"Cop:" "Police." "Search warrant." "Narrator:" "Cocaine is a global business." "From Coca farmers in Colombia, to trafficking cartels in Mexico, crack houses in Miami to cocaine dealers in London, the supply chain of cocaine stretches around the world." "For some, cocaine is a way of life." "Chronic:" "It wasn't no silver spoons for me." "It was plastic spoons and dope." "Narrator:" "Cocaine brings vast wealth to a few." "Eddie: $5 million to get 1,000 kilos from San Diego to New York." "Narrator:" "And misery to millions." "Loco:" "The future holds nothing for me, death or the penitentiary." "Narrator:" "But they're all a part of the $300 billion global industry that is, Drugs Incorporated." "Drugs." "Inc 1x01 Cocaine Original Air Date on July 11, 2010" "Miami, Florida, is America's cocaine capital." "Since the 1970s it's been a point of entry for traffickers and a large population of dealers call it home." "One of these dealers goes by the street name" ""Chronic."" "Crack:" "This here what we call crack cocaine." "I love it, for real, because this pay the bills right here." "I could get rid of these 4 pieces right here." "I get rid of that for $200, you hear me." "And I only pay $50 for this." "Yeah, that's, that's how we get our money out here, man, you now." "Just a way of living." "This what we call the American way." "Narrator:" "Cocaine is a powerful stimulant that produces feelings of intense pleasure." "It's used in two main forms:" "Cocaine powder is snorted predominantly by the rich." "Many believe it's non-addictive and can enhance both work and play." "Crack cocaine is sold in rock form and smoked mainly by the poor." "It delivers an intense high and offers an escape from the reality of their lives, if only for a brief while." "28 year-old Chronic was destined to be a crack dealer." "His mother, an addict, abandoned him when he was a child and he was raised by his gangbanging, crack dealing brother in Miami's poorest neighborhood." "Crack:" "It wasn't no silver spoons for me." "It was plastic spoons and dope." "I grew up in a foster home." "So it wasn't nobody else for me, but my brother, my brother was like my daddy and my mamma." "So he brought me up in the gang basically, he taught me just, just a way of getting money." "Narrator:" "Crack cocaine first emerges in 1984." "Up until then, cocaine, costing $100 a gram, is seen only as a rich man's drug." "Crack revolutionizes the cocaine business by offering a cheap, yet intensely powerful high for only $5." "It soon sweeps through America's inner cities." "Within a year, 5.8 million people are addicted." "Chronic never uses crack himself." "He just preys on the addicts who come to him to feed their habit." "Chronic:" "I like to tell them to put the whole thing on (bleep) because if they put the whole thing on there, then they going to smoke this whole" "(bleep) up and they come right back." "They spend 40 more dollars." "That's how I like it." "Quick money." "Quick flip." "Narrator:" "His product is so addictive that Chronic sometimes has to fight off customers." "Chronic:" "You've got some crack heads, man, that'll tell you straight up, they not leaving till they get their (bleep), you know what I mean?" "I mean they sit down and fuss with you and then, you then have to beat their (bleep) before they leave your premises." "Police did catch up with me (bleep)," "I could say I smoke this (bleep) and get off like that." "Instead of them trying to send me to prison," "(bleep) send me to a drug program." "Narrator:" "In a good week Chronic pulls in $4,000, but holding onto the cash isn't always easy." "Drug dealers are often the target of armed robbers." "Desperate crack heads know the people with the most money on the streets of Miami are the dope dealers." "Chronic:" "It's so scary out here, man." "And one day, you know, a dude snuck up and jumped in my brother car, and, when my brother got back in the car, you know, they already had the pistol to his head." "Told him don't move." "You just give me all your jewelry and all your money." "They shot him, man, and got my brother paralyzed right now." "And we live rough down here, man." "This (bleep) is no (bleep) is no joke." "Narrator:" "Chronic's not looking to make a fortune." "He just wants to survive." "Chronic:" "If you're making enough money to survive out here of (bleep) like this here, then I'd rather stay like this here, 'cause I feel like it's not about, it's not about the person who makes the most money," "it's about the person who lasts the longest." "Narrator:" "While Chronic's business is booming in the ghettos of Miami, on