On June 17, 1971 President Nixon declared a war on drugs and nearly 40 years later the war continues with virtually no end in sight.  In the documentary which has aired on Showtime, American Drug War: The Last White Hope, director Kevin Booth examines every aspect of America's drug policy through exclusive footage and interviews with Freeway Ricky Ross, Bloods founder T Rodgers, actor Tommy Chong, and more. 

The film covers prohibition, the inclusion of marijuana in the U.S.'s most dangerous drug list, the Iran-Contra affair which single-handedly fed Freeway Ricky Ross' crack empire, the creation of the office of Drug Czar, the privatization of the prison system, the rise in the use of prescription drugs and the home-made methamphetamine epidemic that is sweeping white America.

Sixshot picked Kevin's brain to get his perspective on the war that has no end in sight.

Sixshot.com:  On the inspiration behind his film:

Kevin Booth:  Well like everybody else I was raised to believe that drugs were evil and people that did drugs or smoked drugs belonged behind bars.  When I was 32, my best friend, the late great comedian Bill Hicks passed away from pancreatic cancer.  I just couldn't believe that if it hadn't been for cigarettes and alcohol he wouldn't have gotten sick.  Then my brother died and then my mom and dad.  My brother died from pharmaceutical drugs and taking legal doses.  My mom and dad died from being lifetime alcoholics.  I also had a close friend who brewed the best pot and this was in Austin, Texas back in the 80's.  I watched him have to go to a prison work camp and he basically died not long after he got out.  The final straw was not long after 9/11 when they came out saying if you buy drugs or you sell pot you support terrorism.  When I saw that I felt like that was too much.  Somebody needs to try and expose the overall scam of this drug war game.  There have been several good films in the past like Traffic, but I just thought somebody needed to make a documentary that tried to connect the dots of all these scams gong on at once.

Sixshot.com:  On legalizing drugs:

Kevin Booth:  Well it's not a total black and white issue but what I'm saying is that first of all sick people don't need to go to jail.  Second of all we need to definitely get marijuana out of this whole thing.  Everybody is trying to look for the reason why marijuana is illegal and it hasn't been illegal that long.  This is a pretty recent thing.  I think 85% of all illegal drug users only smoke marijuana.  So if you take marijuana out of the drug war mix—this entire drug war that's employing hundred of thousands of people from prison guards to judges to DEA's to law enforcement agencies and narcotics swat teams—everybody world be out of a job.  Plus the pharmaceutical and alcohol and tobacco companies would lose billions of dollars a year.  The first thing to do is to examine the difference between the concepts of decriminalization vs. legalization.  In Amsterdam it's not necessarily legal but they decriminalize it.  It's just treated differently.  I don't think a 16 year old kid in high school caught with a joint shouldn't be able to get a college loan.  Is that helping society or anybody? 

Sixshot.com:  The privatization of prisons and their connection to the drug war:

Kevin Booth:  As I was working on this film it became starling to realize that here in America people are being used just like a commodity.  You have corporations like Geo Group and I recommend anybody Google the company.  You'll see that this is a U.S. based prison corporation that is building prisons on multiple continents.  Basically their stock values are traded on how many prison beds are filled.  So the more bodies they can fill these prisons with, the more the company is worth just like any other business.  So the thing is these prisons are popping up like Wal-Marts off the radar screen in little rural communities.  All the locals end up loving it because they end up working there.  So the drug war is the perfect way of making sure they can keep those beds filled. 

Sixshot.com:  On the drug war being compared to the Prohibition era:

Kevin Booth:  People that are pro-drug war say it's a ridiculous comparison to compare prohibition alcohol to the drug war cause alcohol in moderation doesn't hurt anybody but drugs cause problems but alcohol is destroying far more people than drugs it wasn't alcohol that caused Al Capone, it was the fact that it became illegal that caused Al Capone and all the violence that sprung out of that era were because now alcohol became this commodity that they could sell and trade and it came on the black market…I guarantee if you outlawed cigarettes today tomorrow the gangs would fight it out over cigarettes cause nobody is gonna stop smoking cigarettes just because you outlaw it.

You just drive up the price and have cigarette related shootings everyday so how do you deal with these problems?  I would say that first of all you got to get the federal government out of this thing.  It's a dangerous trend when you have private security forces allowed to kick down people's doors people that don't have to answer to any judges or laws for that matter they just work for some corporation that passes out the orders.

Sixshot.com:  On what discoveries surprised him most during the creation of the film:

Kevin Booth:  Probably just the overall—how people have just accepted madness.  Even though people that know that the drug war is absolute madness will say, "Well it is the way it is.  It's gonna take a lot to change it," and all that.  It just feels like America has dug itself into a hole of bureaucracy where we can't make smart decisions anymore because everything is just so corrupt.  Everything is brought and paid for and privatized.  So how do we turn all this around?  I think it's just the overall apathy that's scary to me.  There's also the amnesia too and the fact that campuses and kids don't even know about Iran-Contra.  Yet here we are poised to go to war against Iran and some of these kids may be drafted to fight in Iran, and they don't care what it is.  That sucks and that's exactly what the government wants.  They want everybody to be stupid, be focused on their taxes, and how they're gonna feed their family.

Sixshot.com:  His thoughts on why this issue is not being addressed by the Presidential candidates:

Kevin Booth:  I do know that Obama has said that he cannot waste any political capital on the subject of marijuana right now.  In a way I understand that cause you got the first Black guy ever being nominated to go into the final race and a good chance he can win it.  If he started coming out right now and saying he wanted to end the drug war or legalize marijuana it could cause him to lose.  So the fact that he said he would consider it and all the things—you gotta compare that against John McCain.  McCain is basically saying that he is totally opposed to medical marijuana and he's for the drug war.  So the choice is pretty obvious.  I would say as soon as Obama gets into office then we can start asking him some hard questions.

Sixshot.com:  On what was left on the cutting room floor:

Kevin Booth:  I had to cut out this entire chapter about the doctor that uses hallucinogenic to help people that are getting ready to die.  It was kind of the mysticism and it went into how Shamanism was the world's first religion, and how the drug war basically denies people their rights.  The drug war lists hallucinogenic such as magic mushrooms as drugs and the government can charge you with multiple felony counts.  So it was more of a spiritual side of it and I had to decide that I wanted to keep this original first film based and focused on the financial reasons for the drug war.

Sixshot.com:  On his hopes for the film:

Kevin Booth:  Just to spark some new debates and some new conversations.  I made this film as if I was arguing with a staunch Republican.  So I tried to make a film that could try to convince the most conservative thinkers.  Hopefully it allows them to say maybe we need to reconsider this.

For more information please visit:

http://www.americandrugwar.com