The 13th Step.

• Author: Gillespie, Nick
• Position: Acclaimed movie 'Traffic' relies on old cliches - Critical Essay

Even some drug war opponents buy into its lies.

Why is it that ostensibly pro-drug movies can never quite deliver the goods, can never quite depict drug use as something other than depraved? When Trainspotting hit American theaters in 1996, the controversial tale of Scottish heroin junkies was preceded by a storm of controversy about its allegedly positive, consequences-free portrayal of drug use; the evening yak shows and op-ed pages nattered on about its "irresponsible" content and worried about its likely effect on the youth of America. The promise of a drug movie that didn't follow a shopworn moralistic script was precisely the reason I wanted to see the film. Trainspotting, alas, disappointed, though not because it wasn't a thoroughly entertaining, compelling, and at times disturbing drama.

It was all that, to be sure, but it also participated in a long tradition of conflating drug use with addiction and highlighting the seamier sides of drug culture: In one scene, a character sifts through a filthy toilet in a desperate search for a suppository that will get him off; in another, a baby dies due to its junkie parents' neglect.

While the film was thankfully in no way a "hey kids don't do this at home" morality tale, it certainly didn't reflect most people's generally positive experiences with illegal drugs, nor did it make the case for legalization easier. If anything, by dwelling on the dark side of drug use and showing its potential for violence, criminality, and destructiveness, it reinforced the drug warrior mindset.

So it is with Traffic, the new Steven Soderbergh film that's been called "a blistering look at our nation's hypocritical and useless war on drugs" (to quote a typical rave review). Though the movie mounts an extensive and generally effective critique of the drug war in its current, hyper-militarized version, it also recycles a number of hysterical myths about drug use that could have come straight out of an old Dragnet episode.

Released in late December in New York and Los Angeles and nationwide in early January, Traffic has garnered a tremendous critical response, winning recognition from the American Film Institute as one of 2000's outstanding films and a best picture nod from the New York Film Critics Circle. The movie has also done well at the box office, making over $21 million in its first full week of wide release. "Exemplary Hollywood social realism," J. Hoberman approvingly notes in the Village Voice. He's...