Transcript

Cultural Baggage / April 10, 2011

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Broadcasting on the Drug Truth Network, this is Cultural Baggage.

“It’s not only inhumane, it is really fundamentally Un-American.”

“No more! Drug War!” “No more! Drug War!”
“No more! Drug War!” “No more! Drug War!”

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My Name is Dean Becker. I don’t condone or encourage the use of any drugs, legal or illegal. I report the unvarnished truth about the pharmaceutical, banking, prison and judicial nightmare that feeds on Eternal Drug War.

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(Audio and dialogue from Fringe on FOX)

(Water bong noises)

Woman: Are you marijuana?

(Music in the background)

Man: I can’t classify what I just smoked as marijuana. It’s a hybrid! A chronic supernova of Afghani Kush. I will call it Brown Betty.

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Dean Becker: Alright, that wasn’t from a movie. It was from my favorite television show Fringe. That was Walter smoking a joint of some special stuff he grew. But here to join us is Susan Boyd or she will be in just a moment. She’s the author of Hooked: [Drug War Films in Britain, Canada, and the U.S.], which explores the history of movies and the propaganda machine, if you will, that’s given us the wave of hysteria that’s still sweeping the planet like a huge tsunami. Do we have, Susan, yet? Hello, Susan?

Susan C. Boyd: Hi.

Dean Becker: Hello, Susan. Sorry about the mix up. How are you doing?

Susan C. Boyd: I’m fine. Thank you.

Dean Becker: Yeah Susan, I don’t know if you got to hear that clip, as I said, from my favorite television show but your book is dealing with movies.

Susan C. Boyd: Yes.

Dean Becker: Well, dozens, hundreds over the years that have, I think, have distorted our perceptions about drugs. Would you concur?

Susan C. Boyd: Yes, I would, definitely.

Dean Becker: If you will, kind of give us the rationale behind the book. We had you on before in regards to another book, From Witches to Crack Moms, I believe it was, right?

Susan C. Boyd: Uh, hum.

Dean Becker: It also dealt with that distortion, that demonization, if you will, that we are inflicting on one another, am I right?

Susan C. Boyd: Yes, it’s true. this book called Hooked: Drug War Films in Britain, Canada, and the U.S. came from the— I guess, the root of the book would be – I was watching the film, the US produced film, Traffic in 2000.

Dean Becker: Right, Michael Douglas.

Susan C. Boyd: Yes and he plays the US Drug Czar in the film and when I was watching it, I was so disturbed because I had been an activist— a community activist and drug policy researcher for many, many years I had heard about this film being quite different. Reviewers were writing about it as a critique of the war on drugs. So, I was very anxious to see it.

While I was watching it, I was so surprised by the very racist imagery, how drug traffickers and people who are depicted as being part of the cartels were represented as so violent. Mexico is represented as being barbaric and lawless. The inner city in the United States was depicted as being inhabited by black street dealers who would corrupt young white girls for profit.

It was also a remake of an earlier British film that was made with the same name but with a different spelling in 1989. In that film, the made for TV earlier film, it was quite nuanced and really took a global look as to what was going on in relation to the war on drugs.

So, I was pretty shocked by this movie and I decided that I would write about it and I did that. I wrote an article about looking at the stereotypes and myths that were perpetuated in Traffic the American production and while I was writing that I started thinking more about visual representation, you know, that most of us, even if we are not interested in the war on drugs or looking at sort of the prison industrial complex, we go to the movies and see representations of police, prisons, drug traffickers, illegal drug use, criminal justice, court scenes. We are very familiar with these cultural productions that are fictional that often have very little information about the actual realities of those situations.

So, I started to think about films much differently and I decided to do a project where I looked at the century of illegal drug films. So, films that were primarily about drugs, illegal trafficking and their consequences. It was very handy to do that because when I started to look more closely, I realized that the criminalization of drugs in the United States, Brittan and Canada happened at the same time that film emerged, when the film was created— feature films.

So, in many ways these films capture a lot of our fears, our questions, our visualization of illegal drug use and the people who use and then traffic them. So, I started to look at it systematically from the advent of films.

