The film concerns an alcoholic sheriff's deputy uncovering a drug ring.
The main character, Scudder, is shown drinking liquor from a concealed flask during a bust.
Characters are shown snorting cocaine, sometimes graphically.
Scudder wakes up in a drunken ward suffering from alcohol withdrawl. He walks with a limp, and is shown foaming at the mouth.
In the later half of the movie, Scudder and an acquaintance discover fake wooden logs filled with cocaine in the back section of a market store.
During a drug deal, Scudder sets fire to a kingpin's pile of cocaine, and remarks that he's getting high off the fumes.