NO GAINS IN THE DRUG WAR

A lot of film critics are keen on the movie "Traffic," a cautionary tale
about the war on drugs and the people who buy, sell and use them.

Though visually interesting, the plot technique of introducing characters
who never meet but whose lives are nonetheless interconnected -- in this
case by drugs -- is not new. But it is an effective way of telling several
stories at once that share a common thread.

The movie is more accurate than it is eye-opening.

Director Steven Soderbergh has been praised for making a movie that does
not appear to take sides on the issue of drug abuse, or the U.S.
government's efforts to stop the tide.

But for most viewers who haven't spent the past 20 or 30 years in a cave or
in an alcoholic or drug-induced fog, the conclusion seems as obvious as it
is inescapable.

That being that the war against illegal drugs as it is being waged will
never end because the enemy is human nature.

People's compulsions to escape reality and the compulsions of others to
make money from their predilections without regard for the human cost is an
ancient, symbiotic and lasting relationship.

Soderbergh does make a powerful visual case that even casual drug use can
become a debilitating addiction that robs human beings of their will and
dignity, and ultimately their lives.

Without judging further, "Traffic" views the war on illegal drugs from its
many dark sides: The cartel kings; the badly paid Mexican cops who try to
stay honest but cannot; the general who destroys one cartel so he can run
its competitor; the U.S. drug enforcement agents fighting a losing battle
to put the bad guys away; the big dealer who rats out his boss for
immunity; the country club mom who didn't know her husband was a major drug
importer; the lawyers who sell out.

And finally the smart, privileged, and pretty teen-aged drug addict and her
rich, confused parents.

Playing a conservative judge who is appointed the nation's new drug czar,
actor Michael Douglas is forced to confront his own teen-aged daughter's
heroin addiction.

Her mother experimented with drugs as a college student; her fond-of-scotch
father is a man whose blinders won't let him see that his way of taking the
edge off the day is different only in degree from his daughter's choice of
free basing heroin.

Suddenly conflicted by his own harsh and unsympathetic ways of dealing with
drug users, the czar comes to realize that all the politicians' tough talk
and all the power and resources of the federal government cannot stop the
flow of drugs any more than it can save his daughter from her demons.

The czar abruptly quits his new post after concluding the war on drugs is
in fact a war on America's families. Whose addicted members like his own
lost daughter need help and compassion, not prison.

In real life it would never happen. Government has always been in denial
about drugs. Except for nicotine, alcohol, and a gross of legal mind
altering drugs made by pharmaceutical companies listed on the stock market.

If the cartels were on the NASDAQ the drug war would go away.

Indeed, Soderbergh's emotionally contorted main character reflects a
growing sentiment across America that the war on drugs has failed to get to
the root of the problem.

"Traffic" makes the cynical and accurate if unoriginal observation that
both sides are in bed with the other. Both sides want the drug war to
continue because it keeps people on both sides employed, including the
politicians and drug dealers who support the drug war for personal gain.

The U.S. tosses $19 billion a year at interdicting drugs on its borders,
$10 billion more than it spends on education.

The cartels spend $100 billion to keep the pipeline flowing. They could
spend far more and never feel the pain.

For all the enforcement efforts, despite hundreds of new prisons crowded
with drug users and dealers, drugs on the country's streets are more pure,
more available and cheaper than they were 20 years ago.

"Traffic" paints the drug war as a failure because its masterminds
concentrate on the impossible goal of stopping the growing and importation
of drugs. Not persuading people not to use drugs. And barring success in
that direction, treating those who finally decide they want the monkey off
their backs.

"Traffic" does a respectable job of summing up the drug war's disastrous
record to date.

The sad thing is that barring an innovative change in policy, 10 years from
now "Traffic" may still be a painfully accurate representation of art
imitating life.