This two-part FRONTLINE report examines the people, policies, and struggles
behind America's 30-year battle against illegal drugs. Despite the U.S.'s
multibillion dollar effort, heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and other illicit drugs
continue to thrive on America's streets. And drug-trafficking has become a
global $300-$400 billion dollar industry--one that's now an integral part of
the world economy.
Through interviews with the 'drug warriors'-- senior
government officials setting policy and the DEA, FBI, and Customs drug agents
on the ground--as well as interviews with the drug traffickers they
hunt, this four-hour series probes the history of America's drug war from both
sides of the battlefield.
Part I begins in the Nixon years, showing how the war on drugs evolved from
the law-and-order president's war on crime and how U.S. service men returning
from Vietnam hooked on heroin shocked Nixon's men into responding with
controversial methadone treatment programs. However, this would be the last
time treatment commanded the lion's share of attention and anti-drug dollars.
"Drug Wars" next profiles the rise of the cocaine business and the inability
of a growing law enforcement establishment to counter the increasing flow of
marijuana and cocaine feeding America's burgeoning recreational drug
habit in the late 1970s and through the 1980s. FRONTLINE presents
exclusive interviews with the men who headed Colombia's once powerful
Medellin cartel, including Jorge and Juan David Ochoa, who tell
how they entered the business and Carlos Toro, who helped run cocaine
for Colombian smuggler Carlos Lehder. This report chronicles the cartels'
terror campaign against Colombia's government and how the cartels subsequently
moved their operations to places like Cuba, Mexico and Nicaragua. In
Nicaragua, narco trafficking became part of the tangled story of the
U.S./CIA involvement in Central America's wars. Part 1 ends with the
early signs that a new, more powerful illegal drug--crack cocaine--was about to
change everything.
"Drug Wars" Part II begins with the story of crack. Crack forced DEA agents
in New York City to confront not just a new, more deadly drug but an entirely
new order of drug dealers. "There were no top three or four people," says
former DEA agent Bob Stutman. "The 'organization' was a
twenty-year-old guy and three ten-year-old kids."
The New York DEA office had trouble convincing the feds that crack was a
threat. It took the death of a talented young basketball player, Len Bias, and
reports of his involvement with cocaine, to help change the nation's perception
about cocaine.
Fighting drugs again became a top priority at the federal level. Politicians
jumped on the drug war bandwagon, passing laws that set disproportionately harsh
sentences, greatly impacting--and
increasing--America's prison population
The final hour of "Drug Wars" investigates the Mexican drug connection and how
U.S.efforts in the 1990s to stem the flow of Mexican drugs were hindered by
systemic corruption and collusion by high-level Mexican officials with the
country's drug smugglers. DEA agents recount how their reports of corruption
fell on deaf ears in Washington, where first the Bush and then the Clinton
administrations were focused on increasing trade with Mexico. On camera, a
former commandante in the Mexican Federal Police
describes how the system of corruption works and how it reached into the halls
of Mexico's presidential palace. And American drug agents describe the vicious
and powerful organizations like the Arellano-Felix cartel, that continue to
control Mexico's drug trade.
In the end, the international drug economy has become a part of the legitimate
economy, accounting for much of U.S. trade in the Caribbean region, as well as a
factor in the destabilization of nations. A series of exclusive interviews
with drug-traffickers and money launderers provides an inside look into how the business works and thrives despite a vast law enforcement,
military, and intelligence community effort to wipe it out.
Perhaps the most surprising thread running through "Drug Wars" is the agreement
by virtually every drug enforcement official interviewed that the decades-long
strategy of fighting drugs through interdiction and tough sentencing should be
replaced with a policy emphasizing drug treatment, education, and
prevention--hallmarks of the original drug strategy begun under President
Nixon.
"Let's create an organization that says, 'Well, this year ninety percent of
this budget is going to go into education and prevention,'" says Jack
Lawn, former head of the DEA in the 1980s. "Would that work? We won't
know unless we try it. But twenty years of doing it the other way certainly
has not worked."
home ·
drug warriors ·
$400bn business ·
buyers ·
symposium ·
special reports
npr reports ·
interviews ·
discussion ·
archive ·
video ·
quizzes ·
charts ·
timeline
synopsis ·
teacher's guide ·
tapes & transcripts ·
press ·
credits
FRONTLINE ·
pbs online ·
wgbh
web site copyright WGBH educational foundation.
|