the other side of the" "Atlantic, in the UK, crack cocaine has never really become popular." "The British prefer powder cocaine and use more than any other nation in Europe." "Adrian:" "Every day people are doing it now." "It certainly the, the choice of drug that everyone's doing nowadays." "Narrator:" "In the 1990s the demand for cocaine in the" "UK skyrockets." "It's seen as a glamorous drug that allows users to work and play harder and longer." "Cocaine becomes the drug of choice for Britain's middle class." "42 tons of cocaine are consumed in the UK each year." "Adrian:" "It's going everywhere." "I mean especially like you know the, the stock market boys and the city boys, they all use because they've got to perform with their job really hard so it keeps them all going." "Narrator:" "Chronic believes his business would suffer if he smokes crack, but this dealer, known by the alias "Adrian,"" "started out as a user." "Adrian:" "You start doing it, then your mates start asking you to get them some, and, oh, can you get me a bit of gear, and eventually you go: you know what," "I might as well just buy a big lump and sell it off to them and that way I'll get a bit of coke and a bit of money for myself." "Narrator:" "Finding a supplier of high quality cocaine isn't hard, Adrian comes from a long line of British gangsters." "Adrian:" "My family are quite well connected in the underworld as it were, so I just get it straight from them." "Narrator:" "Adrian's cocaine comes from the other side of the world." "From Colombia the cartels ship their product to depots in Guinea Bissau, West Africa." "Then the cocaine is trucked to Morocco." "From there it's shipped to Spain where it's sold to" "British gangsters who load it onto trucks sent to the" "UK by ferry." "Adrian:" "They stick it in about say 10 trucks." "But you don't stick your, all your eggs in basket you know, and, Er, out of those 10 trucks they expect at least 2 of 'em to get caught." "Narrator:" "The trucks that manage to clear the border head to London." "The cocaine is then delivered to a central distribution point." "Adrian:" "It's taken straight over to, you know, a warehouse or a basement somewhere like that." "And soon as it comes through then they start breaking up and it all gets split all over London everywhere." "Narrator:" "Adrian receives the cocaine in bulk which he then breaks down into retail sized packages." "Adrian:" "Weighing it up individually on these digital scales and then putting it into me little packets." "Narrator:" "Adrian buys his cocaine for $25 per gram and sells it for $75." "He boosts his profits by skimming 20% off every gram he sells." "Adrian:" "Nobody gets a gram anymore so there's point 8 in there of a gram." "Otherwise it's just not worth your while anymore." "Narrator:" "In a good week Adrian sells 100 grams and makes $6,000 in profit." "He meets his regular customers in a London pub." "Adrian:" "I tell 'em, what time that I'm going to meet them at the pub." "We go down there and we sit down for a little while, have Er, a little drink and whatever, and then we just, Er, sort of pass cigarette packets around to each other, if you know what I mean." "They get, they go to the toilet and get their gear." "They put the money in the cigarette box and then when they come back and see me later, they pass the cigarette box over, deal done." "There's so much competition out there, you know, anyone can sell you a bit of rubbish gear." "So you get a reputation for selling good stuff, and that's how your clientele book as it were, though we don't, keep books, starts climbing all the time." "Narrator:" "Adrian has been dealing cocaine his entire adult life." "Unlike crack dealers in the US, he's not worried about being robbed or even busted by the police." "Adrian:" "I don't think the police are too bothered about it." "They, you know, you're all having that fun time in the pub." "It's not spilling out into the streets and it's done behind closed doors." "I think they actually, they let a lot of people get off with it." "They're, they're not after the little boys that deal in the pubs anymore." "They're after the big fish." "Narrator:" "Around the world there are two million cocaine dealers." "It's a good living but few can make a fortune." "The big fish are the traffickers who supply the dealers with the 1,000 tons of cocaine produced each year." "Drug traffickers are the real winners in the cocaine business." "They earn millions of dollars smuggling large shipments of drugs across international borders." "Eddie, a 48 year old father of three, used to traffic