Our first US film, feature length, was Mystery of the Weeping Fish in 1916 and my – the films that I looked at started in 1912 to 2006. So, a full century and over 120 US, British and Canadian films and the majority it was American because of the amazing sort of film companies that existed in the United States early on. Canada didn’t really have a fictional film industry early on, so the majority are American but there’s quite a number of Canadian and British.

I started to see after watching many, many films that were definitely ruptures in the discourse, you could say, but that the majority of the films tended to vilify and stereotype people who use illegal drugs and especially the drug trafficker and that the foreigner, the outsider, the threat to the nation, the threat to the border, you know, is seen as most deviant and the biggest threat to sort of American society

Dean Becker: Yeah Susan, let me interrupt you a second.

Susan C. Boyd: Um, hum.

Dean Becker: I wanted to talk about traffic for a minute.

Susan C. Boyd: Yes.

Dean Becker: I thought that it, the American version, did a whole lot to explain the hopelessness but it also held on to the propaganda, the hysteria, that scarier side of it to, in essence, kind of counter its other a massage. Your thought?

Susan C. Boyd: Yes because I don’t think – I think that it is very rare that a film depicts just one message and that is the interesting thing about film, like even the ones that are purporting to do something different have fall back in certain scenes on sort of that old tropes that we all some to recognize. Traffic definitely did that.

There was sort of this critique of the war on drugs and the hopelessness, I think, was embedded in that film but at the same time it also sort of reaffirmed these ideas about people who are participating in cartels, the threat of Mexico to the United States, the leakage of border, how unscrupulous cartel leaders are and people involved in that, how corrupt the Mexican police are, ideas about sort of white space as opposed to black inner city space and one young very privileged white girl’s decent into crack addiction where, here again, we only see a depiction of addition as almost instantaneous.

The way that that young girl sort of comes back into the fold is through a private drug treatment – a residential drug treatment. We see her at the end of the film after her many, many struggles and her downfalls at this residential drug treatment center, which is not available to most Americans, who don’t even have universal health care.

There is a long waiting list for any kind of drug treatment and most options are through criminal justice and through drug courts, you know, if there is going to be some treatment available for many Americans. So, I just found those images to be quite disturbing, in the sense of what we are seeing in our films.

Dean Becker: Yeah.

Susan C. Boyd: What are we reiterating, what kind of stereotypes are we reinforcing over and over again and what other groups of people could, you know, today in society could we condemn and vilify in such an manner without society being very upset about it?

Dean Becker: Yeah.

Susan C. Boyd: I think you can only do this when there is serve inequality in society.

Dean Becker: Once again, we are speaking with Susan Boyd author of Hooked: Drug War Films in Britain, Canada, and the U.S. Now Susan, I’m familiar with many of these films.

Susan C. Boyd: Yes.

Dean Becker: The Assassin of Youth, Reefer Madness, all those crazy things.

Susan C. Boyd: Yes.

Dean Becker: One of the original, I don’t know, more qualitative presentation, better production – maybe that’s where I’m aiming at – was The Man with the Golden Arm.

Susan C. Boyd: Yes.

Dean Becker: And it seemed to sway America’s perception, did it not?

Susan C. Boyd: Yes, I mean, that’s an amazing film and it really did break censorship policy in the United States, as well, because outside of independent films for quite a number of decades there was – the movie industry didn’t depict scenes of illegal drug use and trafficking because it was seen to be favoring those activities and so the industry just censored itself in a certain way but the The Man with the Golden Arm is a story about a young man’s decent into using heroin and the – and the how the consequences on himself and his family—

Dean Becker: Immediate addiction.

Susan C. Boyd: Yes, immediate addiction and what’s different about this film though, in a certain way from some of his earlier films that sort of depict the heroin user as deviant and unlikable that we really sympathized with Frankie – it’s actually Frank Sinatra in this film playing this young man – we sympathize with him in his plight but one of the stereotypes that I guess it t reinforces in the film is his instant addiction but also the withdraw scene that’s shown in the film.

