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ENG-1112

18/4/2018

Narcos: The Television Series

The problem of drugs has been around for decades and it still continues to pose a problem to the Unites States and the Latin American countries. Ever since Richard Nixon formally declared the war on drugs, many anti-drug policies have been implemented from the producer, shipment and consumer countries. Throughout the war of drugs, nations such as Colombia, Mexico and Afghanistan have been trying to solve the issue of drugs through the implementation nations affected by drugs have also been working on detection and destruction of labs that are used to produce hard drugs through interdicting the drug shipments that are on their way to the consumer countries. A such, the Colombian government introduced the Plan Colombia, a strategy that had two objectives, which include reduction of the production of illegal drugs, especially cocaine and improve the security conditions in the country. However, little is known about the effects of the anti-drug policies in the producer and transit countries. Most studies have focused on the consumer nation’s response to the anti-drug laws. The series Narcos takes us through the fight against drugs from the producer country. The United States uses a task force that takes the war to the producer country where it intends on taking care of the problem before it becomes a problem to the consumer nation. The series shows how difficult it is to fight drugs as after the Medellin cartel was diminished, the Cali cartel rose to power to continue distributing and producing the illegal drugs. The plan used in Narcos to fight drugs led to the loss of many lives including the police and army from both sides that fought hard to defeat the production and distribution of drugs.

The devastation that drugs cause in the society is unbelievable. The damage that drugs cause many families can only be termed as unfortunate. Many people today are addicted to drugs in one way or another, a problem that has only continued to increase. Drugs have become so damaging that the communities have to come up with ideas on how to cope and reduce the drug problem. However, people tend to focus on the consumption of drugs by addictive users in the community rather than how the drugs come into the society. However, in the television series, Narcos, the viewer gets to understand the issue of drug production. Narcos is a television series that was produced by Chris Brancato, Carlo Bernard, and Doug Miro, based on true life events of the famous drug lord, Pablo Escobar (Bernard, Carlo et al. "Narcos (TV Series 2015–)"). The series’ first two seasons focus on the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar in Colombia, the 1980s. The issue of drug production is not given attention as it should in the society and in the fight against drugs.

The series of Narcos provides an insight on the issue of drug production, transport and distribution. Perceived by Detective Steve Murphy of the DEA, Narcos is based on real-life situations in Colombia in the 1980s. The series takes the viewer through the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar, who began as a small-time cigarette smuggler to one of the greatest leader of the Medellin drug cartel(Bernard, Carlo et al. "Narcos (TV Series 2015–)"). For seven years, Pablo Escobar made it into the Forbes’ list of international billionaires. The television series does an excellent job of portraying the events that took place in Colombia in the 1980s but exaggerates or dramatic effects in some areas. Some things that happen in the television series, Narcos, seen too exaggerated to believe, but some actually happened. For instance, it is hard to believe that Pablo Escobar made $420 million per week from smuggling 70 to 80 tons of cocaine into the United States every month. Pablo Escobar also won a bloody combat with the Colombian state and was allowed to live in his own luxury prison with his own guards. Another unbelievable moment happens when Pablo Escobar storms a Colombian Palace of Justice and kill 25 supreme court justices and destroying all the evidence that could have incriminated him. The surprise on Steve Murphy’s voice in the series is apparent as he says “In the United States, the Mafia makes witnesses disappear so they can’t testify in court. In Colombia, Pablo Escobar made the whole court disappear” (Bernard, Carlo et al. "Narcos (TV Series 2015–)"). The unbelievable things that Pablo Escobar engages in are to protect his drug production empire.

The method is to analyze the plot and specific scenes in the series. Notably, the television series, Narcos has some problems in the analysis of happenings. The plot revolves around detective Steve Murphy from when he was a rookie in Miami to his transformation in Colombia. At the beginning of the series detective, Murphy is shown as a naïve agent chasing petty criminals in Miami (Bernard, Carlo et al. "Narcos (TV Series 2015–)"). Later he is brought in Colombia where he seems naïve as he shows remorse after shooting a young man. However, Murphy undergoes transformation to a point where he gets easily violent such as the incident where he shots a taxi’s tires due to a minor accident. The television series, Narcos tends to show that the naïve agents in America transformed to bad cops once they came to Colombia. The series also tends to show that the only drug problem before Escobar was weed mostly used by petty criminals. Notably, the series oversimplifies the problem of American and the Latino drug relationship. The series focuses more on the details of the mass drug production and the consequences involved in the large-scale production of cocaine and its adverse consequences in Colombia. Colombia is evidently different from America, where Steve Murphy came from, as Colombia was filled with murders and terror on the people. However, as the movie progresses, a link can be found between Miami and Colombia.

The issue of repetition is quite common throughout the film. The most repeated parts are the drug production and smuggling into the United States. At the beginning of the movie, drugs are being produced in small scales, but as the movie progresses the production goes high and the smuggling trucks increase. The issue of bribing police officers is repeated severally as the trucks cannot move across the border into the United States with drugs. Additionally, the word such as “la puta” is an offensive phrase commonly used by Pablo Escobar throughout the series (Bernard, Carlo et al. "Narcos (TV Series 2015–)". Violence and murder are also commonly repeated in almost every episode. People get killed for not being loyal, knowing too much or attempting to fight Pablo Escobar’s drug empire. The police also kill and are killed during the raids on the production houses. The repetition of actions and words in the television series is meant to emphasize on the problem of drugs and drug production in 1980s Colombia. Each scene provides an insight into the growing strength of the cartel and the response from the Colombian and the United States government.