cocaine from Colombia to America." "For six years, Eddie, worked as a drug trafficker with the Arellano-Felix" "Organization, a drug trafficking cartel based in Tijuana." "For the first time, he has agreed to tell his story." "Eddie:" "Gus and I ended up being partners and, and then we started bringing over on a regular basis you know quite a bit, and you know," "I had a good job, I was making $40,000 a month." "Narrator:" "First, his partner travels to Colombia." "Then he buys the cocaine, and packs it onto a boat." "Eddie:" "Gus's crew would go down and he'd, he'd sit on the boat." "you know with them when they left Columbia." "And he stayed with 'em all the way until they took it as far as Baja." "Narrator:" "Once the shipment arrives in Baja, Eddie takes control of the boat." "Eddie:" "I drove the boat And then we had guys meet us there." "And then we brought it up to Tijuana, to our safe house." "Narrator:" "Eddie then has to smuggle his cocaine across the heavily guarded US Border." "Since 9/11 the US Department of Homeland" "Security has strengthened its border with Mexico by building hundreds of miles of fences and installing license plate readers at all points of entry." "It also increased border patrol units on land, sea, and air." "But Eddie sneaks in under the security radar." "He bypasses the major border crossings and ships his cocaine out to small American fishing boats waiting off the Mexican coast." "Eddie:" "I had my guy who was an excellent fisherman so he would take off, at four in the morning and go fishing, they would ferry everything out to him on jet skis." "And he'd put it in the cabin area of the boat and then he would go fishing for four or five hours, and then when everybody start coming in from going fishing, he would go in with them at the same" "time." "Narrator:" "Posing as just another recreational fisherman, Eddie's boat arrives in San Diego harbor." "The cocaine is taken from the docks to a safe house, where it will be prepped and distributed to different cities." "New York usually brings in the big money." "Eddie:" "In LA it was like 13 million and New York it would be like 18 million." "So, $5 million to get 1,000 kilos from San Diego to New York." "Narrator:" "Eddie's crew drives the cocaine across the country in inconspicuous vehicles carrying 200 kilos per car." "He makes sure his drivers look like regular Joes." "Eddie:" "They had to have the look, you know, that would pass for what we called the 30 second test, which is when a policeman pulls a car over, they got 30 seconds to determine whether that person that they pulled over is a threat, is, Er," "is worth interrogating or they're just gonna give them a ticket and let them go." "Narrator:" "Once in New York," "Eddie and his drivers leave their vehicles in a parking lot." "Eddie:" "I would, um, meet somebody in an area and leave the keys in the ashtray and then they would pick the car up." "Narrator:" "Two weeks later Eddie returns to New York to pick up payment for the shipment." "Traffickers make approximately 25% of the retail price of cocaine." "That equals a worldwide total of $50 billion per year, but danger is always present." "Eddie:" "You'd pick up the backpack with a quarter of a million dollars in it and you're walking away, you could feel the bullet going through the back of your head 'cause you know that guy could kill you in" "half second, and say you never showed up." "Narrator:" "Violence is a fact of life inside the cartels." "Mexican recruits must prove their loyalty by killing." "Eddie:" "Blood in, blood out is when you, you come into an organization, usually you kill somebody or you, you're to prove yourself worthy of being part of the organization, the only way to get out is to blood" "out means you die, you know." "You kill someone coming in, you get killed to go out." "Narrator:" "Eddie's fate is sealed if he betrays the cartel leaders." "Eddie:" "They would pick them up and torture them to see if they, what they knew or said." "If the guy wasn't a snitch or an informant they'd still kill him but they would say well at least he was a good guy." "Narrator:" "Through the 1990s, the cocaine trade wreaks havoc on countries around the world." "Cash from the sale of cocaine finances coups in" "Bolivia, fuels guerrilla wars in Nicaragua and" "Colombia, and threatens the stability of the" "Mexican state as a wave of violence spreads through" "Northern Mexico." "The drug cartels fight each other for control of the cocaine trafficking routes into the US." "The Mexican drug wars cost the lives of 20,000 people who are shot, macheted, or