Over the course of six hours one gets familiarized with a handful of characters based on real-life people. The mini-series in many regards plays as season 0.5 of 'The Wire', its focus delimited to the dope fiends whose sad and almost unescapable destinies, we are shown, are tragically likely to continue to be a reality for many Baltimore residents who are unable to climb the social ladder and get dragged down by addiction or into the drug running game. Realistic, informative and affecting.

Not bad, a lot of carry over between this and The Wire...acting is a little rough in some instances though.

Everything I've seen of David Simon is so captivating and real. Saw The Wire first, and have tried to watch everything he's been associated with since.

Funny to watch all the cops from the wire acting as dopefiends.

Could've done without the docu-style interviews that sandwich each episode, and the final tries to throw in a little too much, but this true story is captivating, well-directed, well-acted, and provides a good blueprint for the much more multifaceted The Wire. Concentrates (but not exclusively so) on the lives of the addicts, although it would've been nicer to see more on the neighbourhood's/characters' transition from clean/respectable to ghetto/smackheads.