The casual drug user - the sort who considers his crime to be essentially victimless – is often reminded that he funds a criminal network in which violence is endemic and bystanders are regular victims. But if you are American and you don’t like drugs, there is another way you can fund this system: by paying your taxes.

This World: Secrets of Mexico’s Drug War (BBC2) sought to explore the various ways in which US government enforcement agencies have become bound up in the business of Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa cartel, ostensibly in the name of bringing down its kingpins.

Last year, Joaquin Guzman, the cartel’s leader, was finally captured and arrested. But for 13 years before that, it is alleged, US enforcement agencies protected the cartel in exchange for information about rival drugs gangs. This was a convoluted story with a lot of dead ends, but it seems unquestionable that the policy of rewarding and protecting informants ran out of control, essentially making the US government an accessory to all sorts of criminal behaviour.

Nowhere was this better illustrated than by This World’s account of Fast and Furious, an investigative operation run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). The documentary argues that the US doesn’t just provide the money that fuels Mexico’s drug wars, it provides all the weaponry, too. John Dodson, an ATF agent, was supposedly running an undercover sting in which compliant Arizona gun-sellers would provide truckloads of AK-47s to smugglers looking to arm the Sinaloa cartel. While preparing to arrest his first target, Dodson was suddenly told to stand down, and the guns went across the border unhindered. The operation continued for 14 months; 2,500 firearms were put directly into the hands of the cartel.

Why? Acording to Secrets of Mexico’s Drug War, those in charge of the smuggling operation were paid FBI informants. The money for the guns also came from the taxpayer. The helpful US gun dealers were arranged by the ATF. It was a US government operation from start to finish.

It was only a matter of time before weapons traceable to Fast and Furious were used to murder somebody. In fact, they were implicated in a massacre – an attack on a house party full of teens. (It was also an atrocity of mistaken identity – Sinaloan enforcers got the wrong house.) But it was the killing of a US border patrol officer with a gun smuggled through the Fast and Furious sting that finally prompted Dodson to blow the whistle. “Because that’s not who we are,” he said. “That’s not what we do. We’re allowed to make mistakes, but we’re not allowed to cover shit up.” Dodson, as you can imagine, was not rewarded as an informant, but sidelined. “I had to ask myself,” he said. “Are we the bad guys?”

In and Out of the Kitchen (BBC4), Miles Jupp’s sitcom about uptight cookery writer Damien Trench, has lost none of its subtlety in the transfer from BBC Radio 4 to television. At times, it is so bone dry that you might think you are watching a documentary about an insanely boring gay couple (“Am I going completely mad,” said Damien at one point, “or are we down to our last two Hoover bags?”). Over the course of the programme, you even get instructions for a complete, and rather appealing, recipe.

Now the redoubtable Damien of radio has a face – pale, pained, with red-rimmed eyes – and just the soft furnishings you might imagine him to have. The stair carpet, in particular, seemed chosen to reflect a certain kind of effete urban sterility (we used to have the same one, and that’s why we got rid of it; that, and the stains).

Damien’s partner Anthony was embarking on a fad diet recommended by a book called A Whole New Bowel Game.

“Why are you chopping 6lb of courgettes?” said Damien.

“It’s 8lb, actually,” said Anthony.

“This isn’t a specific question relating to mass,” said Damien, never afraid to fight pedantry with more pedantry.

Meanwhile, Damien was persuaded to accept a column in a supermarket magazine, against long-held principles. He was also making a birthday cake for his builder, but it would be wrong to describe this sitcom in terms of what happens, because not a lot does. It is really just a finely observed exploration of one man’s battle against the modern world, waged with such fussy precision that you can’t help but take his side.

In and Out of the Kitchen is gentle, softly spoken and quite savage. At times, I wondered if it had too much patience with itself, but even if it’s not your cup of tea, the recipe for red pepper soup is probably worth trying.