A TRIP: Profile of a drug producing country

This 1975 documentary, “A Trip,” written and directed by Ash Hawken, describes the impact that illicit drug trafficking has on a given country and its people. The crisis is described by the people who confront it every day; the government officials, the doctors; the addicts and, in a dramatic recreation, a trafficker whose dreams of easy money fail. Set in the Republic of Colombia, its production was a cooperative venture between that nation and the United States of America. Produced and distributed for world-wide use by the U.S. Information Agency in multiple languages, the film runs thirty minutes.

In the early 1970s, the production, transportation, and sale of illegal mood altering drugs became a challenge for most nations of the industrialized world. In the United States, the consumption of heroin, cocaine, LSD, marijuana, and other psychedelic substances were widespread. Contemporary headlines heralded the phenomenon as, “An International Drug Crisis.” The 1971 movie, “The French Connection,” shocked the world.

Multinational criminal enterprises were busy satisfying the ever growing demand for drugs, moving their hauls into worldwide marketplaces. Violent local drug gangs were carving out territories to supply users and promote dependency among their customers. Meanwhile, the growing number addicts and drug deaths were creating public health challenges to local jurisdictions. The general public was demanding corrective action and authorities were under pressure to intervene.

Some voices called for suppression of dealers and abusers. Others sought treatment for addicts.  Some strategies stressed public information; others called for a “war on drugs.” Enforcement advocates lobbied for more resources to interdict traffickers and legislators were badgered to write tougher laws to put them behind bars. Drug related crimes skyrocketed. Urban murder rates set new records. Politicians said it was a “medical problem.”  Doctors said it was a “cultural problem.” Everyone seemed to consider it to be “someone else’s problem”.

Most countries that grew and processed source plants for narcotics, such as cannabis, coca, and poppies, maintained a public position of blissful ambivalence. In response to international criticism, the response was, “We are simply providing a product for which there is a demand.  Don’t blame the supplier, blame the user. Don’t condemn us for what you allow.” This attitude changed when supplying countries began to suffer the social consequences of what the user nations were struggling to contain; drug addiction, political corruption and increasing crime in the streets.

 It was in this climate that the governments of Colombia and the U.S.A. began more seriously working together to confront drug use and trafficking. Among the tactics considered was a public information campaign. This commitment presaged a decision to produce “A Trip.” The Colombian government and private sector lent their support to the project. Key players agreed to be interviewed. Doors were opened and the cameras of Colombian cinematographer Hector Acebes walked through them to artistically photograph the sequences that were later dramatically built by New York editor, Eric Grove.   

The documentary is voiced by the late Academy Award winning actor, Jack Palance, whose “tough guy” image is legendary. At the New York recording session, he spoke of his pleasure in narrating a film that brought balance to a complex problem. “More films like this one,” he opined, “would bring real understanding to this problem and maybe some solutions.”

Nearly five decades later, his optimism is muted by subsequent events. In 1975, as the final sequences of “A Trip” were being put into the can in Bogotá, drug traffickers in the cities of Cali and Medellin were establishing powerful cartels that would, for years to come, violently confront the country’s body politic with assassinations, kidnappings, coercion of rural populations and corruption of its local and national political leaders. The juxtaposition of drug lords, guerrilla commanders, paramilitary leaders and corrupt politicians kept the country in thrall for the succeeding half century.

With this history in mind, today’s audiences might consider the production of  “A Trip” to have been a bootless exercise. A more generous look, however, could lead it to conclude that the social and political elements that faced the world in the 1970s continue to be present today, as nations still grapple with substance abuse. There are countries in 2021 wherein drug cartels are more powerful than elected governments. There are addictive substances, unheard of fifty years ago, that are still trafficked to vulnerable populations. There are still lives ruined by addiction and criminal elements profiting on that human tragedy. With a bit of imagination, a modern viewer of this documentary might see parallels between the struggles of those appearing in “A Trip” and their modern counterparts facing the same challenges today.

“What is past, is prologue.” (William Shakespeare – “ The Tempest”)

Credits for “A TRIP” can be accessed here.