Educational Media Reviews Online

Cocaine Unwrapped offers an interesting blend of emphases on international policy making by the US and Latin American governments, and the end markets of distributors to users. The film principally calls into question the US’s funding of Ecuador’s and Columbia’s respective campaigns to aggressively halt agricultural production of coca and its associated organized crime. These two countries have conducted aerial spraying of coca crops, which leads to environmental, financial, and health concerns, and manual eradication, which can lead to confrontations between farmers and armed police. In support of its claim that the current policy has failed, the film examines poverty in these Latin American countries, as well as the penal system. This work dissects the supply chain and motives of producers and distributors, revealing the corruption and violence throughout.

The film offers an impressive array of interviewees including past and present presidents of Latin American nations, and high ranking US officials who show no reservations about criticizing US policies and enforcement. The film makers do a brilliant job of moving back and forth from the macro to the micro by examining Columbia’s enforcement policy, then interviewing a legitimate farmer whose papaya crops were destroyed; and by examining the US’s degree of involvement, then interviewing a Baltimore police officer. Lastly, the work reinforces that even though the vast majority of US cocaine users are casual users, these casual users are proliferating demand.

Cocaine Unwrapped does an outstanding job of peeling back not only the $100 billion annual cost of the United States’ war on drugs, but the precipitating costs in other areas, including human capital. In addition to its potent use of interviews, the film effectively intersperses plain text with declarative information. The soundtrack persistently makes use of a shrill sound effect throughout the work. Although this effect is unsettling and unwelcome, it contributes to the haunting themes presented.