NO END OF DRUG TRAFFIC

Victor Bloom MD

I think every American over the age of 12 should see the film, "Traffic," even though it contains some nudity and explicit sexuality. It is a clarion call to alert the sleeping public to the full extent of international drug traffic and our utter inability to 'win' the 'war' against drug addiction. Our jails are filled with drug trafficers, dope pushers, large users and small users. The ordinary expectations of a program of crime and punishment are not working. "Just say NO," is not working. Drug rehab programs are barely touching the problem. Hardly any high school today is drug-free. Whether we realize it or not, our kids have available to them cocaine and heroin, marijuana and alcohol, amphetamines (speed, uppers) and and 'ecstasy,' (the date-rape drug) and LSD (hallucinogenic). Also available in parents' medicine cabinets are quaalude, valium, xanax and clonipen.

As the controversial film makes clear, as long as there is sustained high demand and escalating profits, production and distribution, illegal drugs will continue to be available, exacting a terrible price on the fabric of society and the health and well being of our children as well as adults. The DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration), the federal program to enforce the drug laws, is losing the battle, as the international drug cartel is richer and more powerful, and has influence in the highest places. It has its own army, spies and counter-spies, and technological advances to match ours. They control the governments of Mexico, Columbia and probably others. As we have undercover agents in foreign countries, they have undercover agents in our CIA and DEA, possibly the FBI and local police departments. Money can buy information, loyalty, betrayal, assassination, imprisonment and release from imprisonment. Our allies turn out to be turncoats and enemies. Double and triple-crossing is rampant.

The net result is that our stings and major drug busts are the tip of the iceberg. The CIA itself has been implicated in drug traffic, some of the profits siphoned off to pay for covert operations that are secrets to most of our elected representatives, which comprise our government. Like the diamond cartel of DeBeers, the drug cartel has power and influence beyond our wildest imagination.

What may touch the parents and teenagers of Grosse Pointe is the depiction of the family of the new to-be drug 'Czar,' Michael Douglas. As he is groomed for this new position, a man of honesty, integrity and the highest respect, he sees that he is on the end of a long succession of Drug Czar failures. The problem is still with us, worse than ever. Still, he has hope and thinks he can make a difference. We are on his side. Before long, he learns of obstacle after obstacle, complexity after complexity, talking with long-experienced people in the Drug War. He looks for areas of weakness in the enemy and finds none.

After a while there are signs of trouble in his own family. His teenage daughter is busted. It's a great embarrassment to him in his position, but he succeeds in keeping it quiet and keeping her from being prosecuted. Still, she is interviewed by an African-American social worker as part of the biopsychosocial evaluation for a rehab program. The social worker asks, incredulously, "What are you doing here?" She's white, healthy-looking, intelligent, articulate, the only daughter of an upscale respected and decent family, a pillar of the community. She is near the top of her class, a class officer and in numerous intellectual and sports extracurricular activities. Drug addiction runs across socio-economic lines, not just in ghetto neighborhoods.

There are signs of weakness in the family as the mother pooh-poohs this first drug bust, reminding her husband that they 'experimented' at their daughter's age, and they didn't become addicts. However, they do their share of calming their nerves with cocktails, viewing their 'habit' now with a tinge of suspicion.

The daughter is seen in a rehab house, going along with a program of group therapy with other rich kids. She takes the first opportunity to elope and now she is missing. The frantic father is bent on tracking her down, learning what happens to teenage addicts over time. He is trying to deal with learning the details of international traffic while dealing with the addiction of his own daughter. She's back at home and free-basing behind a locked toilet door. The father comes home unexpectedly and finds the bathroom door locked. He breaks it down and finds her hidden paraphernalia. She coolly hurls obscenities at him.

She is gone again, this time with the mother's jewelry missing. When the father tracks her down again, she is in a semi-comatose drug daze in the rundown apartment of a black pimp who is exploiting her sexually. The black pimp and white boyfriend take turns lecturing the father on the New Age and white society's complicity in the drug traffic. She is finally seen prostituting herself to get another 'fix'. Her father tracks her down in a sleazy hotel and she is semi-comatose as she says, "hi, daddy." It is soul-wrenching.

Michael Douglas has been in the trenches and on the firing line and is about to be sworn in as the new drug czar, who will advance the government's battle against the ongoing drug trade. He is handed a prepared speech and is expected to read it. He gets up in front of the microphone and... you have to see the movie to find out what he says and what he does. I hope that if enough Americans see this film it will open our eyes to the magnitude of the problem. The hope is that some of us will come up with new ideas and creative solutions to a growing epidemic that can lead to our downfall as the only remaining superpower.

Dr Bloom is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State University School of Medicine. He is a member of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis and on the editorial board of the Wayne County Medical Society. He welcomes comments at his email address--- hyperlink and visits to victorbloom.com.