Nightshade - An Artistic Exploration of the DEA's War on Drugs (1980-Present)

Abstract

Nightshade is a movie screenplay story about two brothers on opposite sides of the United States War on Drugs, doomed to fight each other because of their occupations, who are forced to turn on the very institutions they represent in order to save the only thing that matters to them most, their family. This screenplay story, guided by multiple inside sources, including a former United States Ambassador who was a DEA Special Agent in South America, provides an artistic framework for understanding the essential issues at hand in the drug war in South America from 1980 to present. Guided by multiple expert scholarly sources on the drug war, Nightshade's moral exposition serves as a cautious warning, among those who criticize or support the drug war to its extreme ends, that judgement between the greater good and individual freedom is difficult or even close to impossible to discern - that the war on drugs, as harsh as it may be, marks a reflection of human brokenness and slavery to its own ideology.