Pubdate: Wed, 26 Jun 2013
Source: Wisconsin State Journal (WI)
Copyright: 2013 Madison Newspapers, Inc.
Contact:  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.
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MAP posted-by: Matt