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Long gone are the days when television characters were simply housewives and husbands. TV reflects the reality in which we live. As channels like HBO, Showtime, and AMC produce more edgy programming, more drug dealers and other criminals are cast as central characters. From the suburbs of California and New Mexico to the streets of Baltimore and the prison system, here are TV’s Top 5 Most Notorious Drug Dealers.

5. Nancy Botwin (Weeds)

Nancy Botwin is a housewife who started off selling marijuana to her suburban neighbors in the fictitious L.A. suburb of Argestic after her husband died of a heart attack. Her drug dealing career leads her to date a DEA agent, and later to being impregnated by a Mexican drug lord while fleeing the police and the Mexican mob.

4. Marlo Stanfield (The Wire)

Marlo Stanfield entered “The Wire” in its third season and continued through the fifth and final season. Stanfield was a ruthless, cutthroat drug dealer who would have his enemies murdered and their bodies left to rot in abandoned houses. With the help of his cohorts, Chris and Snoop, Marlo would become one of the most cold-hearted criminals in TV history and one of the few TV criminals to wind up a free man.

3. Simon Adebisi (Oz)

Simon Adebisi was an inmate in the fictitious Oswald State penitentiary. He was sentenced to life in prison for beheading an undercover police officer with a machete.While in prison, Adebisi would become the leaders of the Homeboys and work with the Italians to run the drug trade in prison. Adebisi would eventually become the de facto ruler of Oz before being killed by Muslim leader Kareem Said.

2. Walter White (Breaking Bad)

Walter White is a high school chemistry teacher who teams up to cook meth with his former student Jesse Pinkman after he finds out he has cancer and can’t pay for his treatment. White uses his knowledge of chemistry to make a product that is vastly superior to the rest of the meth in his native New Mexico. White and Pinkman would start their own meth ring and eventually  wound up working for drug lord, Gustavo Fring.

1. Stringer Bell (The Wire)

Stringer Bell and his partner Avon Barksdale controlled the heroin trade in West Baltimore for the first three seasons of “The Wire.” Unlike traditional stereotypes of drug dealers, Bell was a thinking man, who used strategies he learned in economics classes. Rather than go to war with other drug dealers, Stringer would make alliances, forming a cooperative for drug dealers to pool their resources. Unfortunately Stringer had a shady and conniving side, which lead to his demise.