On HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" & the Current (New! Improved!) Prohibition

It’s two weeks into the first season of HBO’s Boardwalk Empire and I’m hooked: Being a sucker for Steve Buscemi, gangster movies/shows, and a long-time fan of The Sopranos, it’s no surprise that I like Empire, considering it’s done by Terence Winter, Sopranos writer/creator. Plus the first episode contains a line I’ve been known to toss out from time to time, “Read a fucking book” (usually this is in relation to the current trend of Know-Nothing Politics, such as the deniers of climate change and other idiocy).
Boardwalk Empire definitely makes Prohibition look glamorous, especially the first episode, with the raucous party scene. The cinematography is terrific, kind of lustrous and lush. Everything looks beautiful in that light, even some gangster getting whacked, to use a phrase.The young actor playing Jimmy, Michael Pitt, has that kind of leading-guy charm that used to be summed up with the line, “The camera loves him.” It does.
But this harking back to the Prohibition of the 1920s only underscores the futility of the Prohibition of the 2010s, that disastrous waste of time/money/lives known as The War on Drugs. Here’s an editorial that I think makes total sense, is not published in High Times, and contains all the cogent arguments for the legalization of marijuana that have been known for years, but seem to be getting more credence know, after decades of wasted time and effort. I applaud the writer, Bill Piper. It’s even in CNN, hardly a bastion of liberal thought:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/09/28/piper.decriminalize.pot/index.html?hpt=C2