Given its name, it should come as no surprise to learn that America’s War on Drugs is a History Channel mini-series about said event with a particular focus on what has happened as well as how it has shaped the lives of people living throughout the United States. In total, the mini-series consists of eight hours, meaning that it is perfect for people who are interested in a substantial introduction to a serious issue that has persisted to the present.
Here are some of the things that we can expect from America’s War on Drugs:
Disillusionment
The material presented in America’s War on Drugs is neither new nor novel, but when presented in one place in such short succession, it possesses a punch. For example, it is not exactly uncommon knowledge that some US politicians have used drug policies as a means of advancing their own agendas, as shown by those who run “tough on crime” campaigns based on harsher penalties with no thought for whether that is actually an effective solution to such problems in the long run.
However, it is nonetheless chilling to see the Chief Domestic Advisor of President Nixon, John Ehrlichman, admit on camera that the War on Drugs was used by the Nixon administration as a weapon against its domestic opponents, Black people and the anti-war segments of the Left by associating them with heroin and marijuana so as to make the US population more receptive to harsher measures meant to disrupt their communities. This is no more than the surface of what is covered by America’s War on Drugs, which often makes for unpleasant viewing, but if things are to change for the better, people should watch it to become better-informed about what has been happening.
Weirdness
Reality can be much stranger than fiction. After all, much of fiction is under an onerous obligation to seem plausible, whereas reality has no such constraint placed upon its behavior. As a result, people who prefer to mix their viewing of substantial material with stories of the sheer weirdness that can happen in the proximity of something as broad-ranging and far-reaching as the War on Drugs can expect their fill from America’s War on Drugs.
Examples range from the time when the Bloods and the Crips struck a truce in a failed effort to leave the drug trade to the time when the United States recruited a Nazi war criminal called the “Butcher of Lyon” for its anti-communist efforts, which saw said individual become a drug trafficker in addition to all of the other crimes committed over the course of decades during which he was free.
Relevance
On a final note, it should be mentioned that the War on Drugs is not over, meaning that the mini-series is a useful introduction for people who want to become informed so that they can support the right policies and politicians. After all, there are still numerous people suffering as a result of the War on Drugs, which has enormous consequences for not just themselves but also all of those around them. Furthermore, Attorney General Jeff Sessions seems determined to pursue the same policies that led to those results, which is all the more problematic when the 2010s has added another drug crisis in the form of the opioid epidemic that is having a particular effect on the rural parts of the United States.
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