People in the United States consume heroin and poor farmers in Mexico cultivate poppies. The distance -figurative and literal- between one and the other is great, but the connection is strong. On the journey wealth is created. Billions of dollars are generated and billions are spent in a futile effort to stop the process. On one extreme is the farmer and on the other is the addict. Both of these are linked by the process and lives lived on society’s margins. According to this documentary, marijuana’s evolving flirtation with legality in the US has meant a shift in Mexican drug production. More and more poppies are cultivated and black-tar heroin is what crosses the border. The headlines in the US announce an “epidemic” as use spreads from poorer neighborhoods to wealthier -and news-worthy- suburbs. What will break the cycle?
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