Bill Moyers Talks Drugs, Crime, Journalism and Democracy with Creator of 'The Wire'

By Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers Journal. Posted April 21, 2009.

BILL MOYERS: Why do you think, David, that we tolerate such gaps in between rich and poor?

DAVID SIMON: You know, I'm fascinated by it. Because a lot of the people who end up voting for that kind of laissez-faire market policy are people who get creamed by it. And I think it's almost like a casino. You're looking at the guy winning, you're looking at the guy who pulled the lever and all the bells go off, when a guy wins, and all the coins are coming out of a one-armed bandit. You're thinking, "That could be me. I'll play by those rules." But actually, those are house rules. And you're going to lose. Most of you are going to lose.

BILL MOYERS: 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.

BILL MOYERS: There's another scene in the third season that I like very much. Major Colvin, who we saw earlier, has created a legalized drug zone in Baltimore. And he's defending his decision to a church community leader, who's called the Deacon.

[...]

POLICE MAJOR COLVIN: Look, I'm just trying to make my district liveable. I write off a few blocks in a few places, but I save the rest.

DEACON: No offense, but you're like the blind man and the elephant. It's a lot bigger than what you've got your hands on, you just can't see it.

POLICE MAJOR COLVIN: See what?

DEACON: A great village of pain, and you're the mayor. Where's your dirnking water? Where's your toilets? Your heat, your electricity? Where's the needle truck? The condom distribution? The drug treatment intake? Half these people are dyin' on their feet, and the other half's gonna catch what's killin' them.

POLICE MAJOR COLVIN: Look, they no worse off when they's all over the map. Now they just in one place, is all.

DEACON: And that place is hell.

POLICE MAJOR COLVIN: Look, I'm a police, so I can lock a man up or I can move his ass off the corner. If you want more than that, you're in the wrong shop.

[...]

BILL MOYERS: He's saying there's very little the police can do. You just move 'em.

DAVID SIMON: Do you know what? You talk honestly with some of the veteran and smarter detectives in Baltimore, the guys that have given their career to the drug war, including, for example, Ed Burns, who was a drug warrior for 20 years, and they'll tell you, this war's lost. This is all over but the shouting and the tragedy and the waste. And yet, there isn't a political leader with the stomach to really assess it for what it is. The two actors in that scene, Robert Wisdom, playing Colvin, is a professional actor. But the gentlemen he was talking to, that's Little Melvin Williams, who was one of the, if not the most, significant drug trafficker in the history of heroine in the State of Maryland.

BILL MOYERS: The guy playing Deacon?

DAVID SIMON: Yes.

BILL MOYERS: Now straight?

DAVID SIMON: Well, he's retired now. I hope. But my understanding is he's retired now. He was locked up by Ed Burns. By my co-creator of THE WIRE.

BILL MOYERS: Right.

DAVID SIMON: And on wiretap case in 1984, went away for about 20 years to prison. And--

BILL MOYERS: But see, some people would say, "Hey, David. It works. You lock 'em up, and they come out, and become actors in 'The Wire.'"

DAVID SIMON: Yes, but-- I guess that was our plan all along. You know we locked him up and, you know 12 different guys took his place. I mean, it had absolutely no effect on the price or purity of heroine or cocaine in West Baltimore.

BILL MOYERS: One of your classic scenes-- you talk about this going on perpetually. One of your classic scenes came early in the first season and in the third episode. One of the up and coming players in the drug business is teaching his underlings about staying alive in the deadly game of chess.

[...]

D'ANGELO BARKSDALE: These right here, these are the pawns, they like the soldiers. They move like this, once space forward only, except when they fight, then it's like this. And they're like the front lines, they be out in the field.

WALLACE: So how do you get to be the king?

D'ANGELO BARKSDALE: It ain't like that. See, the king stays the king, all right. Everything stays who he is, except for the pawns. If the pawn make it all the way down to the other dude's side, he get to be queen. Like I said, the queen ain't no bitch, she got all the moves.

See more stories tagged with: drugs, journalism, crime, police, war on drugs, bill moyers, reporting, the wire, baltimore, arrests, david simon, dope

Bill Moyers is president of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy.

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