Cocaine Cowboys

The movie Cocaine Cowboys starts as a documentary type-film that soon turns into a first hand account of how a number of people started and continued their business in the illegal drug business.  Most of the men started out in the 60’s and 70’s with marijuana and then in the 80’s continued to buy and sell cocaine from Cuba.  The men used Miami as their main hub, keeping the drugs and money separate, always travel south with the drugs vs north to avoid being checked at a checkpoint.  Instead they would fly the goods north and then drive them south, to avoid this particular chance of being checked.  


Once everyone was introduced in the movie they introduce Griselda, whom we soon find out is a heartless woman.  She is a drug-lord, who shows no mercy, even when it comes to children.  If she does not get her money or someone makes her mad she believes that they should suffer, and anyone who is associated with them.   Even if it is not by choice.  There was said to be involvement of the governement which never came to talk in the film although according to National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 2, this was the case.  
      ”Oliver North, who met with Noriega’s representative, described the meeting in an August 23, 1986         e-mail message to Reagan national security advisor John Poindexter. “You will recall that over the years   Manuel Noriega in Panama and I have developed a fairly good relationship,” North writes before   explaining Noriega’s proposal. If U.S. officials can “help clean up his image” and lift the ban on arms  sales to the Panamanian Defense Force, Noriega will “‘take care of’ the Sandinista leadership for us.””  This is just one of the many different excerpt out of the archives that prove that the government had some involvement with illegal drug traffikation.  The drug trafiking had an astonishing impact on the economy, which was in recession at the time.  


The money which was seized from all of the drug busts and sting operations by the local government officials helped build the skyscrapers that one may find today. The local officials were not always trustworthy down in Miami, it had been easy to bribe them and at one point in time the government officials also had to start over, the same way the economy did.   The movie shows that Miama has not always been a place to go for fun in the sun, that in the past it was dangerous to live, bad things did happen there and people including government officials were corrupt.