To discuss crack cocaine is to tackle a litany of bigger, intertwined American issues: racial and economic disparities; inner city poverty and crime; media reporting and sensationalism; political and legislative campaigning and action; mass incarceration and exploitation; and personal and communal responsibility. All of those topics are present in Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy. Yet at a mere 89 minutes, Stanley Nelson’s new Netflix documentary (premiering Jan. 11) bites off far more than it can chew—resulting in analysis that ranges from the persuasive to the cursory to the borderline disingenuous.
Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy employs a general chronological structure to tell its sprawling tale, beginning with the 1970s-1980s rise of cocaine, whose cost gave it an aura of being the “glamour drug” of the rich and powerful. That made it inaccessible for most lower-income Black Americans, whose dreams of using coke, the film contends, were spurred on by movies like Scarface. However, things took a turn when dealers began distilling cocaine into crack, a cheaper and more potent variant that became an immediate substance-abuse sensation. Before long, entire urban communities—which were already struggling with mounting unemployment, poverty, and crime—were being decimated by the scourge of crack, which was perpetuated by those young men and women who saw an opportunity to profit off others’ suffering, and became instant-millionaire dealers.
