Farris - Traffic

The Wakefield family serves as the perfect example as to why the drug war will never be won on an individual level. Caroline Wakefield, who is the daughter of a leading proponent in the war on drugs, is herself a teen drug addict. After being caught using drugs in her own home and after having to deal with the overdose of a friend at a party, Caroline steals money from her parents and runs away. She finds herself living in the most destitute, poverty stricken, violence-filled area of the city, and even becomes involved with exchanging sex for drugs, showing the lengths drug users are willing to go to get their "fix." Caroline's mother even admits at one point that she knew about her daughter's drug use and didn't do anything about it because she thought it was important that she experiment and make her own conclusions on the issue, because she herself used drugs in her teenage years. These statements infuriate her husband and clearly show that the drug cycle is unescapable, when both the wife and daughter of the drug czar are somehow involved with his opposition.

On a social level, we also learn through the Mexico story about the lengths that drug users will go to to acquire their substances. Prostituting, as witnessed in Caroline's story, is only one method. The drug trade is a multi-million dollar industry, and Traffic portrays how Mexican drug lords will resort to any means necessary to acquire money, even if it includes violence, murder, theft, assassination, etc. Through this, it is shown that the manufacture and sale of illegal substances has been going on for ages behind closed doors, and will continue, no matter who tries to stop it, simply because of how organized these drug lords are, and how many resources they have at their disposal.