The 2000 Film Traffic Addresses Thesis

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For much of the movie, Robert Wakefield is the main antagonist. Wakefield represents the American government's complicity in perpetuating an outmoded political policy. Thus, Traffic portrays the American government's War on Drugs as being antithetical to American values. Wakefield is initially blind to his daughter's plight, and is depicted as being too career-driven and closed-minded to notice that the War on Drugs is a war on his family and his country. However, Wakefield does wake up. At the end of the movie he perceives the connection between his actions as Drug Czar and the supply chain his daughter has access to. Wakefield's awakening is Soderbergh's call to America to end the War on Drugs policy.

Traffic ends on a note of optimism while also leaving the War on Drugs unresolved. Soderbergh seems aware that United States drug policy will not change any time soon. The film also offers a scathing critique of the way foreign governments become entangled with organized crime: to the point where the two become indistinguishable as with Salazar and the Obregon brothers. Soderbergh does not venture a suggestion on how to tackle Mexico's problems. However, the filmmaker does strongly imply that government officials in the United States become more aware of the ramifications of the War on Drugs. If politicians and policy makers act as Wakefield does at the end of Traffic, then it might be possible to change policy toward a more meaningful eradication of organized crime. The current policies create a lucrative black market economy that is especially seductive in poor countries like Mexico. Income disparity and the lack of upward social mobility entices poor people to become involved in the drug trade, just as street-level traders in American urban gangs are drawn to drug trading too. Decriminalization of drugs would essentially drive out the black market, minimizing the need for guns, gangs, and attendant violence.

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Obliterating the War on Drugs will not end the core problems associated with drug use and abuse, and nor will a shift in policy eliminate organized crime. However, Traffic does show that the War on Drugs is a failed policy. Addiction is treated with care in the movie, shown to be something that does not just affect inner city youth and minorities but also wealthy white people. Moreover, addiction occurs in spite of the prohibition on drugs. The legal status of a substance does not make it any less accessible, and as Cafferty points out, drugs are overwhelmingly accessible despite their illegality. Alcohol abuse is a serious problem in the United States, too, but the prohibition on alcohol was a proven failure.

Soderbergh comes short of suggesting outright that drugs should be decriminalized. Traffic is an exposition of the current state of affairs with the War on Drugs, and a critique of American drug policy. The film also criticizes the corruption endemic in foreign governments, and the insidious nature of organized crime. Soderbergh shows that the drug trade and the War on Drugs sets off a chain reaction that impacts the lives of those who never go near narcotics. Traffic does not even address the overburdening of the criminal justice system because of the War on Drugs, although he well could have. The narrative structure of the movie is ideal for showing how the War on Drugs is a social problem that transcends national, cultural, and economic class boundaries.

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