The Trade (docu-series): It's decent but much of it appears staged

The Trade is a mini-series that addresses the opioid "crisis" in the United States and covers it from where it is grown in Mexico and where it is used in USA. Mostly they focus on Ohio, which I was unaware is one of the highest heroin using states per capita in America. That's news to me!

I was hoping that this show would be really informative and I guess to a certain degree it was, but since the cartel people and the families that are affected by addiction have a camera crew following them everywhere that they go, I can't help but feel like a lot of this was staged or at the minimum, made more dramatic than it actually is.

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It has a 7.4/10 rating on IMBD and I'm going to go ahead and disagree with a lot of the people giving this high marks. For me, the "fakeness" of it was kind of overwhelming to the point where I didn't make it more than 1.5 episodes through it.

Apparently season 2 addresses illegal immigration into the United States as another form of "trade" but I never made it that far. I would imagine that since the people in the footage are doing something illegal, that a lot of that is staged as well.

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They do go rather in-depth about how poppies are turned into opium and how heroin is manufactured and that part of it was interesting since it is a rather lengthy process done in mostly plastic buckets outdoors or at least that is how it is shown in this miniseries anyway.

A big part of the reason why I think it is fake is because we have multiple scenes of people shooting up on camera and I think that even the most hardcore addict would have a problem with this.

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The only way I can imagine that the junkies would agree would be if they were compensated with cash or even better, high-quality heroin and of course this would be exceptionally unethical and almost certainly illegal.

Now when it comes to the footage of the cartels in Mexico, most of them have their faces covered or blurred out but one or two of the bosses seem to be flaunting what they do and I can't imagine any situation in which a cartel boss would be ok with his identity, location, and operations being completely exposed for a USA documentary.

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Will you learn something from this? I mean maybe. I guess I have been fortunate that drug addiction hasn't really ever touched me, my family, or really anyone I know. I do believe that drug addiction is a real problem but I can't really make out what the objective of this series is? I mean obviously their main objective it to be successful as a project and make money but is there some other objective like "drugs are bad...mmmmkay?" We all already know that.

Should I watch it?

I can't really recommend this fully because I don't think it is legitimate. If you watch just a little bit of episode one of series one I'm pretty sure that most people are going to agree with me. Basically the series attempts to paint a picture of this problem from the perspective of the cartels, the cops and border agents, the dealers on the US side, and the individual users. Other than the perspective of the cops, I don't really see how anyone else involved in this would be truthful or even agree to do it. It seems fake but if you were a big fan of the show COPS (I wasn't) then maybe you'll enjoy it.

_{This series is available basically everywhere including for free on YouTube}