Drugs Inc

[WytchCrypt]

Anybody else watch Drugs Inc? Each show focuses on a different US city and the predominant illegal drug activity happening there and a sort of birds eye view of how and why it occurs. It seems the producers have no problems finding enough street level dealers, cartel enforcers, and traffikers to interview (anonymously of course) for each show. It honestly makes me wonder if the producers of a TV show can locate these people, why in the world can't the DEA find them too? Thoughts?

[SteveSly]

Not a regular watcher, but have seen an episode or two. Yea, I was thinking the same thing. How do the producers possibly get access to these people unless they are paying loads of cash or something. There does not seem to be any other upside to the guys involved in the trade unless it is all ego driven.

[Shadow]

The police and DEA can find them, but that just eliminates jobs. What are you going to do with all the jobless lawyers leaving college every year.

[WytchCrypt]

Not a regular watcher, but have seen an episode or two. Yea, I was thinking the same thing. How do the producers possibly get access to these people unless they are paying loads of cash or something. There does not seem to be any other upside to the guys involved in the trade unless it is all ego driven.

Ya and even the ego reason is shaky since the "bad guys" are always masked/disguised and usually use fake names. It just seems to me that if a TV crew can locate such blatant criminals, that the DEA is either incredibly understaffed for the magnitude of the problem, totally incompetent, or is being poorly directed from the top in a way that seems to completely waste their resources and abilities. Of course, the other option is very Orwellian that the govt prefers a large portion of the population to be sedated, trashed, and helpless but I better go grab my tinfoil hat before I get too far down that road

Half the time this show is heartbreaking seeing the way people turn to these dangerous drugs out of boredom, thrill seeking, or whatever and get caught up in addiction, the other half the time it makes me furious that this "industry" seems to operate with impunity right under the noses of law enforcement. Last nights episode was about the PCP epidemic in Washington DC. They said DC has the largest police force of any US city yet right in the shadow of the capitol dome this "industry" is thriving as people buy, use, and destroy their lives with this stuff. And for what? Geez, take the money and go buy yourself a guitar and get addicted to music instead

[Plasmatopia]

Billions of dollars are going through banks, too. If the average person transfers more than a certain amount of $$$ a report is filed, but for some drug dealers apparently billions can be transferred and is somehow not traceable.

[WytchCrypt]

^true...I wonder how that works? Perhaps they keep their assets in cash and purchase legitimate things like real estate...I think that's what the episode about Miami reported.

This apparent lack of aggressive prosecution of major players is really a mystery because the federal laws are in place to put away these big fish away for a very long time. It's the way they finally got Capone and other mob kingpins - an interesting IRS regulation that says you have to declare and pay tax on income even it was earned by illegal activities. Once they can prove how much these guys made and didn't report on their taxes, they can use the IRS law to charge them with probably hundreds of counts of income tax evasion with a 1 year sentence each.

[TheLoony]

Being as the CIA IS the big fish, well, it's kinda hard for them to arrest themselves. Seriously, they had a plane full of cocaine crash just a couple of years ago and nothing came of it, like usual. Or look up the Freeway Rick Ross story and ask yourself how one black dude got tons and tons of coke into L.A. Or how about the guys over in Afghanistan guarding the poppy fields that were nearly eradicated during the reign of the Taliban.

War on drugs, what a joke. THEY are running the worst of the drugs. Bastards.

Watch Cocaine Cowboys(I think there's two of them), great docs on the guys who used to smuggle coke back in the day and how they built the skyline of Miami as there was nowhere else to put the money. A guy can only buy so many fancy cars and what not before the feds get really interested.

I do watch this show. I find it interesting on many levels. Mostly, it pisses me off. Prohibition of any substance causes more problems than the original problems the drug caused to make it illegal in the first place.

[WytchCrypt]

I have seen the cocaine cowboys documentaries...fascinating...and that's where I got the opinion that these guys have to buy "stuff" like real estate or luxury vehicles to park their huge piles of cash somewhere other than a bank. Just saw a new episode about Portland and how the feds made ephedrine (I think that was it...anyway, the stuff home labs used to cook up meth with) prescription only and it opened the door to the Mexican cartels to take over the whole drug distribution scene there. What was maddening was the rule Washington state has that if an illegal alien is caught doing what is considered a "non violent" crime like selling heroin/meth/whatever, they're not prosecuted and sent to prison like a US citizen would be, but held for a few months and then deported...so they can sneak back and go back into business all over again. The show says because of this, the cartels operate in Vancouver WA right over the border then sell via middle men in Portland.

