President Barack Obama, a huge fan of the critically acclaimed HBO series The Wire, recently sat down to interview the show's creator, David Simon, to discuss the drug trade and its cultural impact on Americans.
The Wire takes viewers on a journey straight into the Baltimore drug scene—offering various perspectives on the issue from characters who are dealers, cops, the press, schoolteachers and children—and illustrates the struggles of law enforcement.
"When you devote yourself to street-level drug enforcement or when you try to win the drug war," said Simon. "You only have a limited number of resources."
Simon's experience growing up in Baltimore compelled him to tell stories that exposed the truth about cartels and their effect on inner cities.
The president also addressed the massive trend of incarceration that is exploding with non-violent drug offenders.
"The challenge you depict on your show is, folks go in at a great expense on the state, many a times to become trained, to become more hardened criminals while in prison," said Obama. "Taxpayers end up spending so much more on prison than you would with these kids being in school or even going to college."
The POTUS says if we can start down a path of more productive thinking about this problem, "In 20 years, we can say to ourselves, maybe we got a little smarter."
Simon agreed, "What drugs don't destroy, the world against them will."