What Simon thinks of the Department of Justice’s prosecution of our misguided, destructive, and dehumanizing drug prohibition.

By **Justin Alvarez**

David Simon is not one to stay quiet.

At an event introducing a new anti-drug public relations campaign at the Justice Department last Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder jokingly urged The Wire creator to produce a sixth season of the series, which ended in 2008. “I want to speak directly to [Co-creator Ed] Burns and Mr. Simon: Do another season of The Wire.”

It only took a few days for Simon to return a counter offer, reported to the Times of London via email:

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 dehumanizing drug prohibition.

Ball’s in your court, Mr. Holder.

For a more detailed account of Simon’s views on where the U.S. government is going wrong on its approach to the “war on drugs,” read Bill Moyers’s interview with Simon from Guernica’s April issue.

Copyright 2011 Justin Alvarez

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Justin Alvarez is an editorial assistant at Guernica. Read more about him here.

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Molly O’Toole: Major International Leaders Plead for the U.S. and the World to Get Smart and Stop the War on Drugs: The Commission on Drug Policy urged a shift from incarceration to consideration of a full range of alternatives, from decriminalization to legalization and regulation. More		Suzanne Menghraj: Where There’s Smoke: A lot of the money that drives the Mexican drug trafficking that has led to the deaths of over twenty-eight thousand people since 2006 is in marijuana. Most of the marijuana grown in Mexico winds up in the United States. More
Michelle Alexander: The New Jim Crow: How the War on Drugs Gave Birth to a Permanent American Undercaste: Racial caste is alive and well in America. More		Ed Vulliamy: La Violencia: From Tijuana east, the author traces a violent drug war, spreading repression condoned by the U.S., a wall that separates family members, a water supply shut off, and the worship of Holy Death. More

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