Madison Newspapers, Inc.

Contact: wsjopine@madison.com

Website: http://host.madison.com/wsj/

Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/506

Author: Arianna Huffington

 

 

SHINING A LIGHT ON THE INSANITY OF THE DRUG WAR

 

It's the biggest movie of the summer. Not the biggest budget, or the biggest box office, but the most important. I'm talking about the new documentary "How to Make Money Selling Drugs," which will be released in theaters and on-demand on Wednesday.

 

Written and directed by Matthew Cooke, and produced by Bert Marcus and Adrian Grenier, the film exposes the hypocrisy and destructiveness of the drug war at every level. The director's goal, as he put it, borrowing from Malcolm X, was to effect change "by the most entertaining means necessary." Or, as Hamlet said, "The play is the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king." Or, in this case, the public, which will in turn catch the conscience of the king.

 

The movie is loosely structured as a satirical how-to, showing how easy it is to make a killing as a player in America's war on drugs. And though the film mainly focuses on the stories of former drug dealers, along the way it lays bare the complicity of law enforcement, our justice system and our political system. It also features interviews with, among others, Susan Sarandon, 50 Cent, "The Wire" creator David Simon, Huffington Post reporter Radley Balko, and Russell Simmons.

 

But the reason the film truly feels like a blockbuster is because you can't leave the theater without being shocked and outraged by what's going on. Even if you go in feeling like you're well-versed in the insanity of the drug war, you'll leave even more stunned.

 

That was the case for me. I've been passionate about this issue for years. Having dealt with addiction in my family, I feel strongly about the necessity of treating it as the health issue it is, as opposed to a criminal problem.

 

On no issue are the cowardice and hypocrisy of our elected leaders writ larger than in the drug war. Nor anywhere are the consequences - in lives and in money - more staggering.

 

Even in its use of the experience of drug dealers as its narrative device, the film shows how destructive the drug war is on the country as a whole. "I think we're led to believe we're a nation of two types: criminals and citizens," writes Cooke in his director's statement. "But truly we are one people. If we are divided by anything it's by two conversations. The truth Americans speak on the streets, and the conversation between our commercial news and Washington elites, blasted across our media - drowning the rest of us out."

 

That's why it's so important that we all lend our voices to the sane conversation, so that it can build and reach Washington and finally overwhelm the entrenched forces that keep this disastrous war - a war not on drugs but rather, as Cooke writes, "on people" - going year after devastating year.

 

Neill Franklin is executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a nonprofit representing more than 5,000 law enforcement workers opposed to the drug war. He's also a 34-year veteran in the Baltimore and Maryland police departments. From his very credentialed perspective, Franklin writes in The Huffington Post about how futile it is to focus on the supply end. For inner city children, drug dealing "often means the only avenue of escape from a life of poverty."

 

And there's also the opportunity costs of having our limited law enforcement resources focused so much on the futile drug war. As Franklin notes, as the drug war has grown, the national percentage of murders that get solved has dropped, going from 91 percent in 1963 to 61 percent in 2007.

 

"We cannot arrest our way out of this problem," he concludes. "Take it from someone who tried for 34 years."

 

In 2001 I wrote about how I hoped the movie "Traffic" would ignite a conversation about the drug war. And for a while it did. But then it fizzled out again, and perhaps many of us took the president at his word that he would change the drug war. And, yes, progress has been made at the state level - but only in a few states. And while the momentum of demographic change will hopefully keep that progress going, we need to maintain a sense of urgency.

 

I hope there will come a day when the government no longer wages this destructive war against its own citizens. But how many lives are still going to be destroyed before that happens?

 

Get more involved, since we're all involved in this war in one way or another. See this film, and then you're going to want to get more involved.

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MAP posted-by: Matt

[OG Fire Beaster]

Sounds cool. I am definitely going to check that film out.

[ilynnboy]

Me too .

Hopefully it will be seen by others not in the Cannabis community.

There is much hypocrisy in our governmental leadership at all levels concerning drugs and their consequences.