even beheaded, often after being brutally tortured." "In 2006, everything changes when Felipe" "Calderon is elected president of Mexico." "He pledges to defeat the drug cartels responsible for plunging Mexico's northern cities into anarchy." "Calderon dispatches state police and troops to crackdown on the cartels." "The boss of Eddie's cartel," "Eduardo Arellano Felix, is one of the many leaders arrested and imprisoned." "The leadership vacuum left behind sparks a war for control of the drug smuggling routes into the" "US." "Eddie:" "Everybody wanted to be the top dog and because they didn't really have the experience or patience that some of us had, they just started killing everybody." "Narrator:" "The war is brutal, in the three years following Calderon's election another 15,000 people are gunned down." "But the deaths don't deter people from entering the business." "Hundreds of poor Mexicans are eager to step into" "Eddie's shoes and take over his trafficking routes by undermining his position." "As an American working in Mexico, he's under constant suspicion." "Eddie:" "I was the only white guy at my level and every time something happened everybody would look at me first." "Narrator:" "Eddie's partner and friend, accuses him of being an informant, and demands a meeting in Tijuana." "Eddie:" "I wasn't that stupid," "I brought my crew with me, so, he had his crew, you know, armed crew and I had mine too and he didn't want a big blood bath so we just left it at that." "Narrator:" "Eddie realizes it's time to leave Mexico;" "he leaves behind everything he owns and escapes to the US." "Eddie:" "I'm one of the lucky guys that got out." "There's not, there's a lot of guys, there's a whole cemetery, not even a cemetery, there's a whole, you know, fields in Mexico, you know, just full of dead bodies," "unidentified bodies that didn't make it out." "Narrator:" "Despite the on-going violence in" "Mexico, 51 billion dollars worth of cocaine still floods across the border into the US every year." "Narrator:" "The Mexican cartels purchase their cocaine from Colombia where over half of the world's cocaine is produced." "While the cartels earn millions of dollars smuggling cocaine; the peasant farmers who grow the coca plants are lucky to earn enough to survive." "28 year-old Andres Varela is one of the tens of thousands of farmers who grow the Coca that will become cocaine." "Andres Varela:" "In the good times, yes it gave me good monthly return." "You could get a profit of a million pesos ($500), it depended on the harvests." "That was enough for you to pay for clothes, for food, to be able to sustain yourself." "Narrator:" "Andres prefers to grow food crops, but he knows cocaine paste is where the money is." "Andres Varela:" "My father and mother cultivate corn, yucca plants, and other crops, and they couldn't afford to send me to school." "Narrator:" "Colombian farmers sell yucca plants for 40 cents a kilo, but cocaine paste sells for" "$750 per kilo." "More importantly, there's constant global demand for cocaine, unlike corn or yucca." "But growing coca isn't without risk." "Andres is constantly under threat." "Andres Varela:" "The government, regard us as big drug traffickers, big mafia guys." "They regard us as terrorists." "Narrator:" "Every day Colombian special forces enter the jungle looking to eradicate illegal coca fields and arrest farmers." "Eight months ago Andres' farm is raided." "Andres Varela:" "They caught us at about four in the morning, they surrounded the house and laboratory." "They burnt the whole plantation, all the fruits of my labor." "They were going to take me to prison, but they said they wouldn't take me if I handed over everything." "I even had to give them money so that they'd let me go." "Narrator:" "To feed his family of five," "Andres's only option is to replant his coca fields." "Andres Varela:" "The planting takes a lot of work." "It takes between 8 months and a year before it starts to produce leaves." "Narrator:" "Once the fields are planted," "Andres waits for his crop to grow." "After 8 months he returns to harvest the coca plants." "It takes Andres two days to pick his one acre of plants." "He's eager to get back to his family y ." "Andres Varela:" "When I get home, the first thing I feel happy because my daughters welcome me with happiness." "Narrator:" "The next morning Andres walks five miles to the makeshift lab he's built deep in the jungle, hidden from the Colombian army." "Here he turns his coca crop into cocaine paste, the base material from which the drug cocaine is refined." "Only one half of one