<br /><div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Cocaine Cowboys</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> is a 2006 documentary directed by Billy Corben that chronicles the rise of the cocaine drug trade in the 1970s and 80s. The filmmakers focus on the parts that Jon Roberts, Mickey Munday, and Jorge “Rivi” Ayala played in the cocaine business that completely dominated Miami for almost an entire decade. It boosted Miami’s economy and allowed it to survive a nation wide recession. That was until the law enforcement in Miami finally had the resources to shut the cocaine trade down. And Miami suffered for it. How did it get to that point? Paul Gootenberg discusses it in his article. How did the United States make it worse trying to combat the cocaine trade? Coletta Youngers discusses it in her article.</span></div><div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The drug trade has been a part of Latin America for most of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, according to Gootenberg. The center of production of the drugs shift from country to country as the century wore on. For example: “Peruvian prospects dampened by the 1920s, when it sold a mere 500-1,000 kilos per annum, at plummeted prices, mainly to Germany or France.” (138) By the 1970s the cocaine center of Latin America turned to Colombia:</span></div><div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">By the late 1960s, airport arrests show opportunistic Argentines tapping drug flights to Miami and Europe. Argentina's post-1966 military regimes dampened this trade, and, like other South American mules, their role was taken up by Colombians after 1970. (156)</span></div><div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">When that happened the southern coast of Florida was flooded with cocaine, and Miami’s economy became driven by it: “This much is known though: fed by spiraling crises, cocaine was to be the Andean boom industry of the late twentieth century.” (176)</span></div><div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle"><br /></div><div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">According to Youngers: “Drug trafficking in the Andes breeds criminality, exacerbates political violence, and hence greatly increases problems of citizen security.” (126) Once the traffickers reached the shores of the U.S., and it became a nationwide problem, the U.S. government decided to declare war on drugs. So naturally the U.S. took the war to the source: “The U.S. government’s war on drugs clearly hinders efforts to put civilian-military relations on a new footing and as such constitutes an obstacle to the strengthening and deepening of democratic governance in the Andes.” (127) This pretty much halted advancement of democracy in the region:</span></div><div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In Colombia, billions of dollars in U.S. counterdrug assistance are fueling the region’s only significant counterinsurgency war, hence exacerbating the most serious human rights crisis in the hemisphere. (145)</span></div><div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">This quickly back lashed against the trade in Miami, and the local and federal law enforcement almost entirely shut it down. Except for Mickey Munday, who was a fugitive for six years. BAMF.</span></div><div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oZKRlfWaWIM/TaJGZgG9TzI/AAAAAAAAABY/sQ4djSSPs64/s1600/comradejd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="271" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oZKRlfWaWIM/TaJGZgG9TzI/AAAAAAAAABY/sQ4djSSPs64/s400/comradejd.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">BI-WINNING!!!!!</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1378570525637450649-4720476447463991841?l=dcaldwellhistory475.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>