(Netflix)
Looking for a great show to watch that will challenge the way you look at things?
Netflix has just released “The Business of Drugs,” a documentary series that goes deep within the drug trade around the world. Now, I know what you are thinking: You have seen “Narcos,” Narcos Mexico,” “Cocaine Cowboys” and other shows and documentaries on the illicit drug trade.
“The Business of Drugs” aims to be a bit more eye opening than the rest.
The Business of Drugs | Official Trailer | Netflix
Created by U.S. Navy SEAL and Executive Producer Kaj Larsen, and hosted by former CIA Officer Amaryllis Fox, the series will examine the illicit drug trade from around the world to here at home.
The series looks deep into the drug trade from where they originate and the pathways that are used to get them to their final destination. The Business of Drugs will trace the path of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, marijuana, and various other drugs and will reveal the business, violence and fallout along the way.
The series will also look at both the economics of drug trafficking and the economic impact of the trade.
Who makes the money and who loses big in a multi-billion dollar global enterprise?
Larsen hopes that by understanding narcotrafficking through the lens of business, the series will show that modern drug cartels operate as highly organized multinational corporations.
Fox embeds with traffickers in Colombia, DEA agents in Chicago, mules in Kenya and consumers right here in the States – in Los Angeles – and tells us the human story of a multi-billion dollar criminal industry. The former spy uses her formidable intelligence-gathering skills to finally expose the economics of exploitation and power that fuel the global war on drugs and who it affects.
Did you know:
- Since 1971, the war on drugs has cost the United States an estimated id=”listicle-2646417222″ trillion.
- Every 25 seconds someone in America is arrested for drug possession.
- Almost 80% of people serving time for a federal drug offense are Black or Latino.
- In the federal system, the average Black defendant convicted of a drug offense will serve nearly the same amount of time (58.7 months) as a white defendant would for a violent crime (61.7 months)
Despite studies showing that Black and white Americans use drugs at the same rate, convictions rates and sentencing lengths for Blacks is substantially higher. Republican Senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul, even referenced this when he spoke out against mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses.
This documentary is especially poignant now while Americans take a hard look at how the law is enforced among us. We learn that the War on Drugs is the single largest factor in the incarceration of
Black and brown people in the United States. Prosecuted as a strategic tool by governments and security services for over 30 years, the War on Drugs has put more people of color in prison than any other single policy.
“The Business of Drugs” brings these policies to our attention and makes us question if the “War” we are fighting is actually working or if we are wasting taxpayers’ money, costing lives and making things worse. Watch the series and decide for yourself.