Creator of ‘The Wire’ Interviewed on Bill Moyers
April 23rd, 2009 by Russ
Few contemporary television producers have either the time or the inclination to go about the business of exposing corrupt bureaucracies and hypocritical leaders when it’s so much easier to provide empty entertainment. David Simon, creator of HBO’s The Wire, is a welcomed exception to the rule. His portrayal of Baltimore street life in the midst of the War on Drugs has been lauded as one of the finest television dramas ever created. This week, Simon appeared as a guest on PBS’s Bill Moyers’ Journal, to discuss his work.
A former career journalist with the Baltimore Sun, Simon found it prohibitively difficult to intelligently discuss any social ills in the course of writing a column. He recalls:
I was trying to explain how the drug war doesn’t work. And I would write these very careful and very well-researched pieces. And they would go into the aether and be gone. And whatever editorial writer was coming behind me would then write, ‘Let’s get tough on drugs.’ As if I hadn’t said anything. Even my own newspaper. And I would think, ‘Man, it’s just such an uphill struggle to do this with facts.’
Simon goes on to explain that the hustlers and street folk portrayed on The Wire often have no viable choices but to participate in the only economy they have access to — the drug economy:
In some ways it’s the most destructive form of welfare that we’ve established, which is the illegal drug trade in these neighborhoods. It’s basically like opening up a Beth Steel in the middle of the South Bronx or in West Baltimore and saying, ‘And you guys are all steel workers.’ To just say no? That’s our answer to that? You know, the economic model does not work. You know, listen, the only reason that alcohol and cigarettes, which do far more damage than heroine and cocaine, are legal, is that white people and affluent white people at that, make money off that stuff.
Through the show, Simon is able to give the urban underclass a chance to share their side of the story. He characterizes their struggle as follows:
The fact that these really are the excess people in America, we — our economy doesn’t need them. And certainly the ones that are undereducated, that have been ill served by the inner city school system, that have been unprepared for the technocracy of the modern economy. We pretend to need them. We pretend to educate the kids. We pretend that we’re actually including them in the American ideal, but we’re not. And they’re not foolish. They get it.
Thanks to David Simon and The Wire, many Americans who aren’t trapped in the forgotten circles of urban life now get it too.
A full transcript of the interview is available here.
Barry Cooper to Run for Texas Attorney General
April 16th, 2009 by Russ
A movement is building behind a Texas libertarian candidate who pledges to end the war on drugs. Ron Paul, you say? No dice. It’s former DEA agent, turned counterculture warrior, Barry Cooper. Speaking to a crowd of students at the University of Texas, Monday, Cooper announced his intentions to run for Attorney General in the upcoming state election.
Rehabilitated from the depths of the straight and narrow, Cooper now flies his freak flag with abandon. He has already become widely internet-famous for the creation of a series of safety lectures for weed growers entitled, “Never Get Busted.”
The video series educates weed entrepreneurs on DEA and police enforcement and surveillance tactics that could be potentially used against them.
Middle Americans have not seen a self-proclaimed outlaw make a serious run for public office since drug-culture icon, Hunter S. Thompson nearly was elected sheriff of Aspen, Colorado in 1970. While Thompson’s platform included such things as mandatory LSD trips for local police and renaming Aspen, “Fat City,” Cooper seems to be a bit more reserved in his thoughts on governance.
Cooper said:
Our goal from day one — and it has not changed — is to free our prisoners. We currently have 1 million people in jail for non-violent, drug-related crimes, and it makes no sense.
Unfortunately for Cooper, those million non-violent offenders are no longer afforded the right to vote. However, given the meteoric rise of Dr. Paul and other Lone Star oddballs, one thing seems clear: anything can happen in Texas.
Adam Carolla Speaks Out on Drug War
March 24th, 2009 by RickCheck out this great rant from Adam Corolla (of Loveline, The Man Show, and his brand new, uncensored podcast, which you can find via iTunes.) He brings up a lot of good points in an effort to focus on decriminalizing marijuana.
What he says about the North Hollywood bank robbers is hard to believe, but true. How can a car full of people, who had all the tools of a bank robbery, not be arrested for intending to do the crime yet if you are caught possessing more than 14 grams of weed you could be arrested for intent to distribute? Is the legal system that corrupted and damaged? I believe in that saying, Justice is blind — add deaf and mute as well. We know our government needs a complete overhaul, does our legal system?
Carolla understands the difference between a horrible, physically and mentally destructive drug like meth and an at best, recreational drug like marijuana. He’s all for eradicating meth, cocaine, crack and other drugs that are harmful to society. What he says about the Pharmaceutical Industry getting involved is hilarious.
Something tells me we’ll be hearing a lot more from Adam on this topic down the road.
Addiction, Mexico, The US & Drug Policy
February 10th, 2009 by Perry
As the drug violence goes back and forth across American and Mexican borders, a recent story in the San Francisco Chronicle talked about the alarming rise in Mexico’s addiction rates.
A cited study by the Mexican government claimed the number of addicts has doubled in the last six years, although that number could be significantly higher in the more lawless areas, “but hard to quantify due to difficulties in polling states with heavy drug violence.”
I would imagine a poll would have integrity issues anywhere there are roving death squads, beheadings and corrupt law enforcement.
One of the great ironies of the article is that the U.S. is held partly accountable according to a Brookings Institute report that posited American dollars used to fight drug manufacturers should have been spent on education, not enforcement.
I know this is pretty obvious to everyone in hindsight, but in light of how remarkably inefficient law enforcement has been at reducing drug use, violence or illegal activity of any kind in either direction – maybe it’s time to attack the demand rather than the supply.
The worst part is the lack of surprise this should be to American policy makers. In their Oct., 2007 piece, the New York Times chronicled the Mexican drug trade and addiction epidemic sweeping through Central Mexico. For a dated dose of depressing imagery, check out the NYT’s addiction gallery.
[photo via LA Times]
Rolling Stone Covers Mexican Drug War
November 4th, 2008 by Alex
NOTE: Turns out this video auto-loads and plays, and that’s not good for our slow bandwidth brethren. The post image is now a screenshot of the video, which you can see after the jump.
Here’s a video of Guy Lawson, a rather contentious reporter for magazines such as Rolling Stone and GQ, explaining the literal drug war that is being waged in Mexico.
We’ve covered this violence before, but never in such depth and with such impact as the Rolling Stone video.
It helps us understand how the political and social climates of our neighbors can be of great importance here at home. Additionally, it really makes you appreciate the difference between living in the United States and the rest of the world.
See the video after the jump…
Fiji Islands in Midst of Drug War
October 27th, 2008 by Perry
In a U.S.-centric culture, we tend to forget that there are lots of other people struggling with drugs, drug wars and drug problems (although in this particular instance our colonization probably played a big role.)
A Fiji blogger writes about the changing culture of drug use on the island which has been altered by recent enforcement efforts. This tiny agricultural island nation with a population of less than one million has seen over $50 million in drug busts in the last three years.
[image via Nation Geographic by James L. Stanfield, 2007]