Throughout the television series, Narcos, the issue of drug consumption is not given too much time, as the main concern is on drug production. The issue of drug production is not given attention as it should in the society and in the fight against drugs, but in the series of Narcos, the viewer is given a new perspective on drug production, smuggling, and use. The issue of drug production in Colombia during Pablo Escobar’s reign resulted into an upsurge of users in the United States. The viewer is given a sneak peek of how the increased users in the United States resulted in more production and more money for Escobar. The drug consumption problem both in the United States an Colombia resulted in a task force from both countries to help fight the menace.

Illegal drug use and production continue to affect the society immensely. The entanglement of drug use and production is complex given the number of people involved from the farmers, producers, laboratory technicians, traffickers, cartels, the police, military and the government and finally the consumers. The drugs production depends on the rate of demand. If the demand is high, then the rate of production increases. Therefore, the fight against drugs is about reducing production and demand at the same time. The fight against illegal drugs has been going on for years till to date, but there is still much to be done.

According to, Mejía & Restrepo, the war on drugs has been expensive with the governments injecting a lot of resources in an effort to curb the production and use of drugs in consumer and producer countries (Mejía and Restrepo 255). In 1971, Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs after the problem of drug trafficking became rampant in the United States (Bagley et.al. 5). Despite the foreign policy efforts made to curb the supply of illegal drugs for decades in America, the situation was still the same. The policies were proving to be ineffective and detrimental to many countries. The rich countries began accepting that they were unable to control the domestic demand for drugs (Bagley et.al. 15). The lack of control in the war against illegal drugs led to the increased production as witnessed in the movie Narcos. Narcos, the television show, is based on the drug lord Pablo Escobar, the most successful drug lord in Colombia. To-date Colombia still produces seventy percent of all the cocaine produced in the world today.

Evidently, Colombia has worked hard in the fight against illegal drugs, drug production, trafficking and organized crime. Colombia is a country that has had its share of drug problems having dealt with the biggest drug cartel, Medellin drug cartel, led by Pablo Escobar (Bagley et.al. 15). Over the years, Colombia has destroyed tons of cocaine and millions of hectares of coca and thousands of processing laboratories and production houses (Mejía and Restrepo 255). The United States has been partially funding the fight against drugs (Mejia 5). To fight the production of drugs in Colombia, the United States and the Colombian government have allocated huge amounts of money under a plan known as “Plan Colombia” (Mejía and Restrepo 258) The Colombian National Planning Department stated that between 2000 and 2005, the United States government gave about $3.8 billion to the Colombian government to be used in the war against illegal drug producers and traffickers ((Mejía and Restrepo 259). On the other hand, the government of Colombia used $6.9 billion in the same period, which was used together with the subsidies from the United States government to fund the military components dealing with the war against drug production, trafficking and the organized gangs associated with illegal drugs (Mejía and Restrepo 259). Notably, the United States policies have affected the internal dynamics of the Narco countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, the Caribbean Islands and Central America.

Before 1994, Colombia was only a minor player in the narcotics industry even though the largest cartels, the Medellin and the Cali cartel were located in the country. Most of the coca was produced in Bolivia and Peru (Mejia 4). The coca paste was then transported to Colombia for processing into Cocaine than trafficked to North American for consumption. However, in 1990, things changed as the Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori closed the airbridge used for coca transportation into Colombia (Mejia 4). As such, the coca production moved back to Colombia, with its cultivation increasing rapidly between 1990 and 2000.

The war on drugs in Colombia dates back to the 1980s, as Colombia has always been the battleground for America’s efforts to fight the cocaine supply from the source. Poor economic status in Colombia pushed man people into the cultivation of illegal crops (Mejia, 5). The United States claimed that the illegal crops were a threat to the American people, and thus, devoted a huge portion of its resources to fighting the supply of Colombian cocaine. However, the Medellin cartel led by Pablo Escobar threatened the stability of the Colombian nation, making it hard to fight the drug war effectively (Bagley et.al. 15). It is only after the death of Pablo and the weakening of the Medellin and the Cali cartels in the 1990s that the fight against easier.

In conclusion, it is evident that the menace of drug consumption and production is devastating. Arguably, the issue of drug production is not given attention as it should in the society and in the fight against drugs. People tend to focus on the consumption of drugs by addictive users in the community rather than how the drugs come into the society. However, in the television series, Narcos the viewer gets to understand the issue of drug production. Mass production of drugs results in many users in the society. The drug consumption problem both in the United States an Colombia resulted in a task force from both countries to help fight the menace. Narcos provided the viewer with a different perspective on the drug problem. The fight against illegal drugs has a long way to go before fully materializing. Colombia has been the center of the drug war since the 1980s when the cocaine production began. The United States has been on the forefront of the drug war by pouring out a lot of money in subsidies to help the government of Colombia in fighting the production and trafficking of drugs. Notably, the largest market for the illegal drugs is in North America. Unfortunately, the policies laid down in the fight against illegal drugs have been ineffective and the production and trafficking of drugs continue

Work Cited

Bagley, Bruce M., and Jonathan D. Rosen. Drug trafficking, organized crime, and violence in the Americas today. University Press of Florida, 2015.

Bernard, Carlo et al. "Narcos (TV Series 2015–)". Imdb, 2018, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2707408/. Accessed 24 Feb 2018.

Mejía, Daniel, and Pascual Restrepo. "The economics of the war on illegal drug production and trafficking." Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 126 (2016): 255-275.

Mejia, Daniel. "Plan Colombia: an analysis of effectiveness and costs." Washington, DC: Brookings Institution (2015).