Cocaine Cowboys

Cocaine Cowboys chronicles the growth of the Miami drug trade as it flourished throughout the 1970s and 1980s. It features extensive interviews with both organised crime figures and law enforcement personnel, as well as footage from news reports of the era, showing how the primary import drug of the 1960s, marijuana, was replaced by the more addictive and lucrative cocaine.

As greater quantities of cocaine were smuggled in, prices became more competitive, resulting in the drug becoming far more accessible to wider markets. Cocaine Cowboys explores the different methods employed to import drugs en masse into Florida, including by boat and aircraft, and drug runners describe the complex logistics involved in the sale and transportation of the drug. In addition to the business aspect, the film documents the violence that surrounded Miami’s underworld at the time.

A sequel, Cocaine Cowboys 2, was released in 2008.