Yet another film about the failure of the US Drug War and how it has promoted the sell and use of drugs while increasing the corruption of law enforcement. A win-win, eh?
How to Make Money Selling Drugs is formatted like an infomercial, or one of those get rich blogging products that tells you all you need to do is get a list and sell to it. There are several levels of success in the drug world, from the lowly corner dealer making a measly few hundred dollars a day to the pan global drug cartel making millions a day. Topics covered range from how to cut your drugs for maximum profit to how to hire ex-DEA agents to help you avoid getting caught.
Among the advice on growing your drug empire are interviews with a number of real life former drug dealers and a couple of famous addicts-50 Cent and Eminem talk about the troubles with using drugs to excess. Susan Sarandon and Woody Harrelson talk about drugs and how maybe it would be a good idea to legalize all controlled substances. This would create a better product and the billions saved by ending the Drug War could be used to open clinics for the hordes of addicts legal drugs would create.
How To Make Money Selling Drugs was funny and thought provoking and still seemed to have enough information to start selling drugs if you wanted to. Part of the story’s appeal is that there are pretty damned few ways for the bottom rungs of American society to make a thousand dollars a week. At one point there is talk about how anyone can become a drug dealer and make literal truck loads of cash-yet the point of the show is that it would be a good idea to legalize drugs and remove the one way a poor lowlife can become a rich lowlife.
I got the feeling they also wanted to empty the prison system of all the people convicted of drug related crimes. So what, exactly, are all these people supposed to do once they no longer have a drug business to be a part of?
So would America be better off without drug laws? Maybe. But until America has a better system of government, the odds are good nothing is going to change.
How To Make Money Selling Drugs ended on a pretty serious note and that sense of helplessness that comes from knowing there’s not a damned thing you can do about any of it.
