In this thoughtful and informative video, David Simon, creator of the famous HBO drama ‘The Wire’, discuss the high rate of drug-related incarcerations, the drug war’s impediment to beneficial police work, and the continuing cycle of poverty in a meeting at the White House.

Their conversation focuses on America’s dire need to humanize both the victims and perpetrators of the drug war, and to start treating drug abuse as a mental health issue rather than a criminal one.

Watch it here: