The Wire By Wallace-Wells: Film Analysis

The Truce on Drugs, a 2012 article in New York Magazine by Benjamin Wallace-Wells, seeks to assess some of the history as well as the aftermath of the infamous war on drugs in the United States. He discusses the point that the real issue with the international and domestic drug trade is the violence associated with it, not the drugs or drug trade itself. Granted, there are other negative effects of drug use on communities, but they are not as pressing as the violence that stems from the trade. Wallace-Wells further calls into question the potential solution of legalization, weighing the pros and cons. The content of the television drama The Wire, directed by David Simon, addresses some similar points as well, among them, capitalism in drugs. Wallace-Wells’ story starts out in Humboldt County, California in the early 2000’s, where medical marijuana becomes legal and is being grown. He points out that it started out highly regulated, a “crackdown,” so to speak, but is now relatively peaceful. Notably, he also points out that rampant capitalism took over the industry. This is
As we see in The Wire, Barksdale/Stringer’s gang are still engaging in violence despite the unofficial decriminalization of the drug trade. In The Truce on Drugs, Wallace-Wells recalls a conversation with Mikal Jakubal: “I asked him how real the threat of violence, of organized crime, seemed to growers. “It’s always there, on the edges,” he said, and then he started remembering the violent episodes, rare but present […] “This happens now and then,” Jakubal said, meaning the murders, “and everybody freaks out and says, ‘Oh my God, what are we doing to my children?’ But the next season, everyone is back out there growing again.”” Which is to say, legalization could likely only be a partial solution to violence, and still leaves the issue of endangering the health of communities with the presence of hard