The Wire and Civil Disobedience
Interesting editorial in Time about the war on drugs by the writers of HBO's The Wire. Those who know me are aware of my love of the show. It's one of the few on television to give a comprehensive, three-dimensional look at poverty in the American City. Drug dealers and gangsters aren't monsters on The Wire, they're real people (albeit ones often with serious issues) with their own motivations and humanity.
In any case, the show's writers are proposing that juries in non-violent drug offenses uniformly refuse to convict. It's an indictment against what they see as the failure of aggressive prosecution to make any real dent in drug crime or the violence tied to it. I see their point, though as a resident of a drug infested neighborhood, I'm not sure I want to completely get rid of enforcement. But the real problems are much deeper than street level. And if the tactics of The Wire's heroes (few and far between) are any indication of the kind of system they would prefer--one based on more systematic and meticulous investigations of the main players of the trade--I'd say there's some real arguments in their favor.