Is the "war on drugs" effective? Or is it a colossal waste of money and manpower? Filmed over a year in four countries, this powerful documentary brings us coca-growing peasants, anti-narcotic patrols, and American lawmakers. The filmmakers gained unique access to the Colombian rebels who stand accused of protecting the drug trade.
Millions of U.S. tax dollars are being spent to eradicate drug production in South America, but there is little evidence that this money will diminish supply. Coca Mama shows the disastrous effects of the policy on the coca farmers in Bolivia and Colombia, who are paid by the drug cartels to grow the coca and then attacked by drug patrols using fumigation planes. They spray the coca farms with poison, inadvertently killing all the other crops, fish, plants – and sickening the children.
In America, there is no evidence that the "war" has diminished the supply of drugs here. Increasingly, young Americans are becoming addicted to drugs, mostly to cocaine. Because the U.S. government refuses to give sufficient funds for therapy programs for addicts desiring treatment, our prisons are filled with young dealers and addicts. A staggering bureaucratic labyrinth in Washington – fifty law enforcement agencies exist to control drug traffic without success. Kevin B. Zeese of Common Sense for Drug Policy says "Law enforcement is actually counterproductive… it creates new drugs, new drug markets, new drug trafficking routes and more violence … they’ve made the problem worse."

"The amount of ground that Coca Mama covers in 52 minutes is extraordinary, as all the major issues involved in the implementation of coca eradication policies are discussed in a coherent and comprehensive way, from a lack of alternatives and desperation of those who grow coca to environmental destruction and violation of human rights." M. Barbara Leons, Towson University Anthropology of Work Review

"Recommended for Political Science, Latin American Studies." Samantha J. Gust, Niagara University Library Educational Media Reviews Online