Wakefield's daughter becomes a powerful character in the film because she proves to her father that the war on drugs fails to address the root cause of addiction.
Traffic therefore addresses several separate but interrelated issues: addiction, organized crime, law enforcement and legislation. Addiction is a fact of life; human beings become hooked on any number of legal and illegal substances. Banning drugs is no way to combat addiction. Therefore, the war on drugs does absolutely nothing to help people who use drugs to fulfill psychological needs. People who want drugs to ease their pain can always find them: on the black market or on the mainstream consumer market in the form of alcohol or prescription medications.
Organized crime is a genuine social problem that law enforcement officials worldwide must learn to deal with. Ironically, though, the war on drugs bolsters organized crime rings. The value of drug trafficking skyrockets when dealers have to risk their lives to move product. If drugs were legal, regulated like any other substance by fair rules of international trade and scrutinized by world health organizations, then organized crime would have no vested interest in drugs whatsoever. Organized crime is not a philosophy or religion; it is a business model. Remove the source of profit, and the model falls apart.
Law enforcement is portrayed in a realistic light in Traffic. Benicio del Toro plays Javier Rodriguez,...
The film's optimistic ending showing how Javier worked the war on drugs to the advantage of his Mexican village shows that not all cops are corrupt. On the other hand, Montel (Don Cheadle) shows how American law enforcement officials have lost sight of the true victims of the war on drugs. Bent on nabbing bad guys as if they were cowboys in a child's Western, cops like Montel are willing to break the law to apprehend drug dealers. If the point of the war on drugs is to create more order in society, then it has certainly failed. The war on drugs has made Americans forget the ultimate purpose of living in a free society: to live in a world in which citizens trust their government.
Drugs and drug trafficking are as old as humanity itself. No number of laws or regulations are going to eliminate drugs from human society. Drugs serve an important function in human societies too, and when they are used judiciously do not create addictions. Another facet of the war on drugs Soderbergh leaves out of Traffic is how the pharmaceutical industry is one of the world's most successful dealer. Traffic shows that the war on drugs is not about healing, is not about protecting society against some evil monster but is fully about money. Government agencies and the cartels they combat both benefit equally from the war on drugs.