percent of each coca leaf is cocaine." "So Andres first chops the leaves into smaller pieces." "This makes extracting the cocaine from the rest of the leaf easier." "He breaks down the leaves with an inexpensive mixture of cement powder and liquid fertilizer." "Andres Varela:" "Now I'm going to use liquid fertilizer." "It does the job of softening the leaf." "Narrator:" "He places the softened leaves into a drum and adds gasoline to extract the cocaine." "Andres Varela:" "This is the gasoline that we add here, we'll leave for a few minutes, it will bring out the merchandise (cocaine)." "Narrator:" "After four hours the cocaine is extracted from the leaves and is now infused in the liquid in the drum." "To separate the leaves from the liquid," "Andreas uses a press." "He squeezes out every last drop of the cocaine-infused fluid." "Andres Varela:" "We do a test to see how the yield is going to be." "If this water is very bitter, and numbs the lips, the tongue and the mouth, well, that means we're going to have a good yield." "So I'm going to try it." "It's a little bitter." "Narrator:" "Andres is happy and he sets off on the long journey home." "There he completes the process of producing his cocaine paste." "He adds soda crystals to the liquid mixture which act as a neutralizing agent." "Then he heats it on a stove until all the remaining liquid evaporates." "He then lets the paste dry overnight." "The next morning, the cocaine paste has dried into a crumbly texture." "Andres is eager to discover how much paste he's produced." "Andres Varela:" "I'm hopeful that I will get about 130 or 140 grams out of it." "The yield wasn't very good." "I have 120 grams." "It was not a good yield." "Narrator:" "He'll be lucky if he makes 100,000 Pesos, or about $50, for all this work." "Andres will sell his paste to the Colombian cartels who will turn it into high grade cocaine powder." "Andres never uses cocaine himself but he knows he's an accessory to the global cocaine trade that brings misery to millions of addicts." "Andres Varela:" "For me it's something really hard," "It's very sad." "It's a vice which brings them nothing but death." "But we never do this with a bad intention of making people into addicts." "Narrator:" "Coca farming is the only way Andres can provide a better life for his family." "Andres Varela:" "I would like to give my daughters all the education that they deserve and I would really like them to have a good future." "Narrator:" "For Andres and the other peasant farmers, growing and producing cocaine paste for the international drugs trade is a tough choice." "They receive a mere 5 cents for every gram of cocaine sold on the street." "But growing any other crop only condemns them to poverty." "Narrator:" "The cocaine produced by peasant farmers in Colombia is smuggled across international borders by traffickers." "It's sold on city streets by dealers, and snorted and smoked by 1.9 million Americans." "360,000 of these are hard core crack addicts." "And one of these addicts is 49 year-old "Loco."" "Loco:" "I first started using cocaine when I was like 15." "One day I was down in the basement with my uncle, and I see my uncle doing something, and I got curious and I wanted to know what it was, so I tried it." "I tried it and I liked it, and I've been using it ever since." "Narrator:" "Smoking crack has diminishing returns." "The euphoria delivered by the first hit from a crack pipe is always the greatest." "Then users continue to smoke in an attempt to recapture the impact of that first hit." "Loco:" "Once you get high with the cocaine once, you basically high as you're going to get, that first hit." "What you're doing is chasing that first hit over and over and over and over, which you never, never get." "Narrator:" "Loco smokes at least 10 crack rocks a day." "At $10 a rock his habit costs him a small fortune." "Loco:" "If I get $200 today, I'm gonna spend $200 today, whatever I have, that's what I'm gonna use." "It'll take me four or five hours to smoke that." "Narrator:" "Loco quickly develops a crack addiction and falls in with the notorious Chicago street gang, the Conservative Vice Lords." "Loco:" "I could've been a professional boxer but I choose drugs and gangbanging." "Crack cocaine, it used to make me just want to rob everybody I come across, you know what I mean." "I became very aggressive." "Narrator:" "Powder cocaine users tend to have lucrative jobs that enable them to fund their drug use." "But crack cocaine users are predominantly poor and live in the inner city ." "Many turn to crime to fund their habit s ." "Loco:" "I