The War on Drugs in the Film The House I Live in by Eugene Jarecki

The war on drugs: reality or fiction? Properly, it depends on how you look at it. According to the film, “The Property I Reside In,”directed by Eugene Jarecki, the war on drugs is an overblown scare tactic that has historically not targeted the United States’ drug issue across an equal demographic. Clear imbalances in drug statistics and misconception grow prominent all through the film when tracing the backgrounds of men and women whose lives drugs impacted.

In this film, Jarecki finds inspiration from his childhood caretaker, Nannie Jeter, to look into America’s history of drug use and illegalization measures. He gained this itch for information upon asking Nannie Jeter what she believes brought on her household struggles and locating her answer to be drugs. Via a series of interviews of experts and citizen of the United States, Jarecki uncovers a nasty history of hidden, discriminatory drug policies that have been aimed at targeting certain racial and ethnic groups. He implements the use of statistics in addition to his use of private recollection to show the stark inequivalence amongst the percentage of individuals making use of drugs (individuals from all facets of life) and the individuals that are imprisoned (often the poor and ethnic minorities.) Simply because he derives details from a wide range of sources and mediums, he portrays a lack of bias. If he had been to only interview a select group of specific people, the impact of his documentary might have fell quick, reaching and relating to only a choose few. Even so, he chose to present his stance that could effectively appeal to a wide audience.

Nannie Jeter’s family’s life was made tough by not only drugs, but also the racist intentions behind them. Even though drug abuse in the United States is still a prevalent concern, declaring drug use a war produced a unfavorable association: racial and ethnic groups endure targeting primarily based on the false presumption that they are the main drug abusers. Jarecki’s documentary compels the men and women of the United States of America to appear via the shadows to see what the war on drugs is genuinely about.