A Sixth Season of The Wire?

June 11, 2011

A Sixth Season of The Wire?

Only under conditions which are unlikely to be met. I agree with Simon about the war on drugs. I read the other day that Mexican drug gangs, who are in something close to a full-scale war, killing thousands, now have more or less permanent positions as much as fifty miles inside our border. At least we had sense enough to end the prohibition of alcohol after ten years. It's not even a case of the cure being worse than the disease: the cure isn't even a cure.

I'm not sure exactly what restrictions on the use of really harmful drugs should remain–I don't think I'm in favor of fully legalizing absolutely everything–but at a minimum marijuana should be legal.

But as for The Wire: a Facebook friend said recently that she thought Lost was the Great American Novel on film (actually video, of course, but do they even use film in film anymore?). I only saw a couple of episodes of Lost and it didn't strike me as appealing, though I might change my mind if I started at the beginning. The Wire would be my choice.

Maclin Horton

Current Affairs, Film

4 responses to “A Sixth Season of The Wire?”

Janet

June 11, 2011

I had dinner recently with a friend who live in Junction, TX which is about 2.5 hours north of the border. He was talking about visiting another friend who has a large ranch near the border. She said that they had hunting cabins on their property and that in the past, they used to keep them stocked with blankets and water and canned food for people who came across the border in the winter. They no longer do this because the people coming across the border are “people you don’t want to meet.” And she advised my friend to get a permit to carry a gun. He’s a priest. Lord help us.
AMDG

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Mac

June 11, 2011

That’s the sort of thing I was reading about in Arizona. I expect Obama is making himself very unpopular in these areas by dismissing and mocking their problems.

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Paul

June 11, 2011

Although I just recently had reason to write the following:
The Dutch opium law of 1919 was extended to cover cannabis in 1953, and LSD in 1966, but from 1976 a distinction was made between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ drugs, with a pragmatic policy of non-enforcement of the law against possession of soft drugs. Dutch drug policy led to lower rates of recreational drug use amongst youngsters in the Netherlands than almost anywhere else in Western Europe, drugs being neither ‘adult’, like tobacco, nor ‘rebellious’, as elsewhere; and the ‘coffee shops’ that sell cannabis mostly grotty, unalluring places. Unintended side-effects, augmented by cheap travel and the opening of Europe’s borders, have been that Amsterdam became an international magnet for pot-heads and junkies, and that criminal networks of growers have extended what was essentially an urban policing problem into one of public order in rural areas. Since 2009 governments have been examining ways to tighten enforcement of the law, especially in the vicinity of schools.

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Mac

June 12, 2011

Yes, it’s not a problem that one can actually solve. Our present approach is so extremely destructive, though, I think it’s worth trying something else.

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