A shockingly candid examination of how a street dealer can rise to cartel lord with relative ease, How to Make Money Selling Drugs is an insider’s guide to the violent but extremely lucrative drug industry. Told from the perspective of former drug dealers, and featuring interviews with rights advocates Russell Simmons, Susan Sarandon, and David Simon (creator of “The Wire”), the film gives you the lessons you need to start your own drug empire while exposing the corruption behind the “war on drugs.” Director Matthew Cooke stops by to talk about the insanity that is the current war on drugs and the making of this trenchant film.

“Vital, cogent, and impressive…an often-chilling portrait of a business rife with violence, corruption, contradiction as well as vast financial, racial and political implications.” – Los Angeles Times

“A smart, funny, tough-minded film crammed with data and personal anecdotes. It argues for a radical, compassionate rethinking of the country’s approach not only to the drug war but to addiction itself.” – Village Voice

“Strikingly clear-eyed about the allure of drug dealing, the rampant demand for illegal substances, the horrors of addiction, and the hypocrisy of government drug policy…with its calm focus and emotional wallop, its argument has rarely been so effectively rendered.” – Screen Daily

“An articulate, bracing, and fitfully enraging distillation of the history behind and controversy surrounding this decades-long conflict and one that might stand a chance at affecting discourse and policy.” – Slant Magazine