Every now and again a documentary is
released that, when summed up in a sentence, don’t seem to offer anything
new. Supersize
Me claimed that McDonalds was bad for you; Sicko claims that Americans lose out because of their corrupt
healthcare system; Religulous
explores the contradictions between religions.
All admirable subjects, but they’re hardly eye-opening. The new film from Eugene Jarecki can be
summed up in a single sentence too: The
war on drugs is harming Americans instead of protecting them. The shocking thing from watching the film is
how many Americans don’t already know
this…
The film follows Jarecki as he travels
around the country as an omniscient voiceover exploring the history of drug
prohibition, the vilification of drug abusers and the criminal justice system
that incarcerates them. The thesis of
the film suffers from considerable mission creep as the initial question that
is posed is ‘how many people are involved in the drug war?’ yet it slowly
evolves into ‘why and how are African-Americans disproportionately involved in
the process?’
There are ‘shocking’ moments where law
officials admit that they use racial profiling; officers getting paid for
making drug arrests; rape arrests are half the level they use to be and; police
agencies use seizure money to fund themselves… the list goes on. This is vital reporting, but is surely somewhat
common knowledge. The scarier section of
the film is the chronology of drug criminalization over the century. From the banning of opium to arrest chinese
workers in California, to the ‘negro’ population using cocaine, to the Mexicans
smoking marijuana… This version of events is horrific and as I was watching it
I was hoping it was biased and wasn’t
as meditated as this program of racist victimisation. The most disgusting statistic that seems to
prove the racist overtones to the law is the 100:1 cocaine to crack powder
sentencing imbalance: the smallest amount of crack powder is judged as harshly
as cocaine powder and the sentencing is overwhelmingly biased against
African-American users.
The narrative differs from most ‘issue’
documentaries by choosing to interview countless numbers of ex-cons, narcotics
agents, politicians, families and children etc. instead or following a small
group of people trying to overcome something in their lives. The only memorable recurring character is
Jarecki’s nanny and how drugs had affected her family. By overwhelming the audience with so many
voices and stock footage, it paints a horrifying picture of the scope of this
problem. It quotes statistics like “2.7
million children have a parent behind bars” and has an army of politicians from
both parties saying the same rhetoric (John McCain, Rudolph Guilliani, Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, Jo Biden, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Hilary Clinton).
It is curious that Obama is notable by his absence…
The film begins with a journey
‘questioning one persons life’ (Jarecki’s nanny) and ends up with the realisation
that America is “killing the poor”.
Disturbing and powerful stuff…
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