Step 1: Know your drugs. Step 2: Sell your drugs. Step 3: Become a drug lord. These are a few of the simple steps in which to take in order to make millions.
Nov. 5, React to Film will be showing Matthew Cooke’s documentary, How to Make Money Selling Drugs.
Ohio University’s React to Film is a chapter of the national organization devoted to bringing social awareness of various topics to the campus through documentaries. This time, they are exposing the corruption of the war on drugs.
Through the personal testimonies of infamous kingpins and drug dealers like “Freeway” Rick Ross and 50 Cent, the documentary presents 10 steps applied to the success of drug dealing.
“While teaching us how to make money selling drugs, it exposes how the war on drugs is basically ridiculous,” said chapter leader Caitlin Stone, a senior studying media.
The film reveals injustices directed toward minorities and those who live in poverty. Cocaine, which is more expensive and harmful than marijuana, holds fewer legal penalties.
“This is technically classism which ties into racism,” Stone said. “People that are of a lower class and can only afford a lower cost of drugs are being put in jail for a longer amount of time.”
Stone said police have also pulled over known drug dealers with a speed violation in order to plant drugs on them so they have reason to take them into custody.
Adrian Grenier, the film’s producer, said in an interview with Vice, one of the main flaws of the war on drugs is that it has the government putting too much focus on recreational drug use and addicts rather than finding real criminals.
The documentary’s story line does not stray far from the reality at OU.
One student, Sam Cardona, and his friend found themselves being unlawfully detained over homecoming weekend.
“We were sitting on a bench and there were three people sitting probably 40 feet away getting a ticket,” said Cardona, a freshman studying music production.
Cardona said the police called them over, his friend was ticketed for drug paraphernalia in her bag 30 feet away and he was put into handcuffs for asking too many questions. The policeman was not in the right to search her bag as he had no reasoning and it was not in her possession. The ticket was dropped and Sam was let go.
“I don’t know a lot of drug dealers but I know there are a lot of drug dealers on this campus and a lot of local drug dealers,” said Alexandria Cooke, a senior studying political science who is involved in React to Film.
Through penalties like mandatory minimums and the three strikes law, there is a struggling effort (for drug dealers) to make their way back into ordinary life, Cooke said.
@han_nahdebs
hd550512@ohiou.edu
