Last night, I watched The Mule, the drug-war movie on Netflix that was produced and directed by Clint Eastwood. It was the second time I’ve seen the movie.
Eastwood also stars in the movie. He plays an elderly drug transporter for a drug cartel, which in drug-war parlance is called a “mule.”
As with many drug-war movies, you can’t help but like and sympathize with Eastwood. Every time he is close to being busted by the DEA and local law enforcement, the natural tendency is to root for Eastwood and not the cops.
Why does Eastwood risk getting caught and being sent to jail? Money! He needs it bad. His home is being foreclosed upon and he is barely surviving. Accepting the job as a drug mule not only provides him with money, it provides him with big money, enough to save his home and live a lavish lifestyle.
The movie demonstrates why the drug war will never be won. As officials crack down, they reduce the supply of drugs. The reduced supply causes prices to increase. The increase in prices and profits attract regular people who realize that they can score big and probably not get caught.
Now, I’m sure that there are drug warriors who would respond, “Jacob, that’s just in the movies. That sort of thing doesn’t happen in real life.”
Oh, but they would be sorely wrong, as Yerlina Lantigua Hernandez DeNova, a permanent resident of the United States, would attest. According to the website of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in 2021 she was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport after arriving on a flight from the Dominican Republic. Officials found cocaine pellets in her purse and her bra. She also confessed that she had inserted such pellets in her vagina and anally.
The total weight of the cocaine seized from Hernandez was 3 pounds, with an estimated street value of close to $100,000. Naturally, they charged her with federal narcotics-related felonies.
How many other people are doing this sort of thing? That’s, of course, impossible to say. But I’d estimate lots. And I’d also estimate that only a small number of them ever get caught.
It’s just another reason why we should end this evil, immoral, destructive, and racially bigoted government program. They can’t win the war on drugs no matter what they do. All they end up doing is tempting regular people into the drug trade, only to have their lives destroyed with a felony prosecution, conviction, and incarceration.
I won’t tell you what happens to Clint Eastwood in The Mule.
Reprinted with permission from The Future of Freedom Foundation.
