David Simon, the creator of HBO’s TV drama, The Wire, about drug-ravaged estates in Baltimore, has called for drugs to be decriminalised.  In a debate organised by The Observer, the writer and producer of the award winning TV series said the ‘war on drugs’ has failed to stop the rising tide of drugs, which are now cheaper and more available than ever.

But Simon went further, and claimed that the ‘war on drugs’ and the curse of drugs are inseparable from what he calls ‘the death of working class America’.  In  his view, the deindustrialisation and destruction of the old factory cities has left children, families and former workers washed up and jobless, and he claims the war on drugs has morphed, into a mechanism of social control.  Because the buying and selling of drugs is illegal, anyone involved in the trade, in any way, is liable to be arrested, tried and imprisoned. In drug infested areas, arrests are two a penny – for the police it is like shooting fish in a barrel.  Simon said he had seen a decrease in arrests for non drug offences from 70-90% down to 20-40%, while drug related arrests rose six-fold.  And putting so many unemployed, restless and rootless people in jail, keeps them under control.

David Simon is calling for a new approach to tackling the devastation caused by drugs – decriminalisation.   He wants to see drugs taxed and regulated as with other controlled substances. And he is by no means the only voice calling for this change of approach.  Governments in a number of Latin American countries have declared that the ‘War’ approach has led to massive collateral damage in countries along the drug routes.  And many British academics are also saying the evidence to support the War on Drugs doesn’t stack up, that a new approach is needed.  One of these is Sue Pryce of Nottingham University who spoke to Roger Howard of the UK Drug Policy Commission in a podcast for Pod Academy, Fixing Drugs – take a listen, see what you think.