Crack: Cocaine, Corruption, and Conspiracy (2021) * * *

 

Directed by:  Stanley Nelson

Crack: Cocaine, Corruption, and Conspiracy examines the effect crack cocaine had on the 1980's and beyond.   The 1980's started with Ronald Reagan elected President.  Cocaine was the drug of choice, but it was expensive and seen as the affluent white person's drug.    Crack cocaine soon made its way into the poorer neighborhoods as cocaine in a more purified form.   It was cheaper, even more addicting than coke, and soon it was being dealt everywhere.   Guns and violence followed as the market became saturated, lives were ruined, deaths from overdose and guns followed, then politics got involved.  Crack: CCC (my abbreviation for it) interviews former crack dealers, journalists, and some politicians as its subjects, and this makes for a credible documentary told by people in the know. 

Crack: CCC not only focuses on the damaging, deadly effects of crack, but questions how it was made so readily available in mostly poor urban areas.   It's as if the streets were flooded with it.  President and Nancy Reagan started the "Just Say No" campaign, leading to mandatory drug sentencing which seemed to inequitably throw more blacks in prison than whites over possession convictions.   Even more frightening is watching women addicted to crack interviewed explaining how they sold everything including their bodies for the drug.   Some have to give up their children to live with relatives because their lives became unmanageable.   Others died.   The death of Len Bias in 1986 hours after being drafted by the Boston Celtics thrust the drug into intense scrutiny.  After came the possibly overblown idea of "crack babies," which the interview subjects claim was more myth and sensationalist media coverage than anything else. 

The most intriguing interviews are with the former users and dealers who either sought to make quick bucks or get a quick high.   They bore witness to devastation and death.  Mostly all of now regretful for their pasts, but knowing regret and remorse won't wash away their sins.   Crack: CCC doesn't judge, but instead shows how drug addiction was treated as a criminal issue and is now treated more as a public health issue.   I was once one of those people who didn't believe addiction was a disease, but after witnessing and enduring what I have, I fully agree that it is.   Diseases make you sick, and addiction makes you sick in body and spirit, so how could it not be a disease?   

Crack: CCC interweaves news footage with stark images documenting the drug's wave of destruction.  It is crisply paced and edited, while posing questions with a broader scope.   Is Crack: CCC as deep and affecting as other documentaries?  No, but it serves as a reminder of the dangers of drugs and chasing that temporary high.   As if we needed one.