The Wire is a popular expose of the failure of United States drug policy, set in Baltimore Maryland, USA, which is parodied as Body More, Murderland. The series is devised by a Baltimore Sun journalist and a former narcotics detective with the city's police department its storylines are based on on the crack cocaine epidemic in the East Coast cities.
Cocaine grown in Colombia was smuggled into the United States by the Escobar organisation in the 1980s after the United States insisted on Mexico sprayed paraquat onto their marijuana fields. A mild drug was replaced by a dangerous drug. The DEA, Pentagon and CIA operated an expensive war on drugs in Colombia until Osama bin Laden gave them more urgent work elsewhere. The US public were told this was essential counter- narcotics work when in reality the fiercest fighting was in areas where Colombia's oil and mineral wealth were concentrated.
Cocaine has a history of addiction. In June 1884 Sigmund Freud published an essay on cocaine where he praised then repudiated cocaine when his colleague Fleischl von Marxow became addicted.
A steady 200,000 hectares of coca leaves under cultivation readily meets the 270 ton world demand for cocaine in all its forms.
Drug use is a vice, but it is not a crime. In time drug use will be legalized. There is lot of money to be made from drugs because banks worldwide take deposits without question. US actor Bruce Willis encapsulated the thoughts of the many when he said 'Cocaine is killing this country and all the countries coke goes into. If they were not making money on it they would have stopped it. They could stop it in one day.'