take what you got, with whatever I had, guns, knife, stick, because if I had it I would use it." "And if you didn't give me what you had you were gonna see I was gonna use it." "And that's the way I kept my habit up." "I've been in the penitentiary six times." "Narrator:" "Loco manages to stop smoking crack just once." "Loco:" "I stopped using cocaine on my own for like 18 months, I didn't have it for 18 months." "That was the best feeling in my life." "My mother passed away and I was going again." "Narrator:" "Loco desperately wants to stop smoking crack but he's in the grip of addiction." "Loco:" "If I could just stop being high today," "I think I'd be the happiest man in the world, but it's not easy." "The future holds nothing for me, death or the penitentiary." "Narrator:" "The United Nations World Drug Report declares there are up to 20 million cocaine users worldwide." "The majority of these users snort cocaine." "People like the drug because it creates intense feelings of pleasure without a loss of control." "Unlike heroin and methamphetamine, powder cocaine users don't fall into a stupor or hallucinate." "When a user snorts a line, it enters the bloodstream through the nasal membrane." "The drug races to the pleasure centers of the brain where it triggers a massive increase in dopamine, the neurotransmitter that signals euphoria." "30 year old Christophe has been chasing this euphoria for the past 15 years." "Christophe:" "I started when I was 13, 14 smoking spliffs, then went on to ecstasy and stuff when the rave party time was on, Er, and then when I, moved on to cocaine quite quickly because, um, it's pretty much my favorite drug." "Narrator:" "Today Christophe works in London in the television industry where cocaine use is rampant." "Christophe:" "We've about 50 or 60 people in my company, I know that more, more than 40 people probably use it, in this industry." "A lot of people like partying, a lot of people like drinking and lot of people like taking drugs, cocaine being one of their favorite ones." "Um, I use a lot of cocaine." "Narrator:" "Christophe goes through 7 grams a week." "Christophe:" "Which is quite a lot, and I think I've reached my, sort of high level of consumption." "Narrator:" "His habit costs over $500 per week." "Christophe:" "It is quite a lot of money, yeah, but I'm lucky I've got quite a good job." "Um, I wouldn't spend that much if I wasn't making that much money, Er, it's a bit of a vicious circle." "Narrator:" "Christophe doesn't see himself as an addict like Loco." "Christophe:" "I think there's two different cultures." "There's, you've got the druggy people that will use cocaine or crack cocaine and then you've got all these other people that have a bit of money," "Er, work every day, Er, are married, have got kids, they've got kids, they've got, they've got sort of a normal life." "Narrator:" "He believes his use of cocaine is no different than drinking beer." "Christophe:" "It's like going to the pub at some point." "You'll have a beer." "Or you'll have a couple of beers, you'll have a line of coke, you'll have another beer, then another line of coke, and then you go home, and go to bed and wake up at" "7.00 in the morning and go back to work." "Narrator:" "But he wants to stop taking the drug to concentrate on bringing up his young family." "Christophe:" "I've got two kids, they're growing older, and they notice things, whereas before, I mean, it was, it was easy," "I could be on coke and still doing stuff." "But I don't want them to notice it." "Narrator:" "Giving up cocaine may be harder than he thinks." "New research shows cocaine addiction grips snorters just as tightly as crack smokers." "Narrator: 25% of Americans who have used cocaine in the past year will develop a problem." "Some will end up in prison." "Many will seek help for addiction." "At the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, a set of remarkable experiments is being conducted to discover the true nature of cocaine addiction." "Mexican-born Professor Nora Volkow is one of" "America's leading specialists on drug addiction." "She's on a personal mission to understand the cause of addiction, driven by memories of her alcoholic uncle." "Nora Volkow :" "My uncle, who I loved dearly, was an alcoholic." "And, and to me it was very painful to see this man who I adored, basically be rejected by the system." "Narrator:" "As late as the 1980s many scientists and politicians believed cocaine was non-addictive." "Professor Volkow believes they're wrong." "Nora Volkow:" "Take a group of animals give them free availability on one side