Turner Traffic

The war on drugs is unwinnable on the individual, social, and political levels. The movie Traffic supports this. On the individual level, there is no way to stop individual’s desire for the effect of drugs. There will always be people seeking the effects of drugs and these individuals will almost do anything to access these effects. This is supported by the Wakefield story. Caroline has a drug addiction and runs away from her house, steals her parents money, moves to a bad part of town, and trades sex for drugs.

Socially, the war on drugs is not winnable because kids in lower classes believe that drugs are the only way for them to make a living and make a lot of money. In the movie, Robert Wakefield takes Seth Abrahms into the bad part of town to find his daughter. Wakefield says to Abrahms, "I can believe you took my daughter to a place like this." Abrahms says that the drug trade in this part of town is a flourishing business and that young white people will continue to buy drugs from young black people. This is endless because there will always be a demand for drugs and so suppliers will continue to sell the drugs.

Politically, the war on drugs is unwinnable because the more money governments put into stopping drug cartels, the more money the cartels will spend on killing enforcers and smuggling. Also, by taking down individual cartels, the government is strengthening others. There are so many cartels and they have so much money, that they are impossible to infiltrate. The scene that best illustrates this idea is when Eddie Ruiz is talking with Montel about what little will be accomplished by his testimony. He tells Montel that his efforts are "futile". He says that if he wasn’t caught, people would have "got high who are getting high anyway" and Montel's partner would still be alive. Eddie also says that the only reason the police were able to get to him is because they were tipped off by another cartel, which makes that cartel stronger.