How to Make Money Selling Drugs Page #10

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is addicted to that funding.

You know, the worst thing

about this drug war,

it just ruined this job.

You know I began

as a police reporter,

somebody very sympathetic

to good police work,

and I still am sympathetic

to good police work.

But I have no regard

for the drug war anymore.

If you're a fan of

the HBO series The Wire,

you see this emphasized

over and over again,

that it's all about

statistics and numbers.

Radley Balko is a journalist

who spent years

studying the effects that federal drug

money has had on law enforcement.

You need to make as many

drug arrests as possible,

seize as many drugs as possible,

and that's how you get your grant

in the federal government.

If you're running

a police department,

you don't get massive grant money

for solving murder cases,

or rapes, or theft.

Your only major financial incentive

is to solve drug crimes,

and if you don't make the same

drug arrests as last year,

you won't get

the same budgets this year.

And yet, all you're doing is

making meaningless street arrests

that have no consequence.

You are just harvesting stats.

This incentivizes police departments

to set up specialized SWAT teams

so police can conduct

more drug raids.

And the U.S. government will provide

money for SWAT equipment as well.

No-knock raids are some of the

most cruel, horrible tragedies

a human can go through

because it's so terrifying.

I raided over 100 houses

in my law enforcement career.

There'd be 15 of us

in all this riot gear,

and the biggest, fanciest

guns we could get.

I was always the guy

who kicked the door in,

'cause I was

the most aggressive one.

And we threw flash grenades in

the window to confuse everybody.

The one that really

stands out in my mind was,

I remember a blonde-headed

girl with blue eyes,

like my daughter's,

and it almost seems like it

was one of my daughters now.

And uh, she had a brother,

and they were so scared.

Don't move, you understand?

Did you shoot my dog?

Did you shoot my f***ing dog?

Why did you do that?

And we ripped that family

apart for a bag of pot?

Sometimes people feed

them wrong information,

sometimes it's just an accident,

where they read,

instead of "863" they read "868"

and they go into the wrong room.

And when they got to the house of

the former marine, Jose Guerena,

he had already been alerted by his

wife that someone was outside,

so he grabbed his rifle.

But before Guerena could remove

the safety from his rifle,

he was greeted by more than 60

bullets from law enforcement.

The SWAT team refused to let

anyone attend to Guerena,

leaving no hope

for him to survive.

We've raised a generation

of cops in Baltimore

who can make a drug arrest,

but can't do police work.

You don't know

how to use an informant

and not be used by an informant.

You don't know how to write

an intelligent search warrant,

you don't know how to retroactively

investigate a crime,

you don't understand

how to maintain a crime scene.

All the things that count

as quality police work,

that's a direct consequence of the

drug war that nobody thought about.

In the 1980s, there were about

3,000 SWAT raids a year.

Today, that number is estimated at

around 50,000 SWAT raids a year.

Most serving warrants on

non-violent drug offenders.

These raids gone wrong

are actually pretty common.

They happen, by my estimate, a few

times a week, across the country.

92-year-old Katherine Joneston was killed

when narcotics officers knocked down

the door at her home on Neal Street,

and then opened fire.

Earlier this week

a 68-year-old grandfather of 12 was killed

in his home in Framingham, Massachusetts.

While drug war money has financed

an unprecedented expansion

of U.S. law enforcement,

the bulk of drug money has continued

to flow outside U.S. borders

and into the pockets

of true masters of the game.

As a cartel drug lord, your biggest problem

is going to be counting your money.

But you'll have a few guys

hired to do that.

And a few more guys to count your mansions,

houses, planes, boats, luxury cars,

and all the material possessions

you could possibly dream of.

Like all the kings

and emperors before you,

you too will have

your very own army.

Driving around in custom made tanks designed

by top military equipment engineers.

If you are a mexican cartel lord

and too many of your men

find themselves in prison,

you just send a couple hundred of your best

guys down there and get them out of jail.

The guards won't stop you.

Anyone you perceive as being a

threat, you send a message.

You chop off people's heads.

You roll those heads

into nightclubs

or pile them up and hang their bodies from

bridges to keep your competition in line.

As a cartel drug lord, you kill

anybody who gets in your way,

literally gunning down civilians,

as long as you hit your target.

You'll be so used to killing,

nothing will faze you anymore.

Since 2006, over 50,000 people have

been murdered in Mexico's war on drugs.

Most of those cases

remain unsolved.

Not because you're careful

about covering up your crimes,

but because you terrify

the police.

What happens when you as a public

official, or a police chief,

receive an envelope with

photographs of your family?

It won't take you long

either to resign,

or to go along with their wishes.

The drug cartels have more money and

more guns than the police do.

In a lot of ways, that

doesn't make any difference

because the police

are on their payrolls,

but where they're not, they can

literally outgun the police.

To run a global company,

you need operatives

all over the world.

An international work force

rivaling any other Fortune 500.

So where do you find

your employees?

Like business school does

for our corporate leaders,

jails are like

the ultimate job fair

for gangs, dealers, hitmen,

and other criminals for hire.

We was in there beating

people up, robbing people.

I almost killed a guy. I beat him

so bad that I almost killed him.

You know, tensions

are high at all times.

If it's not between

the Bloods and Crips,

it might be between

the blacks and Latinos,

or might be between

the prison guards and inmates.

80% of the guys in there don't

have a high school diploma,

and grew up in a single parent home.

So if you have no one

to show you what manhood is,

you'll be just like

the sharks just out there,

only the strongest survive.

From 1920 to 1970 the rate of incarceration

in the United States was level.

From the depression, World

War II, the postwar boom,

through the '50s,

through the '60s,

the rate of incarceration

was level.

Public enemy number one

is drug abuse.

In 1970, the rate of

incarceration starts going up.

And it has not stopped

going up for a half century.

Only 5% of the world is American.

But today, America has 25%

of the world's prisoners.

The United States of America,

the land of the free,

leads the world in the

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