Pubdate: Sun, 18 Mar 2001
Source: Edmonton Journal (CN AB)
Copyright: 2001 The Edmonton Journal
Contact:  P.O. Box 2421, Edmonton, AB, T5J 2S6
Website: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/
Forum: http://forums.canada.com/~edmonton
Author: Juan O. Tamayo, Knight Ridder Newspapers

U.S. DRUG MOVIE HAS COLOMBIANS SAYING 'BEEN THERE, DONE THAT'

But Film 'Traffic' Still An Incentive To Fight Drugs, Analysts Say

In a country where America's war on drugs is a bloody reality fought daily, 
the movie Traffic's message that the crusade would be best aimed at U.S. 
consumers is drawing a loud "So what's new?"

Hollywood's portrayal of the three-decades-old U.S. drug war as pointless 
and destructive has stirred up the Washington policy debate on narcotics 
trafficking and consumption as never before.

Yet, Friday's opening of the movie in Colombia, ground zero for an industry 
that produces 90 percent of the cocaine and two-thirds of the heroin sold 
on U.S. streets, only confirmed the belief here that for too long, 
Americans have blamed producers for what is essentially a consumers' problem.

"Its message is much better than 'Just Say No To Drugs,' because it admits 
Colombia would not produce drugs if Americans didn't use them," said lawyer 
Armando Carrisoza after a showing in Bogota.

Some Colombian analysts say the movie should give their government the 
opportunity to push Washington to do more to fight drugs at home -- long 
viewed as a politically incorrect stance for a nation receiving $1.3 
billion in U.S. aid to fight narcotics.

But many Colombians have greeted the U.S. buzz about the movie with a sense 
of "been there, done that," saying that Hollywood cannot possibly reflect 
the complexities of the very real drug war they endure every day.

While drug addiction is a growing problem in Colombia, it pales in 
comparison with the challenge posed by 30,000 guerrillas who fill their war 
coffers by "taxing" cocaine and heroin producers.

"What does Traffic have that is new? For a Latin audience -- already 
overexposed to the corruption and violence that this scourge has unleashed 
in their countries -- very little. Maybe only the sense that the burden on 
pariah nations has lessened," Sergio Gomez Maseri wrote in the daily El Tiempo.

Colombians who have seen Traffic say it is, overall, an excellent 
reflection of some of the sordid realities of their country's own war on drugs.

For a change, Colombians are not Hollywood's bad guys -- a role played this 
time by Mexican smugglers and corrupt government officials.

The film's portrayal of a Mexican army general who attacks one drug cartel 
only because he's on the payroll of rival smugglers recalls the Colombian 
police's own use of Cali cartel informants to round up Medellin traffickers.

And Michael Douglas's role as a U.S. drug czar who finds that his daughter 
is an addict echoes the plight of Maria Ines Restrepo, head of the 
Colombian government's illicit crop substitution program, known by its 
Spanish acronym PLANTE.

Her 19-year-old son, Andres Lafaurie, was arrested at Miami International 
Airport on Nov. 22 with nearly 1.8 kilograms of heroin strapped to his body.

Some Colombians who watched the movie Friday said they hoped it will help 
to persuade the U.S. government to step up its fight against the "gringo 
mafias" that sell drugs on U.S. streets and the Americans who buy them.

But others said that demand and supply are two sides of the same coin, a 
complex problem that must be attacked both in the streets of America and in 
the coca and opium poppy plantations of Colombia.
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