I'm happy to let Reason readers know that the feature-length documentary America's Longest War: A Film About Drug Prohibition is on sale at Amazon. Made by Paul Feine and Alex Manning—the team that brought you the award-winning Reason Saves Cleveland with Drew Carey –America's Longest War is an unflinching and deeply disturbing analysis of how the drug war destroys lives and causes untold suffering and waste.
There are many victims of the drug war, and AMERICA'S LONGEST WAR tells some of their stories.
In 2001, Cory Maye, a black man in Mississippi, shot and killed an intruder while protecting his 18-month old daughter. The intruder turned out to be a white police officer conducting a raid, and Maye was sent to prison for murder. Maye was ultimately released in the Summer of 2011.
Jose Guerena is a retired Marine who served two tours in Iraq. In the Spring of 2011, Guerena heard people breaking into his Arizona home, told his wife and son to hide in the closet, and grabbed his military weapon. Police broke in the door and fired 71 bullets, hitting Guerena 22 times. Guerena bled to death alone, inside his home. The police found nothing incriminating inside the house.
In 1991, Robert Moss and his wife had a one-year old and a baby on the way when Moss was convicted of conspiracy to violate marijuana laws. Because of federal sentencing guidelines passed in the mid-80s, Moss was sentenced to more than 20 years in federal prison. Moss returned to his family in Seattle in the Fall of 2011.
Sandra Rodriguez is a reporter at El Diario, a newspaper in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Over the past few years, Rodriguez has been a first-hand witness to an astounding escalation in drug war related violence and the executions of two of her colleagues. Neither case has been solved, but that's no surprise. Fewer than 3% of the murders in Juarez are investigated.
In 2012, Aaron Sandusky, a medical marijuana dispensary owner in California, was found guilty of conspiracy to violate federal marijuana laws. Sandusky is now in prison serving a 10-year sentence.
AMERICA'S LONGEST WAR features interviews with presidential candidate Gary Johnson, Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron, Huffington Post investigative reporter Radley Balko, Alice Huffman of the NAACP, Alison Holcomb of the ACLU, Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, author John Gibler, El Diario de Juarez reporter Sandra Rodriguez Nieto, UTEP professor Tony Payan, El Paso city representative Suzie Byrd, federal public defender Guy Iversen, former cop Neill Franklin, Judge James P. Gray and former DEA Administrator Robert Bonner. Original score by Doug de Forest.
America's Longest War includes a succinct history of the racist roots of drug policy, an update on the story of Corey Maye (who was placed on death row after defending himself and his child in a no-knock drug raid), a report of drug-prohibition-fueled violence in Mexico, a disturbing tally of Barack Obama's awful record, and more.
For more information and to buy the DVD for just $11.95, go here now.
