(CNN) The History channel recently aired "America's War on Drugs," an eight-hour documentary examining the decades-long futility of the drug war. Yet at virtually every turn, that case has already been presented in scripted dramas.

Drug dealers remain go-to bad guys in TV and movies. Dating back to David Simon's landmark HBO drama "The Wire" and miniseries "The Corner," though, television has drilled into the hopelessness of law enforcement's efforts -- depicting what amounts to a giant game of Whac-a-Mole, where cutting off from one spigot simply opens another.

The condemnation of the policy, moreover, is often conveyed more poignantly through dramas like "The Wire," which can personalize character arcs and put faces -- even if they're fictional -- on the statistics.

A bleak new FX drama premiering this week, "Snowfall," seeks to join this tradition. The show hearkens back to the "Just Say No" era, chronicling the rise of crack cocaine in the 1980s.

Malcolm Mays, Damson Idris and Isaiah John in 'Snowfall'

Another series set in that period, Netflix's "Narcos," spent two seasons tracking down Pablo Escobar, only to see new players fill the void once Colombian authorities gunned down the drug kingpin in 1993.

Read More