Dean Becker: Yes. (Laughs)

Susan C. Boyd: Is just amazing. He locks himself in a room and he tells his girlfriend, “Whatever you do, don’t let me out—”

Dean Becker: (Laughs)

Susan C. Boyd: “—because I’ll kill for the drug and I am willing to kill,” and—

Dean Becker: And I’m already, yeah.

Susan C. Boyd: And in fact, we see a lot of later films take off on this same sort of representation.

Dean Becker: Twelve hours of heebe jeebes, shakes and quivering and knocking though the wall. Yes, yes.

Susan C. Boyd: And he really did a great job.

Dean Becker: Yeah.

Susan C. Boyd: Visually showing us what the internal process of withdrawal might be for some people but certainly that’s not how withdraw is for everybody. In fact, there’s many things that your medical professionals can do to alleviate some of the pains of withdraw, if you do happen to become addicted to opiates.

Dean Becker: Yeah.

Susan C. Boyd: Something like illegal heroin or illegal opium.

Dean Becker: Now again, we’re speaking with Susan Boyd author of Hooked: [Drug War Films in Britain, Canada, and the U.S.]. I highly recommend it. It’d very entertaining and educational truthfully. We’re going to have to jump forward a few chapters here. Some of the latter movies, I guess when I was a kid, The French Connection—

Susan C. Boyd: Yeah.

Dean Becker: Maria Full of Grace and more recent than that—

Susan C. Boyd: Yes.

Dean Becker: Of course, The French Connection just showed these bad guys with machine guns, a bit like Scarface, almost.

Susan C. Boyd: Um, hum.

Dean Becker: But Maria Full of Grace was a slightly different look at things, was it not?

Susan C. Boyd: Yes, it was and I really do want to give the film producers some credit for Maria Full of Grace because it brought our attention to sort of the drug source nations and those countries that are supplying cocaine to US consumers.

It really emphasized the plight of poor women, who are, some of them through very limited choices become drug couriers and in this movie she was bring drugs, you know, a a small amount of cocaine that she swallowed in balloons from Columbia to the United States.

For once, we were seeing on film a very sympathetic depiction of a young girl who has very little accesses to a good job in Columbia and chooses to bring these drugs into the United States and we see another woman with her on the plane that woman— the drugs are leaked and she dies and we see the risk that they take and these are people who are so vulnerable to arrest and really have no connection to the – if we were going to talk about cartels and people of the higher echelons of the drug trade – and in the film we can intrude on the many in the ways how our drug use in western – in wealthier western nations ,shapes the lives of people in drug source nations.

It was quite an amazing films I have a critique if it because there isn’t really a bigger sort of analysis of US imperialism and interference in sort of Columbian social and economic and political life, as well as, no critique of the corporations – oil corporations in Colombia and how that exacerbates violence there and the drug trade.

It’s not a big critique on the war on drugs, locally and elsewhere, but in terms of giving us another – a very human view of a young woman trying to make choices in her life and trying to just make a life for herself and turning toward the drug trade and the most vulnerable aspect of the trade, being a – personally caring drugs and ingesting them.

Dean Becker: Susan, we’ve got just a couple of minutes left. I want to remind the folks once again that we are talking to Susan C. Boyd, author of Hooked: Drug War Films in Britain, Canada, and the U.S.

A couple of more films that are delved into here, or course, is The Trip, Easy Rider, Panic in Needle Park, Trainspotting, Gridlocked, I mentioned the French Connection, New Jack City, Valley of the Dolls, Postcards from the Edge, Blow, a great film as well, Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle.

Susan C. Boyd: Um, hum.

Dean Becker: Another of the more modern ones and this brings me to perhaps my final question. We are beginning to see a better presentation of thought, a more common sense, a more truthful presentation in more modern movies, are we not?

Susan C. Boyd: I think we are seeing more diverse movies and I would say that’s what’s interesting to me popular culture film, TV as well, it’s not just film that’s showing us sort of a more diverse landscape around that war on drugs and people who use drugs and sell them. Certainly there is more diverseness and so different than sort of the official drug policy that comes out of Canada or the United States.

