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Have our efforts been in vain? In exclusive interviews with both the "drug warriors" and the drug-traffickers, FRONTLINE - in collaboration with National Public Radio - presents the first television history of America's war on drugs told from both sides of the battlefield.

"While we are breaking new ground by looking at the political economy of the narcotics business, we are also taking a much needed step back," says series reporter Lowell Bergman. "Our investigation shows that almost everyone agrees on how to solve this problem, but in the end we do not have the political courage to do it."

FRONTLINE opens its nineteenth season with a special two-part report examining the people, policies, and struggles behind America's thirty-year battle against drug use. "Drug Wars," a PBS Democracy Project/Election 2000 special airs Mondays, October 2 and October 9, at 9 P.M. on PBS (check local listings). Through interviews with high-level government officials, DEA agents, drug lords, smugglers, and users, the four-hour documentary traces the history of America's drug war and the social and political forces that shape it. Concurrently, National Public Radio will air related programming.

NPR's "All Things Considered" will present a five-part series with correspondent Deborah Amos during the week between the consecutive Monday night FRONTLINE broadcasts. FRONTLINE and NPR have agreed to cross-promote this television and radio programming to attract the broadest possible audience to the series.

"The purpose of the series is to tackle a very difficult set of issues," says series producer Martin Smith, "in order to see if we can make some sense of where we've been, and, ultimately, to see if we can shed some light on where we should go. Looking at the last thirty years we find that politics has always played havoc with the drug war. Unfortunately, good politics often make terrible policy."

"Drug Wars" begins in the Nixon years and examines how the war on drugs evolved from the law-and-order president's war on crime and the startling revelations that U.S. servicemen in Vietnam were quickly developing heroin habits. Nixon's men responded with controversial methadone treatment programs.

"It was an experiment that worked, and it worked to a very high level - way beyond anything anyone could have imagined - and it went on to have a profound effect on national policy," says Robert Dupont, head of the National Institute of Drug Abuse during the 1970s. "That's the good news. The bad news - and it's something I struggle with - is how it was lost."

That would be the last time that treatment commanded the lion's share of anti-drug dollars. As the 1972 election approached, President Nixon began to shift the focus back to a traditional law enforcement model: more cops, more arrests, more interdiction. Yet, in the years to come, they would be badly outgunned and outspent by the drug smugglers.

Next, "Drugs Wars" profiles the rise of the cocaine business and the inability of a growing law enforcement establishment to counter the flow of ever increasing amounts of marijuana and cocaine feeding America's burgeoning recreational drug habit in the late 1970s through the 1980s. FRONTLINE conducted exclusive interviews with the men who headed the once powerful Medellin cartel, the world's largest ever criminal syndicate, including Jorge and Juan David Ochoa, who tell how they entered the business and survived to tell their stories. Also, Carlos Toro, who helped run cocaine for Colombian smuggler Carlos Lehder, tells how the cartel could always stay two steps ahead of the law.

"We felt on top of the world," says Toro. "We were invincible. We were totally untouchable. When the Medellin cartel was in full power...DEA was just like the sun: It's there every morning, we have to live with it, but we are not that afraid of it."

Part II of "Drug Wars" begins with the story of how crack changed the rules of engagement, forcing New York's DEA agents to confront not just a new, more deadly drug but an entirely new order of drug dealers. "Traditionally, when you have a problem in a neighborhood, you go after the organization that controls the neighborhood," says former DEA agent Bob Stutman. "And you take off the top three or four people and you clean up the neighborhood. But there were no top three or four people. The 'organization' was a twenty-year-old guy and three ten-year-old kids."

Because no international drug cartels or major crime organizations were involved, Stutman says the New York DEA office had trouble convincing the federal government that crack was worth the agency's attention. Stutman recalls giving a daylong presentation on the spiraling severity of the crack epidemic to high-ranking DEA officials in spring 1986. Yet it was the announcement that same day of the death of Boston Celtics draft pick Len Bias and news reports of his involvement with cocaine that hit home with his superiors, he says.

