THE REALITY OF 'TRAFFIC'

Drug cartels war in Tijuana, with corrupt officials and one honest cop in
the mix. A drug czar-designate's daughter goes from cocaine-sniffing prep
school queen to crack whore.

The Drug Enforcement Administration risks losing a key case when its
reluctant star witness, nabbed in a botched bust at a San Diego public
storage business, is targeted for assassination.

These are the plots of the new Steven Soderbergh film "Traffic," which
chronicles the elevation of Ohio appellate judge Robert Wakefield (Michael
Douglas) to head what is officially known as the Office of National Drug
Control Policy. The gritty, real-world portrayal of Mexico-U.S. drug
trafficking is the best in the genre since "The French Connection."

Politically, the movie features some prominent figures: U.S. Sens. Harry
Reid, Don Nickles, R-Okla., Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Orrin G. Hatch,
R-Utah, and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., not to mention former Massachusetts
Gov. William Weld, all play themselves in a Georgetown cocktail party
scene, in which they give Wakefield advice about the drug czar's job.

The presence of actual political figures lends an even greater level of
realism to "Traffic," but it was there anyway.

Contrary to what some may think, the movie pulls no punches when it comes
to depicting the awful consequences of drug addiction and its effects on
Wakefield's family when daughter Caroline (Erika Christensen) becomes
addicted to freebasing cocaine.

Wakefield's desperate, all-hours search for his daughter, her theft of VCRs
and camcorders to pay for her drugs, and her initial refusal to undergo
treatment are all too real. (In one scene, she tells a 12-step audience
that she chose drugs because they're easier to get than alcohol.

No one at the crack house is checking IDs, see?)

But the violence that results from the federal government's attempt to make
a splash by shutting down a Tijuana drug cartel is also realistic. U.S.
officials join with the Mexican authorities to accomplish the task, and
unwittingly pave the way for a rival cartel to take over production and
trafficking, which has become far more sophisticated than any of us
suspect. (The bad guys are using statistical analysis to determine the odds
of border searches, and are finding new and undetectable ways to get their
product into the country.)

The most depressing moment comes when the DEA's star witness Eduardo Ruiz
(Miguel Ferrer), coerced into testifying against his cartel bosses with a
grant of immunity from federal prosecutors, tells DEA agent Montel Gordon
(Don Cheadle) that his actions won't end the war on drugs, just change the
people sending the product. "You work for a drug dealer, too," he spits.

So if the drug war is doomed to failure, and there's no way to stanch the
flow of illicit substances at the border, what do we do? The movie never
gets around to answering that question, the same way those senators at that
cocktail party never get around to considering it in the first place.

Reid, in his self-scripted line that accuses the media of wanting to see
drug users in jail, mentions education and treatment. While it's a common
fiction that every drug user needs treatment, many do, and Reid may have
hit upon the best use of American political resources in dealing with the
drug problem. (By contrast, the Mexican general in charge of that country's
anti-drug efforts, Gen. Arturo Salazar [Tomas Milian], tells Wakefield
during a south-of-the-border visit that addicts in his country treat
themselves; they overdose, they die and that's one less addict to worry about.)

But the reality of the matter is that Americans, weaned on generations of
hype about drugs, are just not ready to accept that the war on drugs is a
failure.

Real-life outgoing drug czar Barry McCaffrey said in his final address that
perhaps the "war" terminology is unfortunate, but the underlying principle
is sound: no surrender.

But if the flow of drugs is as inevitable as Soderbergh's movie makes it
out to be, and as inevitable as those who are realistic suspect, it's a
fool's errand.

Only this one gets people killed, in the movies, and in real life.