"Frontline: Drug Wars": Running over two nights (9 p.m...

October 09, 2000|By Steve Johnson, Tribune Television Critic.

"Frontline: Drug Wars": Running over two nights (9 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, WTTW-Ch. 11), this four-hour documentary tells the story of American drug policy, beginning with President Nixon's treatment emphasis and following its devolution to our current mandatory-minimum-sentencing, slap-up-the-prisons, pretend-we-don't-have-porous-borders muddle.

As policy tales go, it is fascinating, involvingmachine guns, Studio 54, small airplanes flying by night, and members of the Medellin cartel, some of whom are interviewed here for the first time. Reporter Lowell Bergman (of "60 Minutes" and "The Insider" fame) hasn't crafted the story as an advocacy piece, but his accumulation of facts guides it that way nonetheless, as some of the staunchest drug warriors argue that more emphasis on treatment is needed, something that won't happen until politicians develop the backbone that Richard Nixon had.

The story follows the drug trail to staging points like Colombia, Mexico and the Bahamas, and it traces the rise and fall of specific drugs in the United States, from marijuana to cocaine to crack. A concurrent series on the topic runs on NPR's "All Things Considered" this week.

Elsewhere Monday, Peter Jennings turns in another of his usually solid "Peter Jennings Reporting" documentaries (7 p.m., WLS-Ch. 7), this time on guns.