The Business of Drugs isn't focused solely on the U.S. drug war, and that thematic choice connects to America's inability to prevent narcotics trafficking. “Part of the crack epidemic was caused by the fact that for so much of the time, the selling of crack in black communities was not policed. A new documentary on Netflix In this new Netflix documentary, a timeline of events unfold during the period of the “crack epidemic” which began in the early 1980s in US cities. Zoom out from Los Angeles to the entire country and the story is the same. Asked how the recent uptick in calls to defund the police might be rooted in the crack era’s transformation of American law enforcement, Nelson responds: “The war on drugs funded policing back then, and it continued to fund policing today.”, Crack: Cocaine, Corruption, & Conspiracy is now available on Netflix. Approaching the timeline chronologically, Nelson highlights several moments in the cultural zeitgeist that played an outsized role in making crack the subject of countless nightly news broadcasts to come. Indeed, news outlets, capitalizing on the fear and misconceptions of middle America, were keen to cast crack users in an evil and villainous light. As “Crack” reveals, news coverage of that incident actually played an outsized role in making the public aware of freebasing as a way to consume cocaine. Now “free” of the salt, one can smoke the “base” cocaine. Brown, a white woman, would openly interrogate her pregnant Black patients to see if they were crack users. No, this isn’t a saga of potential innocence or a four-part deep-dive into a cult. You don’t have to talk about whether someone’s been sexually assaulted and they’re now self-medicating. In my neighborhood they were ultimately selling crack out in the open.”. A McDonald’s recruitment video from the time loses its inspirational edge when you find out that pay was only $3.25 an hour. Richard Nixon, in his effort to silence black people and antiwar activists, brought the War on Drugs into full force in 1973. We agreed that some of our people were worthy of being thrown away, and that happened on our watch. The crack economy was revolutionary. Detailed and personal commentary from soldiers on both sides of the conflict that is the war on drugs makes this one of the best drug documentaries on Netflix. 2017 | 18+ | 3 Seasons | True Crime Documentaries. Given the process of cooking cocaine is not ideally done in public view, pre-cooked crack “rocks” became the drug du-jour for those unable to afford its more expensive, powdered cousin. The film relays the story of Jennifer Johnson: a former user who became the first woman ever prosecuted for “dealing drugs” to her newborn in the sixty seconds between the time she gave birth and the moment her umbilical cord was cut. By the mid-80s, cocaine was seen as a status symbol, but that caused more and more of the drug to flood the market, which in turn brought about crack. assured a steady supply of cocaine into the U.S. first woman ever prosecuted for “dealing drugs” to her newborn. Gifts for Her  Gifts for Him. Nestled in Jungle Fever, Spike Lee’s meditation on interracial love, is a harrowing depiction of how crack consumes and corrupts. Rated NR: 2007. Speaking to the Guardian, Nelson recalls living through the epidemic as a Harlem native himself: “[Crack] was the only drug that I remember where it started. Lynn Paltrow, founder and executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, tells of a nurse named Shirley Brown at the University of South Carolina. American Drug War follows filmmaker Kevin Booth as he consults with people on all fronts of the war on drugs to create a multidimensional portrait of those impacted most directly, from users and dealers to law enforcement officials and politicians.. By 1984, it had found its way into inner-city, working-class communities in the form of crack rock, a stronger form of cocaine sheared of its salt content that induced short, intense highs when smoked. You can just throw it away. Nestled in Jungle Fever, Spike Lee’s meditation on interracial love, is a harrowing depiction of how crack consumes and corrupts. Divided into six episodes, all of which prioritize societal realities over societal cliches, the Netflix documentary series aims to educate streamers about the relationship between Digital Age economics and culture shifts. In explaining how willing society was to lock away the problem of crack, she hits on what truly made the drug so dangerous. “[People] broke into cars to steal radios. Drug Lords. “As soon as you say that someone uses crack,” she said, “you don’t have to talk about anything else. You don’t have to talk about the jobs that have been lost. "America's War on Drugs" is an immersive trip through the last five decades of American drug policy and the unintended consequences for a global power-grab of the narcotics black market. People died. While most documentaries seek to offer something akin to resolution, “Crack” is forced to acknowledge the unconscionable reality that nothing was ever really done to fix what amounted to a generation’s worth of carnage wrought on communities of color in the name of drugs. Or is it only a war on the victims of the drug war? Pablo Escobar, Frank Lucas, and the Pettingill Clan are all … The news was against them. But to his delight, rather than being thrown in jail, he was let go – the cops, it turns out, were on the dealers’ payroll. If President Trump is Giving Out Pardons, Spare One for Parker Coleman Jr. After 25 Years, Michael Thompson, Michigan’s Longest Serving Non-Violent Offender, Set to Go Home, Bay Area Cannabis Coalition Wants Barbara Lee for Senate. The “War on Drugs” was a key driver of swelling prison populations, disproportionately affecting black communities. Sorry, you have to be of legal age to visit this site. “If you’ve got a war on drugs,” journalist John Mattes summarizes near the film’s end, “is it not a war on the people who are supplying the drugs? Biologically, ingesting the drug in this form results in a much faster, more intense high. Featuring interviews with former users, dealers, lawmakers, and tons of archival footage, veteran filmmaker Stanley Nelson gives viewers an education on how crack officially became whack. Using cocaine in this form can also quickly lead to devastating addictions. Johnson, a featured subject in the documentary, explains that she had confided in her personal care physician that she was using crack as part of a pre-natal check-up. Nelson emphasizes how the US government has chosen to preserve its own interests rather than those of the American people time and time again. The Business of Drugs: inside the economics of America's longest war. American Drug War: The Last White Hope. Well, what about the law? The wildly addictive drug was transformative, particularly for those communities inhabited by African Americans struggling to break the cycle of poverty. Yet in places like LA, New York and Washington DC people were lining up, or even coming in from the suburbs and waiting drive-in style, to get their fix. Starring: Amaryllis Fox Watch all you want. “It was like a gold rush that hit the hood,” remembers Styles. 'Drugs, Inc.' This series, also from the National Geographic crew, charts the full supply chain of the … Watch America's War on Drugs Season 1 | Prime Video Watch More Amazing Documentary's On A Variety Of Subjects Here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_Twn4hx4vBgB2CYynCDkKA/videos 'The war on drugs funded policing': behind a Netflix documentary about crack. Release year: 2017. Rather than preventing the spread of cocaine, for instance, the CIA formed an alliance with the Contras, a drug-dealing group in Nicaragua financed by the US government to overthrow the country’s leftwing government. And yet, as historian and Rutgers University professor Donna Murch details in the film, “between the passage of the [1986] Anti-Drug Abuse Act and, in 1994, the passage of Clinton’s crime bill, not a single white person was convicted of a federal crack offense in Los Angeles.”. 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