The war on drugs has been going on for more than three decades. Today, nearly 500,000 Americans are imprisoned on drug charges. In 1980 the number was 50,000. Last year $40 billion in taxpayer dollars were spent in fighting the war on drugs. As a result of the incarceration obsession, the United States operates the largest prison system on the planet. Today, 89 percent of police departments have paramilitary units, and 46 percent have been trained by active duty armed forces. The most common use of paramilitary units is serving drug-related search warrants, which usually involve no-knock entries into private homes.

The war on drugs has been going on for more than three decades. Today, nearly 500,000 Americans are imprisoned on drug charges. In 1980 the number was 50,000. Last year $40 billion in taxpayer dollars were spent in fighting the war on drugs. As a result of the incarceration obsession, the United States operates the largest prison system on the planet. Today, 89 percent of police departments have paramilitary units, and 46 percent have been trained by active duty armed forces. The most common use of paramilitary units is serving drug-related search warrants, which usually involve no-knock entries into private homes.
1999-10-07
5.2
7.5In the past 40 years, the War on Drugs has accounted for 45 million arrests, made America the world's largest jailer, and destroyed impoverished communities at home and abroad. Yet drugs are cheaper, purer, and more available today than ever. Where did we go wrong?
7.1Ten easy steps show you how to make money from drugs, featuring a series of interviews with drug dealers, prison employees, and lobbyists arguing for tougher drug laws.
6.8Deep Web gives the inside story of one of the most important and riveting digital crime sagas of the century -- the arrest of Ross William Ulbricht, the 30-year-old entrepreneur convicted of being 'Dread Pirate Roberts,' creator and operator of online black market Silk Road. As the only film with exclusive access to the Ulbricht family, Deep Web explores how the brightest minds and thought leaders behind the Deep Web and Bitcoin are now caught in the crosshairs of the battle for control of a future inextricably linked to technology, with our digital rights hanging in the balance.
6.7Weed. Marijuana. Grass. Pot. Whatever you prefer to call it, America’s relationship with cannabis is a complicated one. In his directorial debut, hip hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy presents an unparalleled look at the racially biased history of the war on marijuana. A range of celebrities and experts discuss the plant’s influence on music and popular culture, and the devastating impact its criminalization has had on Black and Latino communities. As more and more states join the push to legalize marijuana, this documentary dives deep into the glaring racial disparities in the growing cannabis market.
6.3A young confidential informant is sent on a dangerous undercover operation. It's a no-holds-barred look at the vulnerable foot soldiers of the War on Drugs, young criminals who are pressured to work for the police.
6.2Hondo Harrelson recruits Jim Street to join an elite unit of the Los Angeles Police Department. Together they seek out more members, including tough Deke Kay and single mom Chris Sanchez. The team's first big assignment is to escort crime boss Alex Montel to prison. It seems routine, but when Montel offers a huge reward to anyone who can break him free, criminals of various stripes step up for the prize.
6.9Incarcerated men defy the odds to expose a cover-up in one of America’s deadliest prison systems.
6.2Ex heroin junkie, Daniel Léger, gets involved in a drug deal with the wrong people for the wrong reasons. When the deal goes sour, Daniel gets thrown into a Thai prison and slapped with a 100-year sentence. While he tries to survive his Bangkok incarceration, the news of his conviction captures the attention of Globe and Mail journalist Victor Malarek, who decides to go after the shady undercover cops responsible for wrongly accusing Daniel.
6.4After capturing the notorious drug lord Franz Sanchez, Bond's close friend and former CIA agent Felix Leiter is left for dead and his wife is murdered. Bond goes rogue and seeks vengeance on those responsible, as he infiltrates Sanchez's organization from the inside.
6.2Unravel the case of Utah therapist Jodi Hildebrandt, whose child abuse arrest with parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke exposed a twisted tale of manipulation.
7.4The Culture High tears into the very fibre of the modern day marijuana debate to reveal the truth behind the arguments and motives governing both those who support and oppose the existing pot laws.
6.2Canadian policeman Louis Burke is assigned in a jail to investigate the murders of prisoners and jailors. While there, Louis, using his outstanding martial arts skills, is able to save his life and make himself respected in this violent world.
6.1Lee Ray Oliver, a death row inmate, is given a second chance at life if he agrees to undergo a new chemical treatment used to modify behavior.
6.4When a mafia accountant is taken hostage on his beat, a police officer – wracked by guilt from a prior stint as a negotiator – must negotiate the standoff, even as his own family is held captive by the mob.
7.3Serving life in prison for murdering their parents, Lyle and Erik Menendez speak out in this documentary explaining the shocking crime and ensuing trials.
6.8Errol Morris examines the incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorists at the hands of U.S. forces at the Abu Ghraib prison.
