It is fascinating to see modern problems being framed through the lens of mythology. In the tele-series "Narcos" a drug lord invokes the patron god of the Mexica tribe to explain the war of succession in his smuggling cartel, "Even Huitzilopochtli had to kill his brothers to sustain the sun, and to save the world from darkness".
Much has been written about this tele-series but I found the first part (on Escobar and the Medellin Cartel) a lot better than the sequels. The story moves a good pace, and its fascinating to see how a petty smuggler of washing-machines takes to smuggling cocaine under trucks laden with Peruvian potatoes, and how it destroys country after country.
The first part is also high on nuance. Not all drug-lords sell their souls for easy-money - some of them see it as a tool to improve lives of impoverished rural communities; US agents are not one insensitive, evil monolith - there are differences in priorities and objectives of DEA, CIA and the State Department - and each of them has no qualms about undercutting the other to claim that all-important visibility and increase in annual budget. Human relationships also matter - Escobar was ruthless but he was also gentle and loyal to his family, and his own father pitied and loathed him for all his bravado and brutality.
I don't know to what extent this series was short on location, in Columbia or Mexico it is nice to see so many different houses, surrounded by lush gardens, bathed in sunlight.
Neither did I know the difference between the drugs that are extracted from three different plant - cannabis, coca and poppy. Now it is clear from the Cannabis you get marijuana, hashish and hashish oil; from Poppy you get morphine, codeine, heroin and oxycodone, and finally, from Coca, you get cocaine.
While working in Afghanistan, I had learnt how poppy fits neatly into the socio-economic gaps of demands and supply. The crop thrives in the most drought prone areas, gives the farmers some form of dependable revenue to feed their families, but it also fuels the internecine wars with a good chunk of 'export' earnings going for buying weapons. And yet, the money made by the Taliban on afghan poppy is not a patch on the empires built by the South American drug cartels. A conservative estimate is that USD 100 billion worth of drugs flows into USA and just Columbia earns about USD 30 billion from its illegal exports.
As the Narcos series moves from Escobar to the exploits of DEA agent Kiki Camarera, his brutal torture, killing and subsequent retribution; the rise of the Cali Cartel and the rise of the Mexican cartels, all the way to El Chapo, you can clearly see a drop in quality. Story-lines stretch, actors appear wooden, dialogues stilted and cliched. I had to stop watching after two episodes of El Chapo. My patience and capacity for binge-watching had run out - thus far and no further!
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* Illegal Drug Trade - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_drug_trade
* DEA Museum - Coca, Cannabis and Poppy - https://www.deamuseum.org
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu%C4%ABtzil%C5%8Dp%C5%8Dchtli
* Narcos Mexico -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcos:_Mexico
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