User Reviews

"The Ho Chi Minh Trail" is an odd name for this episode of "Police Story", as it really has nothing to do with the Vietnamese or the Vietnamese War. Still, it is a very good episode--one that you should try to see.

Mark Randolph (Clifton Davis) is about to graduate from the police academy when he is approached by Sergeant Delany (George Maharis). Delany would like Randolph's help on an undercover drug case and it means leaving the academy early. That's because they need a black cop who can go undercover--in other words, they want a brand new cop who isn't known to the drug world. Randolph agrees, though considering how dangerous the job is, it's obvious he's had some doubts. How the group of narcotics officers deal with his doubts is awfully funny---and you'll just need to see it for yourself. The show follows the trail Randolph takes from a lowly pusher up the chain to a big-time international dealer and the steps the police take to bring down this heroin trade.

This is a very interesting and well made episode--and it shows much more of the drug world than you usually see in TV shows. What I really appreciated was seeing Davis is a very different role, as he soon would be known for a much more lightweight sort of role on the TV sitcom "That's My Mama". All in all, and exceptional episode and one that showed just how thankless such work can be...as well as how rewarding.

When such superlative performers can be gathered into one cast for one series entry, we should realize just how great this "Police Story" series was and is. Even after all these years.

Every player is so completely believable, it would be hard to highlight any one.

Besides being top-notch entertainment, there is a double plot line and message: A policeman's lot is not a happy one and a policeman's wife's lot is possibly worse, yes, but there is another point not clearly explicated: Why are lives and resources put to such risk?

The police brag about having captured a "record amount" of some particular drug, of "having taken it off the street," but all that really means is the price to the ultimate consumer, the addict, goes up.

Sorry, but the iron laws of economics apply: Lower supply for unchanged demand equals higher price.

So the addict might have to burgle more homes, or hold up more convenience stores, or turn more tricks.

What such shows, and what the "news" and entertainment media and the government school systems, nearly always fail to tell us is that, besides those iron laws, there is a moral failure too.

Most people, including the users, agree that "drugs are bad." But is it really intelligent or practical for there to be laws against them?

In fact, what we do not get told, as we should, is that it is the laws that create the societal problems. Especially the crime.

Nations and other jurisdictions that have decriminalized drug use have seen a huge drop in crime and the costs of crime.

Crime-fighters make good TV shows and movies, but, in real life, using police as soldiers in the Insane War on Some Drugs is expensive in money, property, and lives -- and, far worse, in restrictions on lives of even the most innocent.

"Police Story" continues, after all these years, to be a TV series standing high in my estimation. Even when I oppose the laws and government actions involved in this kind of story, I highly recommend this series and this entry.