Why in the world do our state and federal law enforcement agencies allow laws like this??? It's almost like they want the Mexican cartels to set up shop and operate in our cities taking billions of dollars out of the country and destroying the lives of our citizens. I just don't get it.

Of course, this doesn't address the root problem which is simple supply and demand. No demand, no customers to sell to. The stats on the Portland show were heartbreaking regarding the % of young homeless addicts living on the streets. Why do such a large percentage of our young people choose to trash their lives with heroin/meth/etc instead of going to school or trying to make something good of their lives? Why have so many young Americans just given up without even trying? Something is fundamentally wrong with our society and it seems our elected officials don't want to take that issue on, they just think it's easier to throw more money into the DEA without addressing the core problems. Once again, I just don't get it.

[Plasmatopia]

I saw the Cocaine Cowboys documentary a year or two ago. What I recall was the statement that cocaine money "built the banks" in Florida. I didn't think they meant literally built the banks (the buildings, real estate) by using cash that the dealers needed to invest somewhere (although I suppose they could have used some of the money for that purpose). I thought that meant the money was actually brought into the banking system...where it ought to be traceable.

[WytchCrypt]

^ Now that I think about it, I also remember that whole "built the banks" thing too so you must be correct that the money was flowing through banking channels. I also recall them saying how once the big boys were taken off the streets that the Miami real estate market tanked and there were car dealerships failing right and left.

[Rune Blackwings]

^ Now that I think about it, I also remember that whole "built the banks" thing too so you must be correct that the money was flowing through banking channels. I also recall them saying how once the big boys were taken off the streets that the Miami real estate market tanked and there were car dealerships failing right and left.

the banks and their errant employees get hammered with fines and actions too for this shit. it's a financial crime.

[TheLoony]

Been a while since I watched the Cocaine Cowboys docs but what I remember is that they were talking about the buildings, the skyscrapers that make up the Miami skyline, many of them were built by the coke money. I don't remember all of what was in there and could remember it wrong. Anyway, it matters little as banks cannot be prosecuted(too big to fail and all that). Just look at Libor 1 & 2, nothing ever happened when we have proof of the banks fleecing billions of dollars from nearly everyone. They are laundering billions for the cartels and nothing happens.

As for the schooling issue, I was never able to afford university. Who these days can? Why should kids go in debt to learn something they probably cannot use anyway? How does going to college, going into massive debt and having training for a profession that one likely cannot use solve the problems we are facing today? There are only so many jobs out there and they are being lost to other countries, going away because companies cannot exist against the behemoths and most don't even pay a living wage? I'm not saying that a life of drugs on the streets is good thing but what does someone do when there are little to no options?

The war on drugs is a total and complete failure. All it has done is put hundreds of thousands of non-violent "offenders" in jail, ruined hundreds of thousands of lives and families and divides us like almost no other issue facing us today. Literally, with thousands of no knock warrants being issued all over the country, many of them they can't even get the right address so they end up busting in on unsuspecting non-violent non-criminals who if they resist will likely get killed, along with their children and pets. Swat teams bust people so they can take all of their belongings and sell them for their new toys so they can have new and better ways of terrorizing the American populace. Just like the anti-gun rhetoric - you can't unmake the gun, deal with it - you can't stop people from getting high. Prohibition never has worked. Never.

Prohibition of the twenties led to the rise of the mafia. The prohibition of drugs led to the formation of the cartels. Please tell me how either of those things are a good thing? Where in the history of history, has prohibition ever worked? The ancient Egyptians had a law against being drunk in public - penalty was death - and it did little to stop drinking back then, so why would we think it would work now? Seems like doing the same thing over and over trying to get a different result is insane.

I'm just one guy that no one listens to. I can't change anything. I wish I could. It appears, at least to me, that my dumb ass has more common sense than all of our politicians combined. Yet we continue to wage a war that cannot ever be won, losing billions of dollars and millions of lives in the process. Dividing the populace yet again, making us even more likely that we won't ever come to a consensus on how to handle the problems that people create when doing drugs, let alone any other problem we are facing. United we stand and divided we fall, so they say, and I see that as truth.