It’s just so different because in film, we actually see representations of people where there is normalized drug use. There’s no attachment to sort of criminal activities outside of using the drugs especially with a lot of what we call “stoner flicks,” where they center in marijuana use.

So, we get to see that every day individuals using these drugs without any sort of these ill effect and a critique of the war on drugs itself and a critique of the prison industrial system. So, I am very hopeful about of these types of films that are more diverse and to talk about just the idea.

The type of the stories that we tell in a society are very revealing and to ask ourselves, “Why aren’t we hearing other types of stores, more diverse films about the people who use drugs and people who may be selling drugs? Why still today, the majority of films are very – favor the war on drugs and favor punishment and favor imprisonment and depict our courts as being lenient, when in fact we know this isn’t true?”

In the United States, we have seven million people moving through the criminal justice system and two million in prison. This is not a lenient court system. There is some movements societal-wise otherwise, I think, right now, looking at alternatives to the war on drugs and I think we are seeing that, as well, reflected in films and TV, a questioning of this century of this more than a century long, very failed policy, you know, a very—

Dean Becker: Yes.

Susan C. Boyd: Um.

Dean Becker: And it’s starting to be recognized as such by more and more folks, thank goodness.

Susan C. Boyd: Yes.

Dean Becker: Once again folks, we’ve got to wrap it up. We’ve been speaking with Susan Boyd. She’s a PhD, Professor of the University of Victoria and real quick, a website where folks can learn more?

Susan C. Boyd: They can go to susancboyd.com. There there’s a bit more information about the other books that I have written and this film project.

Dean Becker: Well, real good, Susan, we’ll have to bring you back soon. I appreciate your writing. The book Hooked: Drug War Films in Britain, Canada, and the U.S. – a wonderful expose of this propaganda. Thank you, Susan.

Susan C. Boyd: Thank you, Dean, for having me on the show.

Dean Becker: You bet.

Susan C. Boyd: Bye.

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((Game show music)

Dean Becker: It’s time to play: Name That Drug by Its Side Effects.

Alex Trebeck: A 2009 study recommended treating heroin addicts with diazepam morphine, the active ingredient in this?

(Gong)

Dean Becker: Time’s up! The answer from a recent edition of Jeopardy:

Alex Trebek: Karen?

Contestant Karen: What is heroin?

Alex Trebek: Yes.

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Dean Becker: Alright, a couple of days ago, I went to the Texas A&M, Mister Moisés Naím, former publisher of Foreign Policy Magazine was there. It’s a gentleman that writes copy for columns that are published in eighteen languages around this planet and here’s that discussion.

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Dean Becker: I’m glad to see you in person here. Now, you were on my show about a year and a half ago and we were talking about legalization – or I was talking about legalization anyway – and I am wondering if in the ensuing – yes sir, in the ensuing year and half, if you’ve had a chance to kind of refocus your mind the potential – might happen if we did legalization?

Moisés Naím: So, to put this in context, we were talking about what to do with the drug wars and what to do with the whole criminal expansion of the criminal networks, all kinds especially in the drug trade.

The observations, the factual observations are as follows: 76% of Americans when asked by surveys if the drug wars work say, “No.” Most people don’t think that the current policy approach to the use and distribution, laws and consumption of narcotics is correct.

Yet, when you ask, “Should these policies be changed?” The great majority also says, “No.” So, we have this contradiction of very pragmatic, candid Americans that at the same time will tell you, “What we are doing is not working, but we cannot change it.”

Dean Becker: (Laughs)

Moisés Naím: That is part of the fact and it is a reflection of the fact that prohibition that we are now under a regime of prohibition of all kinds of drugs that has resulted in blocking a debate, where the reality is that it is not true that the only two options that we have is complete legalization or prohibition. We don’t need to live in that kind of world or black and white.

There are options. I am not saying that every drug, everywhere to everyone ought to be available. I’m saying that there should be options. That we should be open, ourselves to the possibility of exploring intermediate options between legalization and criminalization.

