America’s War on Drugs is the story of filmmaker Kevin Booth’s consultations with those on all fronts of the war on drugs to create multidimensional portraits of those most directly affected, from consumers and dealers to law enforcement officials and politicians .
To investigate the role of poverty in drug use and its perpetuation of the cycle of addiction, Booth and his team covertly infiltrate one of the most notorious drug strongholds outside of Los Angeles to capture footage of street addicts in action. In one vignette, he captures a conversation between a police officer and a disoriented junkie who is disoriented and available outside the police station. The man explains that he prefers crack to meth, as casually as if he’s comparing Coca-Cola to Pepsi.
With street drugs now more effective, more accessible and cheaper than when Richard Nixon founded the DEA in 1973, Booth asked why so much time and money was being devoted to criminalizing recreational drugs rather than to rehabilitation and addiction programs. He stresses the futility of criminalizing drugs like methamphetamine, which can be made at home with over-the-counter ingredients, and questions the dubious organization, Partnership for a Drug-Free America — An America that never existed, according to interviewers, as Judge James P. Gray of Orange County, Calif., Superior Court would never do.
Booth also gave time to his advocates, most notably Maricopa County Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, in conversations with law enforcement officials like Gray, who has acknowledged the defeat of the war on drugs. Known as America’s toughest sheriff, Arpaio founded SMART Tents, the largest tent city in the United States, if not the world, and houses convicted prisoners—about half of whom have been convicted on drug charges.
These are just some of the stories told in America’s War on Drugs, a dynamic look back at the history of America’s war on drugs and the resulting social burdens. It sincerely questions the consequences and shortcomings of America’s war on drugs, and manages to be a fair, insightful film.
