“The Wire” and what happens when peace is declared in the war on drugs

I think “The Wire” is the best that Television has ever done. Maybe something better could come along.  David Simon is producing “Treme” on HBO.

Some scenes on The Wire were frightening to me, because I knew that I could walk down the street and see about the same thing for real.

Below is an interview on Bill Moyers’ Journal with David Simon one of the producers of “The Wire”:

Since this interview was aired in 2009 there has been change but mostly for the worse.

Because of the economic non-recovery, lower class middle class have become part of the underclass. Selling drugs as a way to make ends meet is not just inner city anymore. It’s in the suburbs and in the wide-open spaces of the American West and among white and brown people.

Late in 2009 we discovered that drug money saved the world from total economic collapse:

Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UNadvisor

Drugs and crime chief says $352bn in criminal proceeds was effectively laundered by financial institutions

The underground drug economy and the above board economy met again in the news a few months ago:

FBI:Drug Cartels Use Bank of America to Launder Money

Since 2009 drug trafficking has added several  $Billions to the already enormous and difficult to estimate underground economy that’s fueled by illegal drug sales. At least ½ of illegal drug sales happen in the USA. 

Maybe the end is in sight. It seems like “peace talks” have begun for the “War on Drugs”. Prohibition for at least marijuana seems to be near to an end.

So what is the ever-growing economic underclass, which if you believe Mitt Romney  is about 47% of the US population going to do when drugs are legal and no money can be made on the corner?

I think David Simon has an answer:

In the interview below BILL MOYERS asks:
  

“The character in that excerpt we just saw says, "What's the answer?" Do you have the answer after all these years?
  

DAVID SIMON: Oh, I would decriminalize drugs in a heartbeat. I would put all the interdiction money, all the incarceration money, all the enforcement money, all of the pretrial, all the prep, all of that cash, I would hurl it, as fast as I could, into drug treatment and job training and jobs programs. I would rather turn these neighborhoods inward with jobs programs. Even if it was the equivalent of the urban CCC, if it was New Deal-type logic, it would be doing less damage than creating a war syndrome, where we're basically

treating our underclass. The drug war's war on the underclass now. That's all it is. It has no other meaning.”