Pubdate: Mon, 19 Feb 2001
Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN)
Copyright: 2001 St. Paul Pioneer Press
Contact:  345 Cedar St., St. Paul, MN 55101
Website: http://www.pioneerplanet.com/
Forum: http://www.pioneerplanet.com/watercooler/
Author: Ruben Rosario

MOVIE ABOUT U.S. DRUG WAR GETS IT RIGHT

I got around to watching ``Traffic'' the other day. If you want to get a
good sense of why and how badly we're losing the ``war'' on illegal drugs in
this country the past three decades, go see it. And please take your
teen-agers.

But don't take my word. Jorge Valdes and David Reyes also give the
Oscar-worthy film an enthusiastic thumbs-up. You won't find two better or
more credible critics on both the movie and our failed drug policy.

As head of the Medellin drug cartel's U.S. operations in the late 1970s and
early '80s, Valdes pocketed $1 million a month while amassing a financial
empire and lifestyle that included Learjets, mansions on both coasts and
overseas, luxury cars and $150,000 monthly champagne tabs. In one year
alone, the college-educated young accountant from Miami oversaw the
distribution of 20,000 kilograms of cocaine smuggled into this country from
Colombia and South America.

Until two weeks ago, Reyes, 43, was in the business of trying to put people
like Valdes out of business and in prison. A former Hennepin County
prosecutor and assistant U.S. attorney in Minnesota, Reyes cut his teeth
working drug cases in the Tucson, Ariz., area, one of the drug smuggling hot
spots near the Mexican-U.S. border. He averaged 150 drug cases a year, about
the same number the combined staff of his counterparts in Minnesota
prosecuted annually.

Both men say ``Traffic'' is the most realistic mass-market movie yet on the
drug crisis in America. They find it accurately portrays the rampant
corruption south of the border, the erosion of American family life that
leads to drug abuse among our young, and the snow job the American public
keeps getting from politicians and presidential administrations that secure
votes by keeping alive the myth of a war that much like Prohibition, we
handled badly and never had a chance of winning.

Both Reyes and Valdes note that the film also pays tribute to the earnest
cops on both sides of the border who struggle mightily despite the
corruption, temptations and deceptions that swirl around them.

``My godfather (Medellin cartel co-founder Manuel Garces) called and sadly
recounted to me that McCaffrey (Clinton administration drug czar Barry
McCaffrey) had mentioned that the administration had reduced consumption of
cocaine by 50 percent,'' says Valdes, 45, whose autobiography, ``Coming
Clean'' (1999, Waterbrook Press) has received acclaim and may be made into a
movie.

``Guerrillas in one little corner of Colombia last year were responsible
alone for over 800,000 tons of cocaine that came into America,'' Valdes
claims. ``Now you tell me how it could be dropping.''

Valdes believes out of all the U.S. presidents in the past 35 years, it was
Richard Nixon who came closest to establishing an effective drug policy by
attacking consumption through education and funding of treatment programs.
In fact, Nixon's administration diverted more federal money into treatment
than law enforcement, a strategy that was significantly reversed during the
Reagan, Bush and Clinton administrations. Valdes says legalization will only
make matters worse, in terms of substance abuse.

He also notes that drug use remains steady, despite years of mandatory
minimum drug laws that have served only to build more prisons, employ more
guards and cops, and imprison mostly low-level drug offenders, the
bottom-feeders of the estimated $500 billion illicit drug industry.

``The drug war's the greatest joke. Most of the people in jail are the
little-bitty people,'' says Valdes, a married father of five who served 10
years in prison, found Christ and now runs Coming Clean Ministries out of
Atlanta.

Reyes agrees. ``Unfortunately, most of the people sentenced to the longest
prison terms are low level or don't have anything to trade. The wealthy
dealers, the ones that have something to trade, they end up with the lighter
sentences.''

Reyes and Valdes both point to the controversial clemency by President Bill
Clinton of Carlos Vignali, a convicted drug dealer responsible for
transporting 800 kilograms of cocaine from California to Minnesota as a
prime example.

The Vignali caper smells like 5-day-old fish. Vignali's 15-year prison
sentence was commuted to time served -- six years -- despite objections from
judges, cops and prosecutors in Minnesota who maintained that he was the
major player behind the two-state drug ring. It turns out Vignali's rich,
connected father contributed heavily to political campaigns following his
son's incarceration.

``No surprise here,'' says Valdes, who holds a Ph.D. in New Testament
Studies from Loyola University. ``I know a kid, Al Pastor. He has a wife,
three kids and he was starving. They asked him to drive a Lincoln
Continental with kilos of cocaine from Miami to Mobile, Alabama, for
$50,000. He took the money. It was a sting. He got busted and got 25 years.
He's served 11 years now. His family was destroyed by this. The drug kingpin
behind the deal gave up some people and he's already out. It's a sin.''

If there is a war to be waged, both men say, it is one at the homefront, one
household at a time.

``I attend an early childhood education program and they asked kids not
using drugs what was the Number 1 deterrent for them,'' says Reyes, who nows
runs a criminal defense and general practice law firm in Edina with his
wife. ``It was, `My father would kill me.' The only way it's going to get
better is through a strong family, a strong parent.''

Valdes notes that a central character in the movie struggles with drug
addiction in his family.

``The best message this movie has is the conflict between the drug czar
(played by Michael Douglas) and his drug-using daughter,'' Valdes says.
``Here's this crusader against drugs and he doesn't realize that the crusade
begins at home.''

To learn more about Jorge Valdes, visit his Web site at:
http://www.comingclean.net/

The following sites offer a variety of viewpoints on drug policy:

http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/

http://www.drugpolicy.org/

http://www.november.org/
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