Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy

This documentary is a welcome telling of the history of the crack cocaine epidemic that tries to look behind the obvious violence and misery towards the bigger picture.

Other reviewers appear to have taken objection to more uncomfortable truths - police corruption, inner cities destroyed by Reaganomics, CIA complicity etc - and I can only assume this is because these facts are threatening to their world view.

Admittedly, the film at times seems confused about its thesis but, f you think Nancy Reagan's 'Just Say No' campaign was an adequate response to the horrors that crack visited on already impoverished African-American communities or that Ronald Reagan really made America 'great again', then this documentary is not for you.

If you think that government drug policy has for decades been a hypocritical disaster and that the war on drugs' has achieved nothing except to give self serving politicians a convenient slogan to parrot, then you will probably find it an interesting, if not revelatory, account of a shameful, and still unfinished, chapter in our history.

A lot of this is genuinely great. I particularly appreciated the openness of prior users and dealers discussing the impacts the drug had on their lives. Also, much of the background and history of why it became such a widely discussed and controversial issue was broken down with outstanding clarity.

I'm just a bit iffy on the conspiracy part, as alluded to in the title. It might well have been part of the whole package, but there's not as much evidence to back that kind of thing up, and it's not as striking as the segments that look at things like racism, crime, prostitution, and the media hysteria, because there are plenty more interview testimonies and stock footage to back that stuff up.

If the scope had been narrowed to focus on the truly impactful stuff, and the runtime ever so slightly extended to allow for some more detail in those areas, this could have been a great documentary.

As it stands, it's still better than most of the documentaries Netflix produces, and due to at least 80% of it being very compelling, I would still recommend it quite highly.

I find it shocking how many people are denying the huge involvment of the US government into the crack cocaine epidemic during the eighties and even labeling it as a cheap conspiracy theory.

There was an official committee report lead by John Kerry in 1985.

"The report found that "the Contra drug links included... Payments to drug traffickers by the U.S. State Department of funds authorized by the Congress for humanitarian assistance to the Contras, in some cases after the traffickers had been indicted by federal law enforcement agencies on drug charges, in others while traffickers were under active investigation by these same agencies."

You can google it in a couple of minutes.

The documentery is great and way above the usual Netflix cheap thrills shows.

Finally after years of silence an even handed account about this horrific period comes out. I lived this period and saw the devastation, was touched by it. An entire generation - especially of black and brown people - was crippled for life. The side by side comparison of the crack epidemic and the opioid epidemic tell you all you need to know about this nation's attitude toward crime.

A look back at the huge arrival of cocaine in The USA in the early 80's.

Some fascinating and insightful interviews, you'll hear some surprising stories, initially you may be lured into thinking the documentary is spinning you a somewhat rose tinted view of drugs, it quickly changes, giving you a realistic, harsh view.

From a historical point of view, I found this fascinating, stories I genuinely wasn't aware off, plus the routes and ways the drugs were imported into The US. Cover ups, stitch ups, plenty of eye raising moments.

So much hypocrisy, so much intentional and open racism, some of the content is genuinely jaw dropping, Prisons, rules, laws etc.

What's astonishing, is how consecutive administrations have failed to deal with the actual problem, I don't think that any Government have been able to deal with the problem at its core, each new term have just used different sticking plasters.

It was nice to see former users and addicts, that have been able to turn their lives around, and leave crack in the past.

7/10.