"It's a shame that the death of a basketball star had to change the nation's perception about a drug," Stutman says. "But that's exactly what happened."

Bias's sudden death led to renewed federal interest in fighting drugs, as politicians again recognized an issue that would resonate with voters back home. The normal legislative process of exhaustive research and government hearings was abandoned in favor of quick action, with lawmakers and federal agencies tripping over one another to boost anti-drug spending, create tough drug programs, and sponsor stringent legislation.

Michael Gelacek of the Sentencing Commission tells FRONTLINE that this rush to jump on the drug war bandwagon resulted in laws that provided for disproportionately harsh sentences, greatly impacting - and increasing - America's prison population. "The average time served for murder in this country is ten years," says Gelacek. "And we send people to jail for life for trafficking in narcotics."

The final hour of "Drug Wars" investigates how U.S. efforts to stem the flow of drugs from Mexico in the 1990s were hindered by rampant corruption and collusion by high-level Mexican officials with the country's drug smugglers. FRONTLINE speaks with former Mexican police officers and U.S. DEA agents, who confirm the involvement of the Mexican government in both the kidnapping, torture, and murder of a U.S. DEA agent as well as the ambush and murder of an entire division of Mexico's own federal drug officers by their own military.

"Of all the shocks I've had in my career, that was probably the biggest," says John Hensley, former chief of enforcement for U.S. Customs. "That an entire [Mexican] military unit would be involved in protecting drug lords. And to the point that they would actually attack and murder Mexican federal drug police."

DEA agents also recount how their reports of such corruption fell on deaf ears in Washington, where first the Bush and then the Clinton administrations were focused on increasing trade with Mexico.

"Virtually every administration has testified that Mexico is cooperating with us," Stutman says. "That is such crap it's a joke. The problem with Mexico is you don't know who the bad guys are."

On camera, a former "primer" commandante in the Mexican Federal Police describes how the system of corruption works and how it reached into the halls of Mexico's presidential palace.

In the end, the international drug economy has become a part of the legitimate economy accounting for much of our trade in the Caribbean region, as well as a factor in the destabilization of nations. A series of exclusive interviews with drug-traffickers and money launderers provides an inside look into how the business works and thrives despite a vast law enforcement, military, and intelligence community effort to wipe it out.

Perhaps the most surprising thread running through "Drug Wars" is the agreement by virtually every drug enforcement official interviewed that the decades-long strategy of fighting drugs through interdiction and stiffer sentencing should be replaced with one that emphasizes drug treatment, education, and prevention - the hallmarks of the original drug strategy begun under President Nixon.

"Let's create an organization that says, 'Well, this year ninety percent of this budget is going to go into education and prevention,'" says Jack Lawn, former head of the DEA in the 1980s. "Would that work? We won't know unless we try it. But twenty years of doing it the other way certainly has not worked."

Following the broadcast, access the "Drug Wars" Web site at http://www.pbs.org/frontline/shows/drugs/ for more on this report, including: Streaming video from the four-hour broadcast Special reports on the CIA's role in the drug war and the new "designer" drugs A behind-the-scenes look at the supply side of the drug trade featuring video interviews with former drug dealers and maps showing changing trade routes Teacher's guide with classroom activities for high school and college students Updates on new developments in the Colombian and Mexican drug markets Revealing statistics from the drug war: trends in drug use, what's been spent on law enforcement and treatment, success rates of treatment methods, and much more

"Drug Wars" series producer is Martin Smith. The series reporter is Lowell Bergman. Program co-producers are Doug Hamilton, Ken Levis, Brooke Runnette, and Oriana Zill. The senior producer for FRONTLINE is Sharon Tiller.

FRONTLINE is presented on PBS by WGBH Boston.

Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers. Additional funding for "Drug Wars" is provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Florence and John Schumann Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

FRONTLINE is closed-captioned for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers.

The executive producer for FRONTLINE is Michael Sullivan.

The senior executive producer for FRONTLINE is David Fanning.

Press contacts for FRONTLINE:

(617) 300-3500
Erin Martin Kane
Chris Kelly

FRONTLINE XIX/October 2000