heroin, and in another group give them free availability of cocaine." "Investigators did that and then one month later they came and they went and I look at the animals that" "were given free availability of heroin, which no-one will doubt, is a very addictive drug, and they were happily over there." "The group of the cocaine animals, they were all dead." "They had actually compulsively taken cocaine to the extreme that none of them survived." "Narrator:" "Professor Volkow uses a PET scanner to take pictures of human brains under the influence of cocaine." "Nora Volkow:" "What we're trying to do is use imaging to help us identify the areas of the brain and proteins in the brain that get disrupted by the use of drugs in people that lose control of their drug intake and at the expense of," "of basically everything else in their life." "Narrator:" "Her images show cocaine changes the brain's structure." "Nora Volkow:" "Repeated exposure produces changes on the way that the brain gets connected and functions that result in pathological behavior, and that's why it's called a disease." "Narrator:" "Professor Volkow scans hundreds of users and ex-users." "While scanning ex-users she notices an irregularity, whenever they discuss cocaine, their dopamine levels rise." "At first she doesn't understand why." "Then, it hits her." "Nora Volkow:" "You could make a case that people become addicted to the lifestyle, because their brain has started to respond to the lifestyle and that is their environment, their friends, their situations." "Narrator:" "Her team sets up an experiment to test the theory." "Volunteers are placed in a PET scanner, and shown images of people preparing and snorting lines of cocaine." "Incredibly, the images alone significantly increase the dopamine levels in the brains of users." "Nora Volkow:" "When we expose them with stimuli that have been linked with drugs, what we observe is that a significant increase in dopamine signaling in those areas of the brain that drives the motivation of your behavior." "Narrator:" "Dr. Volkow's research is revolutionary, it shows cocaine is so addictive that simply showing images of its use is enough to increase their dopamine levels and lead them into relapse." "Nora Volkow:" "People can go to a detoxification program, they do very well, they go out into the neighborhoods where they are used to taking the drug and they relapse." "And they relapse exactly because of these effects on the memory systems." "So they say, I'm not going to take the drug," "I'm not going to, I'm not going to," "I'm not going to, I'm not going to and before they even realize it, the drug is already in their mouths, or they're smoking it." "Narrator:" "Law enforcement treats cocaine users as criminals rather than people suffering from a disease." "Over the past ten years, the government has repeatedly slashed funding for drug rehabilitation programs and increased funding for prisons." "The result: a million Americans are imprisoned on drug related charges, costing the American taxpayer $12.5 billion a year." "Prof Volkow believes the government's approach of criminalizing and imprisoning drug users without proper treatment is misguided." "Nora Volkow:" "When you just take a person that's addicted and push them in jail and you don't give them treatment, you can guarantee that that person will relapse within a few weeks of actually leaving, the jail, no matter how long they've been there." "With no drug exposure, if you don't treat they will immediately relapse for drug taking." "But very importantly, they'll end up re-incarcerated pretty soon." "Narrator:" "Statistics support her claim, 40% of cocaine convicts and 77% of crack convicts are re-offenders." "Cop:" "Police." "Search warrant!" "Narrator:" "For the past 25 years, governments around the world have been fighting a war against cocaine." "In Colombia, the American government is financing an eradication operation to reduce cocaine production in the country by 50%." "These special forces are preparing to destroy a cocaine laboratory." "Major Quiroga leads the mission." "Major Quiroga:" "The mission we're going to carry out today is to destroy a laboratory, which processes cocaine." "These laboratories in this area of the country, they could be producing around 500 to 600 kilos per week." "Narrator:" "Major Quiroga is well aware of how dangerous these daily missions can be." "The Colombian cartels gun down 400 of his colleagues every year to protect their cocaine profits." "Each man is fully armed and wears body armor." "Carrying crates of explosives, the commandos lift