How to Make Money Selling Drugs Review - Pure, Uncut, An Adrenaline Rush

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Category: Indies, Docs, Foreign Film

Published on Saturday, 29 June 2013 17:47

Written by Janet Walker

How to Make Money Selling Drugs, an engaging, informative and shocking docu-drama, explores, from corner man to king pin, the realities of life inside the big business of drug trafficking.

Produced by Bert Marcus and Adrian Grenier, How to Make Money Selling Drugs from Tribeca Films, draws on the true life experiences of Rapper 50 Cent, Eminem, Brian O'Dea, a former high level Pot smuggler, the go to coke dealer of Beverly Hills, and Barry Neal Cooper, a former narcotics officer as well as others.

In addition to the celebrity stoner endorsements, Susan Sarandon and Woody Harrelson who advocate at every opportunity,  the film also include those recognized as, inteligencia, the thinkers of today including Arianna Huffington, Publisher of The Huffington Post and Def Jam Mogul Russell Simmons.

How to make Money Selling Drugs ventures into the underbelly of the drug culture and explains the tier system of global distribution and the skyrocketing costs of continuing the civil war and makes it all very palatable in ten easy lessons.

Balancing the material through the arcade sounds of Pac-Man, Director Matthew Cooke, offsets the serious with humor. Granted the enticements of selling, even on an independent street level, are invitingly presented as a financial solution that almost anyone could benefit.

In modern America, the rising costs of living, where unemployment rested above 8% for over forty straight months and has barely fallen, selling drugs, and the film presents two scenarios, that of weed sales and that of cocaine, a smart business man can generate enough cash within a day to see the risk as a worthwhile investment. Even in states where Cannabis is legal the potential for financial solvency, on an independent level, are presented as a viable way out of poverty or financial debt.

The film also portrays the high risk factor.  Violence, racial profiling, jealousies, and as the drug lawyer explained, "If I rob you of all your money and a one thousand dollars of drugs I still get to sell the drugs for one thousand dollars." The drug trade, as it is, invites violence.

Location, location, location as in any good business location is everything and "How to Make Money Selling Drugs" is no different. The odds of jail time dramatically decrease in the wealthiest zip codes and as explained, "People will front you all the drugs you can sell. As long as you keep paying they'll keep fronting."

The true stories are fascinating.  Brian O'Dea is a captivating, charming, natural story teller. He recounts his glory days, smuggling in 200tons of pot and hiring an ex-DEA agent to assist. Narcotics officers are quick to explain inner city drug trafficking is a war zone. The Drug War has becomes America's Civil War which is ripping the roots from our inner cities and destroying countless lives along the way.

The "Thinkers" those who are considered the better minds of today seem to advocate the same as most others and question why are we investing billions of dollars on a war, which no joint chief or five star general would ever testify there is a remote chance of winning. Our prisons are full, the Rockefeller Drug laws in New York State only burden an already overburden financial state.  Drug Trafficking has not stopped and in reality it has only increased.

The film paves a way for serious debate on the evolution of the drug import/export trade. I found the material interesting and highly intriguing. As a long time advocate of legalization the incarceration rates were astonishing. My platform for legalization is clearly different from the film, as tax reform was never mentioned as a possible outcome of harvesting one of the United States' greatest natural resources.

Although not a participant, I do believe How to Make Money Selling Drugs, presents strong points for a continued discussion. The taxation possibilities, in and of themselves, would certainly create a surplus in state budgets.

Hard hit domestic programs now experiencing the sequester squeeze would, with the additional taxes generated through legalization, have a chance to survive without the federal assistance. And that is simply one example as equal opportunity education, food programs, literacy, and senior programs and of course, infrastructure could all have the opportunity to benefit.

How to Make Money Selling Drugs doesn't explain away, in a cloud of sweet scented smoke, the ills of the drug trade, or sugar coat the realities of violence, especially at the high levels of distribution.  It does however, for the first time, present a full picture and scope of many people across all socio-economic lines agreeing that the time for change, like in recent historic announcements, is now.  The film presents a convincing argument proving the antiquated judicial process is archaic and the laws, as they are now, must change.

How to Make Money Selling Drugs is playing in select cities. It is a must see!