Why is it important for FRONTLINE to investigate Americas thirty-year war on drugs?
The drug war has been the subject of all kinds of media coverage, but most reports are anecdotal. As a social, health, legal and economic issue it has altered the cultural landscape. All the issues surrounding the drug war are so charged that people quickly paint themselves into a corner. Politicians are afraid to talk openly about its successes and failures – and their opinions – because of possible political consequences. So, what we are trying to present is an objective history that will enable us as a society to begin talking about drugs, and the effort to prohibit them, in a rational way. In the course of your investigation, what most shocked you? Well, when you travel to a place like Culiacan, Mexico, it’s a shock to find the drug industry so ingrained in the popular culture that there’s a patron saint of drug smuggling – Jesus Malverde. And financially, to recognize that after more than thirty years, narcotics have become a multibillion-dollar worldwide industry, and a major ele