off from their base in" "Mariquita and fly 45 miles north to the eastern banks of the Rio Magdalena." "Cartels go to great lengths to hide their activities." "The commandos march deep into the dense jungle to find the illegal laboratories." "The ground troops are provided air cover by a chopper that constantly searches for signs of armed resistance." "After marching through the jungle for an hour," "Quiroga's men discover discarded barrels of toxic waste, evidence that the cartels are working nearby." "Major Quiroga calls in the chopper for backup in case they're ambushed." "The men proceed on high alert." "Quiroga's commandos follow a trail of discarded equipment leading them to a recently abandoned lab." "The cartel's men have fled without a fight." "Major Quiroga:" "This still is for cooking the drugs." "They make blocks of roughly a kilo and they put them in the microwaves to dry." "A medium sized lab with a good production, around 400 to 500 kilograms per week." "Narrator:" "The commandos rig the entire laboratory with explosives." "Once airborne, they blow up the lab." "One victory in the ongoing war against the cartels." "Major Quiroga:" "It was a successful mission, we are able to destroy their installations." "it will be a great loss for them." "Narrator:" "Since 2000 the US Government has poured" "$5 billion into eradication missions, but to little effect." "The amount of cocaine manufactured in Colombia is the same today as it was a decade ago." "The majority of this cocaine is smuggled into" "America." "50 American law enforcement agencies are engaged in the war on drugs." "And Austin, Texas is one of the main battlegrounds." "Greg Thrash:" "Austin sits in a perfect spot to be used by the Mexican cartels as a, what we consider a transit hub." "Narrator: 4 hours from the border and with a hub of highways going across the country," "Austin has long been a base of operations for the cocaine cartels." "Greg Thrash has witnessed a marked change in the tactics adopted by the Mexican cocaine traffickers at the border." "Instead of shipping large loads across the country, they are forced to ship smaller units due to the success of the DEA and Border Patrol." "But with the huge number of cars crossing the border and coming into Austin, law enforcement knows it has no hope of stopping every shipment." "Greg Thrash:" "All we, we as law enforcement can essentially do is contain the situation." "Contain the, the problem." "Narrator:" "But even containing the cocaine problem is an uphill battle." "Not only have the cartels divided their shipments between hundreds of traffickers, they now employ thousands of dealers to sell their product." "Greg Thrash:" "We have multiple agencies, Er, assigned to the DEA here, full time, that do nothing but coordinate efforts, bring resources together and Er, and target and attack the infrastructure of these cartels that are operating in the Austin area." "Narrator:" "Greg Thrash dispatches a unit in the middle of the night following a tip-off about the location of a crack dealer." "They approach the house, guns drawn, ready for anything." "Cop:" "Police." "Search warrant!" "Narrator:" "After smashing open the front door the cops quickly overpower the suspects." "They search every room, but there's no sign of any cocaine." "Then, one of the cops finds a strongbox." "He uses a crow bar to force it open." "Inside is a package of cocaine." "Cop:" "Watch yourself, bro." "Sgt. Jesse Lopez:" "In the search process we came up with approximately 4 ounces of cocaine and almost $1900 in cash and some, some, a few grams of marijuana, that's what we got out of the bust." "It was, Er, what I would term successful, Er, these are the type of operations that my unit does day in and day out." "Cop:" "So we're at four and a half right now." "So 4.8, I've already taken the weight of the lid out, so it's 4.8, so that will be a first degree felony." "Narrator:" "Last year, American cops arrested approximately 1.8 million people on drug charges." "That's one arrest every 20 seconds." "But no matter how many dealers are arrested, there's always someone else eager to take their place." "Greg Thrash:" "I don't think we'll ever eradicate the problem of drug trafficking and drug abuse." "Where there is a demand there will be a supply." "We're actually being invaded, by an army of ants trafficking cocaine." "Narrator:" "Today more cocaine enters the US than ever before." "And an army of dealers is selling it to America's 7 million users." "The vast profits made from cocaine will continue to finance Drugs, Inc." "for the foreseeable future."