Here’s a film that will never be viewed in D.A.R.E. class. How to Make Money Selling Drugs takes the form of an infomercial, probing into the seemingly endless war of drugs waged by Nixon and continuing to this very day, even as voters in some states say “enough is enough.”

The film takes the structure of a video game crossed with one of those get-rich quick schemes, fused with life accounts from such celebrities as Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Russell Simmons and Barry Cooper. Each level explains how to move up, from a kid with dreams (often broken dreams and broken families) to running a billion dollar, Fortune 500 drug cartel — a bonus player is later introduced with Cooper, a former cop wrapped up in the system who switched sides in the war on drugs.

Cooke explores each side of the transaction including the unintended consequences of DEA funding (based on arrests) and incentives to seize property verses. More persuasive is the drug war’s fiercest critic David Simon (creator of The Wire) who appears on camera to explain how an emphasis on chasing level one dealers had virtually put an end to “good police work” on other crimes. The for-profit prison system (no one from that side was present on camera) continues to fund candidates that remain tough on crime and drugs as a means of securing cheap labor.

Alarming, informal and informative, How to Make Money Selling Drugs aims to start a conversation. It doesn’t have comprehensive solutions, but certainly this country has begun to reassess the war on drugs (especially minor drugs like marijuana) and Cooke taps right into the zeitgeist. Unfortunately the damage is done and the film’s more absurd lessons (such as “how to beat a case” and “how to beat an arrest”) prove Simons’ point; sometimes in an attempt to drive up arrest numbers, planting drugs can be useful, especially when a no-knock warrant proves less useful.

Cooke provides a counter point to the madness, but its not fair and balanced, but perhaps that is because programs like D.A.R.E are not fair and balanced, discouraging critical thinking skills. This is the youthful hip-hop companion to Eugene Jarecki’s The House I Live In — striking and smart, yet cynical in tone on a successful system; like any run-away bureaucracy, it protects its reason for existing.

How to Make Money Selling Drugs is currently screening at the Tribeca Film Festival, and will be released by Tribeca Film, on VOD on June 18th and in limited release on June 26th.

Grade: B

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