If you're called for jury duty, let the lawyers and judges know up front that you're not going to send nonviolent drug offenders to jail.
That provocative piece of advice comes from the creators of my all-time favorite television show, The Wire, which ended its five-year run on HBO Sunday.
"If asked to serve on a jury deliberating a violation of state or federal drug laws, we will vote to acquit, regardless of the evidence presented," the writers of the show declare in a recent Time magazine essay.
The essay is signed by David Simon, a former Sun reporter who created the series; Ed Burns, a Baltimore cop-turned-teacher who became Mr. Simon's co-creator; William F. Zorzi Jr., another former Sun reporter (who also plays a Sun reporter named Bill Zorzi on the show) and best-selling crime novelists Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos and Richard Price.
"Save for a prosecution in which acts of violence or intended violence are alleged, we will ... no longer tinker with the machinery of the drug war," they write. "No longer can we collaborate with a government that uses nonviolent drug offenses to fill prisons with its poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens."
Although I have some reservations, I've learned enough as an urban affairs journalist to know that they make a powerful and persuasive argument. The war on drugs too often has become a war against poor people.
That theme was driven home with bracing clarity and authenticity on The Wire, which is more than a cop show. It's really about the two Americas left behind to coexist uneasily in the social rubble that departing factory jobs left behind.
Simon and Co. say they were moved to write by the show's fans who became invested in the lives of characters such as Bubbles, the junkie struggling to get straight, and Dukie, the dropout outcast who slides into junkiedom. We few, say the writers, we captivated few who made up the series' loyal audience, flooded the writers with one question: What can we do?
Having talked in recent months with almost all of the essay's authors, I know how frustrating they have found that question to be. Kids get killed, addicted or jailed. Politicians get elected. Lawyers get rich. Jails get filled. The drug war goes on. Drug arrests soar without a noticeable decline in drugs.