I wrote a book about drugs and about these trades of all kinds. That book, also a movie was made based on the book, we won an Emmy. I brought you a copy of that book so you can look at it.

I am now convinced, since I wrote the book five years ago, I am now convinced that the issue is no longer who smokes what. The issue is about governments. What’s happening is, the fact is that the trade – the drug trade and all sorts of criminal trade has gotten so large that they are undermining governments and taking over governments.

So, in many countries now you have essential criminal states. The people that are in charge are criminals. It used to be that the criminals would blackmail corrupt, cajole or abuse people in government to help them. Now, it is happening but what is also happening in some places, the governments are deciding to take over what is the most lucrative industry in their country, which is very often criminal activity.

We are witnessing, around the word, governments that are in effect running Mafia States and to me that is beyond who is smoking what. To me is it that more fundamental threat which is living in a world where you have governments that are essentially criminal networks

Man: We do have time for one more.

Audience Member: I was going to say that in California, the marijuana industry is now bigger than the wine industry or any other agricultural sector of the economy. Is there a plausible solution where you take the money out of the drug industry, where part of the reason that people pay so much money is because we try to restrict it and the less that gets through, the higher the price goes and more incentive there is for people to produce and it’s just a very – it doesn’t work. The more successful you are getting drugs, the higher the price is going to go because people will pay any price.

Moisés Naím: I wish 76% of the Americans would think like you but they don’t think that it would change, I believe. I am in favor of marijuana I am not in favor a blanket legalization of everything else. I think one needs to be selective.

One needs to understand whatever the option that you are going to take, it will have cost. It will have risks and cost lives. I don’t think that smoking marijuana is a healthy or good thing to do. All I’m saying is that many people will do it if they want. And spending a lot of money on educating people and preventing is maybe a better option than – the United State have since 1969 has been spending about $40 billion on war on drugs and the results are really not working.

So, imagine, at the same time, smoking and getting drunk is an addictive behavior. So, changing addictive behaviors is very hard. It is very hard to change an addiction. Yet, this country is one of the most successful countries ever in getting rid of one addiction, which is tobacco.

We are now at a 56 year low in tobacco consumption in the United States. Mostof you probably don’t smoke. In this same classroom, ten years ago probably half would be smokers. So, this country was successful in using a variety of tools, taxes and education all of those things to make people – to convince a whole generation to abandon an addictive behavior.

In fact, nicotine is more addictive than THC, which is the active ingredient of marijuana. So, in the United States we have been able to stop people from continuing their addictions to nicotine but we have done nothing to use what we have learned on these solutions or these mechanisms that these people have used to stop people from smoking cigarettes, to apply that technology to stop smoking marijuana. It would be better to spend more money on that than the chases in the high seas.

Dean Becker: Okay, once again that Moisés Naím, former editor of Foreign Polices Magazine. He write columns that are printed in eighteen different languages in Europe, Asia and Africa, very seldom in these United States.

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(Music)

What gives the Drug War life?

Is it the cartels?

Maybe it’s the Baptists.
The bankers?
The gangs?
Or the cops?

Who’s in charge here?
Which Politicians?
Peasant farmers?
Big pharma?
Is it the street corner vendor?

Is it you?

Is it me?

It is fear the gives the Drug War life.

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Be sure to check out this week’s Century of Lies show. We’ll have Pete Geither, who runs Drug War Rant and we’re going to hear part of my discussion with former President of Mexico, Mister Fox. As always, I remind you that because of prohibition you don’t know what’s in that bag. Please be careful.

Please visit drugtruth.net

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To the Drug Truth Network listeners around the world, this is Dean Becker for Cultural Baggage and the Unvarnished Truth.

This show produced at the Pacifica studios of KPFT, Houston.

Drug Truth Network programs are stored at the James A. Baker III Institute for Policy Studies.

Transcript provided by: Ayn Morgan of www.eigengraupress.com

Tap dancing… on the edge… of an abyss.