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'Blow' -- Why CIA Dopers Beat the Independents
by URI DOWBENKO
Despite his ambition and entrepreneurial skills, George Jung, the working
class hero/ drug dealer of Blow, never had a chance.
After all, even mobster John Gotti, Jr. -- when asked in court whether the
Family still sold drugs -- answered, “No, we can’t compete with the
government.”
Based on a true story with fictionalized names and Hollywood-style story
changes, Blow follows the life of George Jung (Johnny Depp), who stumbled
into the dope business in the late 1960s.
After leaving Massachusetts, his mom obsessed with materialism (Rachel
Griffiths) and his hard-working father (Ray Liotta), George ends up in
Manhattan Beach, California, a Los Angeles town that was then well known for
its non-stop party scene.
As George comments in the voice-over, “Everyone was getting stoned,” plus
his new friends on the beach “all seemed to share the same occupation –
stewardess.”
So George and his friend Tuna (Ethan Suplee) meet their first connection,
marijuana dealer and hairdresser Derek, (Paul Reubens), a real-life character
who actually laundered his profits by fronting beauty salons in LA’s South
Bay.
Before NAFTA and “Free Trade” were even invented, George’s first scheme was
to import marijuana from Mexico and distribute it to Boston area college
students. He used the airline stewardesses as mules, since their luggage
cleared the airport without being checked.
One of the stewardesses, Barbara (Franka Potente) became the love of his life
-- until she died of cancer. George’s stoned version of the American Dream
was shattered forever, but his drive to become financially independent only
deepened his resolve.
George’s dysfunctional childhood added to the karmic stew, as he remembered
how his father “slowly but surely lost everything. He went bankrupt.”
Memories of his father’s business failure fueled his ambition. “Sometimes
you’re flush and sometimes you’re bust,” his father told him. “It doesn’t
really matter. It only seems like it does.” But George decided then and
there, “I don’t ever want to be poor.”
When he did get busted, sent to Danbury Federal Penitentiary, George’s
cellmate turned out to be an associate of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.
In Colombia, George meets Escobar, a ruthless drug trafficker, who executes
an underling right in front of him, then proceeds to calmly tell him that
“the business today is cocaine” and that he “wants to find an American he
can trust.” They do the numbers – at $10,000 per kilo, 300 kilos is $3
million.
As George describes it “cocaine exploded in American culture like an atomic
bomb.”
Cultural trendsetters, movie people, and rock stars glamorized cocaine. The
media popularized the new drug of choice, and cocaine production,
distribution, and the laundering of drug profits had suddenly become really
Big Business.
Miffed at US banks, which wanted to launder his drug profits for an
exorbitant 60% surcharge, George took his money to Panama where Tony Noriega
had a more favorable arrangement.
George them meets and marries a volatile Colombian cokehead named Mirtha
(Penelope Cruz). He tells the world that “we were young rich and in love. It
was perfect.” But it wasn’t. The marriage exploded. He was betrayed, then
double-crossed. And in the end, George Jung was sentenced to 60 years in
prison. He’s due to be released in 2015.
George Jung, the independent drug trafficker, was in clearly over his head.
He had absolutely no conception of How the Real World Works. He had no idea
that, as a former US intelligence officer has said, “the CIA is the world’s
most efficient cocaine distributor,” and therefore, as an independent, he
would eventually be characterized as competition to government sanctioned
narcotics traffickers.
The untold story of Blow is the centralization of the cocaine trade as a
vertically integrated global business. In fact, when drugs became Big
Business, the “small businessman” like George Jung became nothing but
expendable. That’s why the DEA is around – to quash the competition.
Jung was no match for the highly-organized, well-bankrolled,
government-connected drug traffickers, who launder their profits on Wall
Street and work through Fortune 500 corporations. The efficiency of scale
would have been inconceivable to a small-time operator like George Jung, who
had unknowingly run head first into the Olympian drug cartel. The Olympians
do not take lightly to encroachment on their turf. That’s Planet Earth, by
the way.
Today, it is fair to say that the entire global economy is a money laundry,
based on surreptitious illicit revenues, derived for the most part from drugs
and the laundering of drug profits. Think about the “feasibility” of an $8
million book advance. Think about a $100 million movie. Think about venture
capital firms literally awash with money. Then try to visualize an economy
that would make this possible.
As a case in point -- regarding government sanctioned narcotics trafficking –
Lt. Cmdr. Al Martin, US Navy (Ret.), writes in his book The Conspirators
about “Classified Illegal Operations Cordoba and Screw Worm.”
He describes how Oliver North as part of Iran Contra operations planned to
distribute “more cocaine into the United States than ever imagined before.
Operation Screw Worm was the last and the largest. It envisioned a tremendous
expansion of ‘authorized’ narcotics trafficking.”
“North had set up the time in May 1986 of the first biweekly policy and
planning session of the FDN and this absolutely astounded me,” writes Martin.
“Fred Ikley was there. Donald Gregg himself was there. The usual cast of
characters Manuel Diaz, Nestor Sanchez.”
“And North envisioned an increase of 50,000 kilograms a month which
absolutely astounded me,” Martin continues.
“And Jeb Bush [the current governor of Florida], I think correctly, voiced
concerns that had already come into play that the Agency [CIA] was dealing in
so much cocaine that its street value was becoming depressed. This had
already happened. In 1985, cocaine was commanding $30,000 per kilogram. By
1986, it had dropped to $15,000 per kilogram and was continuing to drop.”
“But North felt it was important to raise the revenues, so there was going to
be a tremendous increase in importation,” writes Martin.
“In Operation Screw Worm, all of the air routes were substantially beefed up.
Almost an entire fleet of then 735 aircraft [Southern Air Transport] was now
committed to the operation.” (From The Conspirators by Al Martin; 2001;
$14.95; National Liberty Press LLC; order line: 877-776-9004; Website: Al
Martin Raw, Al Martin Raw
But 'Blow' is nevertheless a brilliant movie – directed by Ted Demme
(“Beautiful Girls”). The poignant script was written by David McKenna and
Nick Cassavetes, based on the book by Bruce Porter. It is a heartrending and
powerful morality play about the consequences of making wrong choices in life.
Indeed what is most tragic about the story is that George Jung’s life was a
series of lost opportunities. In fact, his opportunity for spiritual
development and evolution was irrevocably squandered – until, it seems, his
next lifetime.
The heavy weight of his karma (the burden of being the instrument of damaging
and destroying countless lives ravaged by cocaine) is just as tragic.
“Throughout my life, I’ve left pieces of my heart here and there,” he says
in the end. But he has after all been betrayed by his own choices.
