Bubbles didn’t get out of the game until he got off the drugs. www.hbo.com/thewireOver at the PI Robert Jamieson is, understandably, worried about the state of things in Belltown. He blasts Mayor Nickels for not spending enough time in the troubled district (although I know some bouncers who think maybe he spends too much time worrying about their Belltown activity.)At the heart of Jamieson’s concern is the drug trade and accompanying violence that seems to progress unabated day and night in the blocks surrounding Second and Bell. The column caught my eye in part because I walked through Belltown yesterday afternoon and almost crashed into a deal. It was an odd moment on a sunny afternoon. As I meandered down the sidewalk, a couple feet in front of me one guy reached across my path with cash, the other with a vile, and traded. They had barely finished the exchange as I begged my pardon through. At 2 a.m. I suspect it would have been a far more frightening encounter, but by day, I could see the recipient–and he looked a junky. Jamieson writes: “The whole issue is layered, complex — but not unsolvable. If only the mayor would stand up and lead.”Jamieson doesn’t actually offer any suggestions, but maybe he’s right and it is a solvable issue. But unless the junky’s addition is treated, I suspect he’ll just take his business elsewhere if there’s a Belltown crackdown. And as we learned in high school economics, where there is a demand, there’s a supply. Unfortunately in this line of business, that supply tends to come armed.This doesn’t seem so much like a problem with a specific neighborhood as it is a city with enough addicts to sustain the business of drugs and violence.