Directed by Eugene Jarecki, this documentary won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Through an examination of the hardship endured by a number of families, including a person tied to his own childhood, Jarecki outlines how America’s War on Drugs has been an abysmal failure that has hurt far more people than it has purported to help.
For a sobering read, here’s a link to a recent Postmedia story that looks at the jump that’s occurred in recent years in both the United States and Canada in arrests for pot possession and how, in the U.S., blacks are 3.7 times more likely to be busted than white Americans even though usage rates are pretty much identical. At the tail end there’s a mention of how in the U.S. private prison corporations lobby Washington lawmakers for tough sentences — presumably to boost the prison population, and their bottom-line.
The House I Live In screens tonight at the RPL Theatre at 7 p.m. Here’s the trailer:
