In today’s society, drugs and drug lords are overly hyped, especially in the music industry.

Musicians have taken drug usage to a whole different level.

Famous rappers like Lil Wayne, Future, 2 Chainz, the list goes on, talk a lot about drugs in their music.

References to drugs and drug lords can be heard in “narco-corridos” or a music genre and life style stemming from Mexico, which talks and celebrates this bloody life style.

The drug of choice in songs switches between promethazine codeine, also known as cough syrup, mollies, xanax, cocaine and marijuana.

But what are we, as a collective society, showing by disregarding the darkness of glorification of drug lords and their ilk?

How can we separate the brutal killing by rival cartels? The beheadings of innocent people. People who had the courage to stand up to the cartels, whether they are a journalist, a cop, a government official or your ordinary citizen.

By glamorizing this “Robin Hood” life style we rob the thousands of people who are murdered by cartels and those who fall prey to their drugs, of their humanity, of the pain and the suffering that was caused.

We sweep it under the table, and sometimes even defending drug lords like in the case of Joaquin Guzman Loera, better known as El Chapo, Spanish slang for short.

El Chapo is the head of the Sinaloa Cartel which according to a Forbes, is responsible for 25 percent of all illegal drugs that enter the U.S.

Sure he supposedly gives to the poor but we shouldn’t justify the greater evil of his actions for some good deeds. You wouldn’t glamorize and defend a murderer if you found out that he rescues puppies would you?

So why is that we abandon logic and do so with drug lords?

The music is highly coveted by teens and young adults. For those generational kids, the music is just lyrics in a song, but for others it’s a way to bypass the dangers of drug usage.

It is known that when you use drugs it’s a dangerous line-dividing people using it to have a good time and people using it as a coping mechanism.

But, because drugs are glorified by the entertainment industry, that line is often blurred.

El Chapo was recently arrested for his crimes after having escaped twice from a maximum-security prison.

It is often claimed that to his people, he was seen as Robin Hood because he used his dirty money to give back to his community.

But at what price did he endure to get his dirty money? The dark side of drugs is the very thing that people love to ignore.

Although El Chapo isn’t encouraging the usage of illegal substances, he isn’t exactly hindering it either by facilitating drug use to the many people consuming.

Let’s face it; he wouldn’t be in business if he lobbied against people using drugs.

The same Forbes article states that “Drug enforcement experts estimate, conservatively, that the cartel’s annual revenues may exceed $3 billion.”

Forbes also states that as of February 2014 “The city of Chicago branded him the first ‘Public Enemy No. 1’ since Al Capone.”

The entertainers who condone drug usage in their songs and films are just as responsible for the lives of those who are no longer normal functioning human beings.

Instead, these people are now a slave to a drug that controls not only their thoughts, but also their actions.

The responsibility isn’t solely on the ones who endorse drugs, but also on the ones who decide to give into the temptation that they are selling.

They fall into the promise of a cloud nine high, while they are subconsciously ignoring the feelings of coming down from that high.

As a society, we need to educate ourselves on what we are glamorizing.

What seems like an innocent film, song, or public figure may be more than meets the eye and when we hail these people and things as supreme, at what price are we doing this?

While trying and look cool by donning “Free El Chapo” gear, think about at whose expense are these people building their empire.