American Gangster: Denzel & Crowe Discuss the Drug War

“That’s the way it is.”

American Gangster is about the New York City heroin trade in the early 1970s. It is based on the real-life adventures of heroin kingpin Frank Lucas (played by Denzel Washington), and police officer Richie Roberts (played by Russell Crowe). The American columnist, George Will, has called its humane portrayal of Lucas a “manipulation of viewers.” By accurately describing Lucas’s accomplishments Will writes that American Gangster,

entices viewers into the moral vertigo of forgetting the human carnage among users of the high-quality heroin that Lucas’s organizational skills enabled him to sell cheap.

Will then praises the movie for realistically showing the “suppurating needle sores” and the heroin addicted mothers passing out on filthy mattresses next to their sobbing babies.

Will, like those who only know heroin through mainstream media portrayals, cannot see past the needles and addicts. If Hamilton Wright had not hoodwinked the American Congress into criminalizing opiates in 1915 desperate heroin junkies would not exist. Opium would merely be smoked like it still is in numerous parts of South Asia. (Heroin is a more chemically potent form of opium.) It is the war on drugs that has forced the cost of opiates so astronomically high (see LINK) that those unfortunate enough to become addicted to it (just like with alcohol, a small percentage of total users LINK) cannot afford to lose any of it through the smoking process. Because of this, they must inject it directly into their veins.

Whereas Will thought American Gangster was manipulative in portraying a drug dealer as a human being, the actual manipulation occurred with the multiple gratuitous shots of needles hitting home. Lucas’s commitment to pure product, his “Blue Magic” brand, could enable people to smoke heroin and avoid the debilitating effects of injecting heroin cut with a potpourri of street substances. (Regular heroin usage is actually physically harmless. It is the side-effects of criminalization that make it dangerous. LINK)

It would also be interesting to know if Richie Roberts’ partner actually died of heroin overdose or if it was a “morality lesson” added to the script. (Apparently a lot was added. LINK) Movies and television regularly kill every heroin using character with an OD despite the mathematical absurdity of this.

In the movie, Roberts says to Lucas:

I got hundreds of parents of dead kids, addicts who ODed on your product and that’s my story for the jury. That’s how I make it all stick. This man murdered thousands of people and he did it from a penthouse driving a Lincoln.

Only someone who believes the heroin death rate portrayed on television and in the movies can hear the “thousands of people” line without laughing. In 2003 it is unlikely even 4,000 people died of any type of opiate overdose (e.g. heroin, morphine, OxyContin) in the entire country. When Nixon was declaring that drugs were a national emergency in the early 1970s more Americans were dying from choking on food or falling down stairs than from illegal drugs.

Politicians and government bureaucrats could save thousands of lives by ending the inane drug war that declares otherwise law-abiding drug users and drug dealers as public enemies. Legalizing heroin would make heroin overdoses as rare as alcohol overdoses. Legalizing would also end the countless deaths caused by drug turf wars. Whereas the government could make a difference, Lucas could not. As Lucas and Roberts discuss in the movie:

Lucas: Do you really think that putting me behind bars is going to change anything on the streets? Them dope fiends are gonna steal it. They gonna steal for it. They gonna die for it. Putting me in or out ain’t gonna change a thing.

Roberts: Then that’s the way it is.

Lucas: That’s the way it is.

Sources:

1. Robert Arthur, You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos (2007). LINK
2. George Will, “Another Mob Hit,” 8 Nov. 2007. LINK

The United State of America

1. For more information on the 2005 Supreme Court ruling, Raich v. Ashcroft, that allowed federal prosecution of marijuana possession even where legal under state law see the following guide at Drug WarRant. As Justice Clarence Thomas said in his dissent, this ruling established that “the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.” In other words, the federal government has swallowed the Constitution.

2. A 2007 MSNBC article on how people are recognizing the unintended consequences of the federally enforced drinking age can be found here.

3. Since 1996 the federal government has given states money for the exclusive purpose of teaching the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by completely abstaining from sexual activity. In fiscal year 2006 the federal government spent over $200 million on abstinence only education. (You Will Die, p. 141.)

4. To read about how the federally forced .08% BAC level for criminal liability was neo-prohibitionist hokum see this PDF article, “The Anti-Drunk Driving Campaign: A Covert War Against Drinking,” hosted at RIDL.us.

5. In 2005, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, declared that fighting pornography (of consenting adults for consenting adults) would be one of his top priorities and created a new anti-obscenity squad in the FBI. Thanks to ViceSquad for this comical link that shows mainstream pornography will remain a priority.

6. For information on school drug testing’s propaganda see “Let the Love Flow” and for information on its ineffectiveness see “Pee Tests.” Both are from Jacob Sullum at Reason.com.

7. The words of Rep. Barney Frank spoken in vain before the passage of the the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 can be found here.

Healthy Drug Users vs. Obese Narcophobes

Contrary to popular belief, America is not the fattest country in the world. Kuwait and six South Pacific island countries have managed to be more porcine. However, considering that almost three quarters of adult Americans are overweight according to their body mass index it is still ironic that the United States, that contains “The Land of the Fat,” violently and aggressively leads the global charge in punishing drug users everywhere for “their own health.”

Say No to Drugs

I would assert that, on average, people who eat at McDonald’s everyday will be substantially more unhealthy than a person who uses a drug such as marijuana, cocaine, or heroin, once a week. For those familiar with occasional drug users (the vast majority of drug users are not addicts) and fast food regulars this is not a radical proposition, however, I doubt a study to evaluate this hypothesis will be receiving grant money any time soon.

This irony of obese narcophobes damning drug usage was vividly visible when I attended the oldest American fair last month, Pennsylvania’s York County Fair. (Don’t miss the sign to the lower left.)

Say Yes to Fried Twinkies

Sources

1. “Land of the Fat,” Guardian.co.uk, 2 May 2002, ret. 10 Oct. 2007. LINK
2. Lauren Streib, “World’s Fattest Countries,” Forbes.com, 8 Feb. 2007, ret. 10 Oct. 2007. LINK