Starting in Palermo, Italy, 1977 - The ups and downs of a mafia family opposed to drug trade until the men are murdered and the widows take over. Director: David Greene Stars: Vanessa Redgrave, Dennis Farina, Nastassja Kinski. FRONTLINE presents the first television history of America's war on drugs as told from both sides of the battlefield in a special four-hour report. Part I recounts the origins of the anti-drug campaign, from the Nixon administration's drug control efforts to the rapid rise and fall of the Colombian drug cartels.
He's a retired DEA special agent. He talks about what it was like being anundercover narc in the early 1970s busting hippies with LSD; describes thedevastating impact of crack cocaine in the mid-1980s; and takes stock of DEA'ssuccesses and failures and why he believes the U.S. Should be doing more ontreatment and prevention.For 16 years he was a star undercover informant for the DEA netting 445dealer arrests and seizing 1.5 tons of cocaine and $6 million in assets. Hesupplies some gritty details about the distribution chain for street level dopedealing in U.S. Inner cities-including how dope travels from Mexico to L.A.and on to the rest of the country, with Mexican smugglers using `trap cars'reworked to hide kilos of cocaine.Over the past 20 years as Ass't U.S.
Attorney in the Southern District ofFlorida, he's prosecuted many drug cases including the Medellin cartel andGen. Manuel Noriega. He describes how Miami was the 'Wild West,' awash incocaine money in the 1980s; how legitimate businesses play a major role inlaundering drug money and the problems this poses for law enforcement. He alsoexplains Manuel Noriega's role in narcotics trafficking.For over ten years,he was DEA's agent in charge in Mexico. His primarytarget was Felix Gallardo-a Mexican trafficker known as Numero Uno. Hesketches out the history of the Mexican drug trade-starting with brown heroinflowing into the U.S.
In the 1960s-and paints a portrait of Gallardo and whatmade him the most canny and powerful of Mexico's narco traffickers.A retired U.S. Customs Service special agent, he worked the U.S.-Mexicanborder on and off for 30 years. He talks about the systemic drugcorruption in Mexico, describing the 1991 incident when Mexican army troops, inthe pay of drug smugglers, attacked and murdered Mexican federal police tryingto intercept a Colombian cocaine shipment. He also details the startlingdiscoveries of 'Operation Casablanca'-a 1995 money laundering operationhe oversaw which was the biggest in U.S. History.He is former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California. Hetalks about how the Mexico-U.S.
Border region is 'a shield and a sword'for traffickers protecting their operations, and why a 1998 U.S.-Mexicoagreement severely limits US law enforcement's ability to work in Mexico. Healso discusses what it would take to capture the Arellano brothers, leadersof Mexico's most vicious cartel.Landgraff is a group supervisor at the DEA in San Diego, currentlyinvestigating the Arellano-Felix cartel. De La Montaigne, retired specialagent for the FBI, was stationed in San Diego for seven years and supervisedthe Arellano-Felix Cartel Task Force. They describe what makes this carteldifferent from others in its operations, brutality, and strategy, and why it hasbeen able to survive so long.He is a 27-year veteran of the Internal Revenue Service, CriminalInvestigation Division, specializing in international money laundering. Hedescribes the late 1970s flow of cocaine and drug money 'beyond anyimagination' into south Florida and offers eyewitness accounts about moneylaundering operations.
He also describes the Black Market peso exchange,one the most successful money laundering methods ever devised by narcotraffickers, and how this money now has infiltrated large, legitimate U.S.companies.He is former DEA chief of financial investigations specializing in moneylaundering crimes. He explains why drug money profits from the U.S. Arehurting Colombia's economy, the threat the 'black market peso' scheme posesfor legitimate U.S. Companies doing business in Colombia. He also assesses thedamage done by asset forfeiture laws, and reflects on 'who won the drug war?'
A retired special agent for the DEA, he was Special Agent in Charge for theNew York City office. He explains cocaine's take over in the U.S. And the riseand fall of the crack 'plague' and what it did to families. He also discussesthe difference between Mexico's and Colombia's wars on drugs, why Mexico is the'worst case,' and outlines what he thinks would be the most effective U.S.
Strategy tofight drugs.He is a former FBI agent and a commander at IMPACT, a South Floridapolice agency which tracks black peso and other money laundering crimes. IMPACT is fully self-funded through money seizures from drug dealers andmoney launderers. He explains how the black market peso-dollar scheme worksfor traffickers to launder U.S.drug profit dollars and responds to thecriticism that law enforcement agencies are becoming addicted to the drug moneythey seize.Appointed by President Nixon in 1972 to coordinate federal and local taskforces to fight drugs and crime on the streets, Ambrose came up with the ideaof a new superagency-the Drug Enforcement Administration, created in 1973.
Heoutlines what was happening with drug use in the 1950s and 1960s and thetools and tactics his office employed. He also speaks about Nixon's attitudeson fighting drugs, and why his policies were the most 'practical' in the30-year history of the war on drugs.He was President Jimmy Carter's controversial drug czar from 1976-1978. Likemany others in U.S.
Government during the 1970s, he believed cocaine was arelatively harmless drug. He discusses why only hard-core heroin use wasconsidered a problem in the 1970s, and how government's attitude on drugsshifted after Reagan took office-from drugs as a public health problem todrugs as a political, law enforcement, and moral issue.She was Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics Matters during theCarter Administration. She explains why she changed from being an 'enforcementperson' to a 'treatment person' and evaluates the flaws in U.S. Anti-drugpolicies involving Panama in the 1980s and Colombia today.Gelacak served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission from 1990-1998 when itrecommended that penalties for crack and powder cocaine be equalized because ofthe unfair disparity. Gelacak criticizes mandatory minimum sentencing, outlineswhy treatment and education should be emphasized in the drug war, and speaksabout the threat of a growing prison population.While Deputy for Domestic Affairs 1970-1972 for President Nixon, he wasgiven the task of lowering crime rates in Washington, D.C. This led Kroghto support a program which treated heroin addicts with methadone.
Hediscusses the methodone program, the overall drug problem during the1970s-including U.S.Vietnam servicemen developing heroin habits.He was administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration from 1985 to 1989.He speaks about the rivalry among government agencies in the war on drugs,Mexico's corruption, and the U.S. Extradiction policy in Colombia during the1980s. He also explains why crack changed his ideas on how to fight drugs andwhy treatment and education is needed to fight the 'perpetual' drug war.He is the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, also known asthe Drug Czar. He discusses his support for continuing to strengthen treatmentand education programs in the war on drugs, defends the U.S. 'Plan Colombia-'a $1.3 billion aid package to help Colombia fight its illegal drug trade. Healso outlines why he believes 'things are moving steadily in the rightdirection' in the war on drugs.web site 1995-2014WGBH educational foundation.
Drug WarsIn 1968, the federal drug enforcement budget was $60 million. By the end of fiscal year 1999, that same budget had exploded to more than $17 billion.
Yet despite the United States' vast efforts during the past three decades to stop the flow of illegal drugs, the use of heroin, cocaine, marijuana and other illicit drugs remains essentially unchanged. FRONTLINE presents the first television history of America's war on drugs as told from both sides of the battlefield in a special four-hour report. Part I recounts the origins of the anti-drug campaign, from the Nixon administration's drug control efforts to the rapid rise and fall of the Colombian drug cartels. In Part II of 'Drug Wars,' FRONTLINE examines the impact of crack cocaine on our city streets and our criminal justice system. The report also investigates Mexico's role in supplying drugs to meet American demand.published oct.