Review of The House I Live In (2012) by Stephen C — 10 Sep 2013

Forget waht you think you know about Americas war on drugs,This documantary shows how that war has become a skewed one with the nations jails filling up with more and more people and the law enforcers losing faith in there own system.

Director Eugene Jarecki begins his story with Richard Nixon pushing through tough laws to control drug use in America.

What is not widely know and that the film revals is that Nixon also spend a huge amount of money on the treatment of drug abuse and how later presidents cut back on this part of the deal in order to focus on the war.

Jarecki shows that if your poor or a memeber of a miniority you have greater chance of going to prison for drug offences than someone who is well off.

We see prisoners being given life sentences for carrying a small bag of Crystal meth and how there lives and the lives of their families aredestroyed by such harsh sentencing.

Jarecki shows that with a father in prison or absent that the sons and daughters are doomed to follow the same path and with over 45 million addicts imprisoned since the start of the war on drugs its a fairly bleak and crowded path.

The film reaches some shocking conclusions including the fact that many prison wardens and policemen see there role as essentially self defeating and who they feel a more compassionate approach is required in the country is to solve its drug crime problem.

The whole drug war has been fuelled by paranoia and fear and this film seeks to destroy the myths surrounding that war are in the end try to change for the better.

A film which offers great insight into a very thorny subject.