Name: America's War on Drugs
Released: 2017-06-18T00:00:00.000Z
Cast: Omar Abdi, Waj Ali, Richard Stratton

TV Show · Crime · History

The war on drugs has cost America $1 trillion in a bizarre history that spans five decades. With prisons overflowing and heroin use reaching epidemic levels, "America’s War on Drugs” uncovers the origins of the drug war and its unexpected effects on American culture, institutions and politics.

2017 · 1h 37m

Starring Omar Abdi, Waj Ali, Richard Stratton

Director Julian Kemp

EPISODE 1

Acid, Spies & Secret Experiments

Gangsters, gurus, warlords, spies, street gangs, and politicians vie for control of a black market for narcotics; stories of secret assassination attempts, LSD experiments and covert support of heroin traffickers in the lead up to the War on Drugs.

1h 5 min
EPISODE 2

Cocaine, Cartels & Crack Downs

Cocaine gives rise to cartels; CIA shadow wars contribute to the first narco-state; crack floods into the United States as an unintended consequence of the fight against communism; a former DEA agent discusses U.S. culpability in the cocaine trade.

1h 8 min
EPISODE 3

Gangs, Prisons & Meth Queens

The Clinton administration's support of NAFTA inadvertently opens the door to Mexican cartels; a crackdown on violence leads to mass incarceration; a celebrity's sister becomes a meth lord; powerful cartels begin a war for dominance.

1h 8 min
EPISODE 4

Heroin, Terrorists & Kings of Pain

The intertwining of the War on Drugs and the War on Terror transforms Afghanistan into a narco-state; American intervention helps give rise to El Chapo and the super cartels; the pharmaceutical industry becomes a supplier of addictive substances.

1h 7 min