David Simon, co-creator of the HBO series “The Wire,” has a message for Attorney General Eric Holder: “reconsider” the war on drugs.
Last week, Holder invited three of the show’s stars – Wendell Pierce, Sonja Sohn, and Jim True-Frost – to Washington for the announcement of a new anti-drug campaign. But the attorney general also had a message for the creators of the HBO show, Ed Burns and Simon.
“Do another season of ‘The Wire,’” Holder said. “That’s actually at a minimum… If you don’t do a season, do a movie,” he continued. “I want another season or I want a movie. I have a lot of power Mr. Burns and Mr. Simon.”
(Former presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia: Drug war failed; legalize marijuana)
Perhaps Holder missed the point of ‘The Wire’. The show, which ran from 2002-08 and has been described as one of the greatest television series ever made, was highly critical of US drug policy throughout its run.
Simon responded to Holder’s plea in an email to the Times of London:
The Attorney-General’s kind remarks are noted and appreciated. I’ve spoken to Ed Burns and we are prepared to go to work on season six of The Wire if the Department of Justice is equally ready to reconsider and address its continuing prosecution of our misguided, destructive and dehumanising drug prohibition.
Simon also wrote that the American government’s current drug policies are “nothing more or less than a war on our underclass” which is only succeeding in “transforming our democracy into the jailingest nation on the planet.”
