The colossal failure of the War on Drugs was also the topic of last year’s “The House I Live In,” and this documentary by Matthew Cooke even uses some of the same talking heads, such as David Simon of “The Wire” and Russell Simmons, still pressing his campaign against New York’s notorious Rockefeller drug laws.
This film is made to resemble one of those get-rich-quick videos hawked on late-night television. Cooke starts with street-corner dealing, and while it surely isn’t news that you can make a lot more selling drugs than pushing a broom, the grimly amusing advice from former dealers keeps things lively.
Cooke also sensibly decides not to linger too long on most topics, moving swiftly up the drug-dealing food chain. Overt advocacy doesn’t come in until a sidebar about the US government and the history of antidrug legislation. Make no mistake, this is an impassioned plea for decriminalization.
It often works, despite in-your-face graphics that occasionally do the job of resembling cheesy sales pitches a little too well. Then, a detour to discuss the perils of addiction (a big job hazard when you’re a dealer) is jarring when set next to the argument that if people want to get high, that can’t be fixed with jail time. This film is best when arguing that drugs should be treated as a multibillion-dollar commodity business in need of regulation, and not as a moral failing.