Movie Review 'Drugs as Weapons Against Us'

Drugs as Weapons Against Us is one of the cheaper and lazier documentaries I have seen in quite some time. Cobbled together from several other superior documentaries, Drugs as Weapons Against Us aims to expose how the CIA has employed drugs, including LSD and other psychoactives, to attempt to destroy leftist opponents of rightwing governments; the documentary has compelling ideas, but is unappealing and cheap in the presentation of those ideas.

The documentary was written and created by John Potash, based on his book of the same title. Drugs as a Weapon Against Us features voiceover artist Douglas Barron rehashing bits from other documentaries, news clips, and perhaps, two original interviews conducted for this documentary. Barron’s voice is terrific, and he’s certainly professional, which is no surprise, he’s been a commercial voice over artist for some time now.

That said, given the modern style of documentary filmmaking, having a voiceover artist simply narrating most of the points that the film intends to make comes off as low rent. Barron does all of the film’s heavy lifting in voiceover while citing the evidence culled from the other better documentaries. What isn’t stolen from other documentaries is inferred from books and news reports that, while accurate, are also twisted to fit the narrative that Mr. Potash is attempting to push forward.

The subtitle of Drugs as Weapons Against Us is "The CIA War on Musicians and Activists," and the movie intends to make the case that people as varied as Ken Kesey, Timothy Leary, and rocker Courtney Love all worked as tools of MKUltra—the CIA secret drug program—to introduce different types of drugs into left-leaning political and artistic worlds. For Leary, he was used to promote LSD among leftist college activists in California.

Ken Kesey, known for his group of pranksters in the 1960s, was, according to the documentary, used to introduce LSD into the Black Panthers as well as into various black neighborhoods in the wake of riots or leftwing rebellions. The film cites evidence that Kesey and his pranksters happened to show up in Harlem in the immediate wake of race riots there, and in Watts in California not long after another riot.

The film spends a good amount of time talking about the number of members of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters were members of the military. Military service in this documentary basically means that they are corrupt and were part of the conspiracy the film is unfolding about how the CIA spread drugs around to undermine leftist activists and musicians. The other piece to the conspiracy puzzle is the connection between Kesey, his pranksters, and members of the ultra rich—those whose money dates back to the founding of the country or, at least, to the founding of the stock market.

The final act of the film moves into the 90s and brings together the deaths of Tupac Shakur and Kurt Cobain. In the Tupac story, Death Row records is painted as a tool of the rightwing. Tupac was, according to Mr. Potash, encouraged to work with Death Row while in prison on charges arranged by the CIA. Shakur had been a target of the CIA due to his parents' activism as members of the Black Panthers in the 60s and 70s, as well as Tupac’s own teenage activism.

Tupac had once attempted to start a new generation of the Black Panthers in the late 80s and early 90s. That tracks to when his many legal problems began including accusations related to drugs and weapons. When he was finally arrested on a supposed rape charge, one the documentary claims was trumped up by CIA actors, he was pushed toward Death Row Records where Suge Knight and his "security team" of former LAPD officers made sure Tupac had regular access to drugs, weapons, and plenty of alcohol.

Tupac was killed in a drive by in Las Vegas while in a caravan that included Death Row "security," and he was being followed by CIA Agents. The documentary doesn’t go so far as accusing anyone specifically of Tupac’s murder, but certainly aims a few accusatory raised eyebrows in the direction of Death Row Records and that former LAPD security team. According to the documentary, in the days before his death, Tupac had quit drinking, was quitting smoking marijuana, and was leaving Death Row to start his own label.

In the Kurt Cobain story, Courtney Love is portrayed as an unwitting CIA MKUltra Operative who introduced drugs to Kurt Cobain, specifically making sure he had plenty of heroin at all times. Though Cobain is unquestionably remembered as a voice of generational discontent, he wasn’t all that political and doesn’t quite meet up with the narrative of leftwing rockstars given drugs by the CIA to undermine his activities.

This is also the laziest part of Drugs as Weapons Against Us, as much of this section of the movie lifts portions of the documentary Soaked in Bleach in order to create the narrative that Courtney Love arranged the murder of Kurt Cobain as part of the MKUltra CIA conspiracy. Love’s father, a controversial figure in his own right, is cited here as a source and in an interview does appear to indicate that his ties to moneyed elites may have been Courtney’s connection to the same shady, powerful types as who influenced or directly controlled the activities of Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey.

The ideas put forward in Drugs as Weapons Against Us have an appealing quality. There is symmetry to some of this conspiracy that is very appealing, especially in the Tupac story. It is plausible, indeed quite likely, that Tupac was a target of the CIA. His parents definitely were targets, as releases in subsequent years of formerly sealed documents can confirm. The unsolved quality of Tupac’s murder also make this theory appealing as a way to close that tragic case that has hung over popular culture for decades.

It’s also intriguing to think that introducing LSD among the leftist college crowd of the 60s was a J. Edgar Hoover tactic. Give the kids drugs intending to discredit, distract, or destroy them would certainly be a clever tactic. I am not fully willing to dismiss that idea, honestly. But, as presented in this less than journalistic presentation in Drugs as a Weapon Against Us, it rings false and loaded with agenda.

Drugs as Weapons Against Us was even produced by a group that calls itself Progressive Left Productions, another connection that undermines the overall credibility of writer and director Potash. The narrative is all about attempting to convince us that those on the right were intending to destroy those on the left with drugs. Coming at that idea with such open and blatant bias renders this "documentary" more than a little ridiculous.