6.9Follows the largest prison uprising in US history, conducting dozens of new interviews with inmates, journalists, and other witnesses.
7.1When a young soldier, newly returned from war, gets caught up in a drug bust, he is recruited by the authorities to go undercover in a notoriously dangerous prison in order to figure out what is really going on.
7.0As a teenager in the '90s, Soleil Moon Frye carried a video camera everywhere she went. She documented hundreds of hours of footage and then locked it away for over 20 years.
0.0Trevor McDonald goes to Rockville Correctional Facility in Indiana to speak with some of the women that live there.
Retrospective documentary on the making of the low-budget horror film Prison (1987)
5.7Four-time Emmy winner John Kastner was granted unprecedented access to the Brockville facility for 18 months, allowing 46 patients and 75 staff to share their experiences with stunning frankness. The result is two remarkable documentaries: the first, NCR: Not Criminally Responsible, premiered at Hot Docs in the spring of 2013 and follows the story of a violent patient released into the community. The second film, Out of Mind, Out of Sight, returns to the Brockville Mental Health Centre to profile four patients, two men and two women, as they struggle to gain control over their lives so they can return to a society that often fears and demonizes them.
6.8A poetic look at the life and legacy of legendary author Philip K. Dick (1928-1982), who wrote over a hundred short stories and 44 novels of mind-bending sci-fi, exploring themes of authority, drugs, theology, mental illness and much more.
0.0An ex mobster reflects on love and loss after spending 32 years in prison.
6.7Is the story of a generation of thieves who achieved their greatest victories in the sixties; their distinctive code of ethics, the various categories of delinquents inhabiting the citys streets, their alliances with high ranking police officials that allowed them to operate, the betrayals that followed, and the price they ended up paying.
7.4On August 7th 1974, French tightrope walker Philippe Petit stepped out on a high wire, illegally rigged between New York's World Trade Center twin towers, then the world's tallest buildings. After nearly an hour of performing on the wire, 1,350 feet above the sidewalks of Manhattan, he was arrested. This fun and spellbinding documentary chronicles Philippe Petit's "highest" achievement.
0.0A journey around Norway to seek out regular drug users of the country and tell their untold stories about drug use and discrimination.
7.3Rosa is a Mexican woman who, at the age of 17, migrated illegally to Austin, Texas. Some years later, she was jailed under suspicion of murder and then taken to trial. This film demonstrates how the judicial process, the verdict, the separation from her family, and the helplessness of being imprisoned in a foreign country make Rosa’s story an example of the hard life of Mexican migrants in the United States.
6.0A look at the prison breakout of Richard Matt and David Sweat from Clinton Correctional facility, as well as a look back at some of the most daring and ingenious prison breaks in American history.
6.6Marijuana is the most controversial drug of the 20th Century. Smoked by generations to little discernible ill effect, it continues to be reviled by many governments on Earth. In this Genie Award-winning documentary veteran Canadian director Ron Mann and narrator Woody Harrelson mix humour and historical footage together to recount how the United States has demonized a relatively harmless drug.
5.8Out of State is the unlikely story of native Hawaiians men discovering their native culture as prisoners in the desert of Arizona, 3,000 miles, and across the ocean, from their island home.
5.9The Stanford prison experiment was a landmark psychological study of the human response to captivity, in particular, to the real world circumstances of prison life, and the effects of imposed social roles on behaviour. It was conducted in 1971 by a team of researchers led by Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University.
6.8The Rastreadoras de El Fuerte are a group of mothers of disappeared persons in northern Sinaloa who, in the absence of the authorities, twice a week go out with picks and shovels in search of the remains of their children; a testimony of the abandonment of the State, the aggressions of the drug traffickers, the indifference of society and the pain, but also of the strength and courage that keep these women together, and of their empowerment to mobilize society in community organization.
9.3Three boys, they all committed murder. After discovering their haunting faces and disturbing stories in a banned prison documentary from 1984, the filmmaker goes out to find them and discovers untold secrets and a Hungary he has never known.
7.4The Culture High tears into the very fibre of the modern day marijuana debate to reveal the truth behind the arguments and motives governing both those who support and oppose the existing pot laws.
0.0Maya is Ayaibex's daughter, an addict in recovery that feels a blame for damages that caused her daughter, Maya decides to remember her mother's childhood experiences in her world of addiction to seek the redemption of the weight that her mother has loaded for 20 years and get both to forgiveness.
10.0The documentary depicts the remarkable phenomenon of the national competition Kalina Krasnaya, organised with a flourish in which the convicts from all over Russia sing their way to victory with songs about longing, war, love and forgiveness.
7.5In June 2001, hundreds of kilos of cocaine washed up in a Portuguese village. This gripping documentary reveals the long-lasting impact on the community.