Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs

by Johann Hari

Overview

The New York Times Bestseller

What if everything you think you know about addiction is wrong? Johann Hari's journey into the heart of the war on drugs led him to ask this question—and to write the book that gave rise to his viral TED talk, viewed more than 62 million times, and inspired the feature film The United States vs. Billie Holiday and the documentary series The Fix.

One of Johann Hari's earliest memories is of trying to wake up one of his relatives and not being able to. As he grew older, he realized he had addiction in his family. Confused, not knowing what to do, he set out and traveled over 30,000 miles over three years to discover what really causes addiction—and what really solves it.

He uncovered a range of remarkable human stories—of how the war on drugs began with Billie Holiday, the great jazz singer, being stalked and killed by a racist policeman; of the scientist who discovered the surprising key to addiction; and of the countries that ended their own war on drugs—with extraordinary results.

Chasing the Scream is the story of a life-changing journey that transformed the addiction debate internationally—and showed the world that the opposite of addiction is connection.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620408902
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	01/20/2015
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Johann Hari is the author of Lost Connections. He was twice named Newspaper Journalist of the Year by Amnesty International UK. He has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and others, and he is a regular panelist on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. His TED talk, “Everything You Think You Know About Addiction Is Wrong,” and the animation based on it have more than twenty million views. Hari lives in London.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part I Mount Rushmore

1 The Black Hand 7

2 Sunshine and Weaklings 33

3 The Barrel of Harry's Gun 42

4 The Bullet at the Birth 48

Part II Ghosts

5 Souls of Mischief 61

6 Hard to Be Harry 85

7 Mushrooms 98

Part III Angels

8 State of Shame 103

9 Bart Simpson and the Angel of Juárez 116

10 Marisela's Long March 131

Part IV The Temple

11 The Grieving Mongoose 145

12 Terminal City 153

13 Batman's Bad Call 168

Part V Peace

14 The Drug Addicts' uprising 187

15 Snowfall and Strengthening 205

16 The Spirit of'74 233

17 The Man in the Well 256

18 High Noon 275

Conclusion: If You are Alone 291

A Note On Narrative Techniques 300

Acknowledgments 302

Notes 305

Bibliography 361

Index 375

Editorial Reviews

★ 10/20/2014
In his first book, journalist Hari takes readers on a historical tour of the devastation wrought by the global war on drugs, beginning at the turn of the 20th century with Harry Anslinger, the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, and Arnold Rothstein, the Prohibition-era kingpin of New York. Hari dutifully documents the individual lives encroached on by the war on drugs, from the addicts made into pariahs by the zealousness of Anslinger’s acolytes to the Brooklyn corner boys and Mexican cartels whose violence continues to destroy communities, as well as the doctors ruined by the quixotic struggle to enact meaningful reform and research. Hari’s investigation leads him to research labs conducting experiments that challenge the classic pharmaceutical model of addiction, presenting more complex theories that see addiction as symptomatic of larger sociological and psychological issues and argue that addiction is both less serious and more treatable than the antidrug lobby claims. Eventually coming to the belief that the best strategy is to “legalize drugs stage by stage, and use the money we currently spend on punishing addicts to fund compassionate care instead,” Hari ends his journey in Uruguay, Portugal, and Switzerland, where successful movements to legalize and decriminalize drugs offer hope for the future. Hari has made a stimulating hybrid of a book—simultaneously a readable history of the war on drugs and a powerful case for radical reform. Agent: Richard Pine, Inkwell Management. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"Superb journalism and thrilling story-telling." - Naomi Klein

"An absolutely stunning book. It will blow people away." - Elton John

"A terrific book." - Bill Maher

"A wonderful book . . . I hope everyone will read it." - Sam Harris

"Wonderful. I couldn't put it down." - Noam Chomsky

"Amazing and bracing and smart. It’s really revolutionary." - Dan Savage

"One of the world's most important and most enlightening thinkers and social critics." - Glenn Greenwald, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

"Incredibly insightful and provocative." - B.J. Novak, writer for THE OFFICE

"A testament to Hari's skill as a writer." - The New York Times

From the Publisher

02/01/2015
Journalist Hari's extensively documented book marks a century in the life of the war on drugs. He chronicles its history by focusing on the human stories that have emerged from the war. The first shots were fired by antidrug zealot Harry J. Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, in 1931. His single-minded pursuit of cocaine addict Billie Holiday makes for fascinating reading and sets the stage for decades of enforcement activities. Hari profiles many others, from early drug dealing entrepreneur Arnold Rothstein to Chino Hardin, a former dealer who transformed his life and now advocates for social causes related to drug addiction and juvenile justice. The drug cartel system, prescription drug addiction, and the science of addiction are explored, all through the eyes of those on one side or the other of the war. Success stories of decriminalization in Portugal, Uruguay, and Switzerland round out the book and help make Hari's arguments for change. VERDICT By allowing readers to get to know those affected by drugs, be they addicts, dealers, law enforcement officers, or those toiling to better understand addiction and improve treatment, Hari has created much more than a chronology. He unites the history, the human story, and the arguments for reform in a complex and compelling account. [See Prepub Alert, 7/28/14.]—Joan Pedzich, formerly with Harris Beach PLLC, Pittsford, NY

Library Journal

2014-11-04
Award-winning journalist Hari's multistrand examination of the war on drugs, spanning 100 years from inception to the present day.Through a smattering of narratives, the author looks at the centennial of the war on drugs from the time it was legislated with the passage of the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act in 1914. Blending sociology, history and reportage with novelistic detail, Hari uses the narratives of the first American drug czar Harry Anslinger, jazz singer and addict Billie Holiday, and drug-dealing gangster Arnold Rothstein as archetypes to point out how the war continually perpetuates itself with shocking intensity and contradiction. The author is a sharp judge of character, and he wisely notes that the underlying reason for drug prohibition was not an altruistic desire to protect people from harmful and addictive chemical substances but rather fear "that the blacks, Mexicans, and Chinese were using these chemicals, forgetting their place, and menacing white people." It certainly seems that the primary goal of the war was to repress minorities and solidify white dominance, and little has changed in the past 100 years. Racial discrimination continues to dominate discussions of the drug war's effectiveness; a majority of nonviolent drug offenders are black, yet statistics show that drug use across races is equal. Alarming, though well-known statistics such as this are peppered throughout the many profiles Hari shares from his travels around the world to experience the repercussions of the drug war firsthand. While the author harangues the singularly negative consequences of drug prohibition, he discusses the case of Portugal, where all drugs have been decriminalized since 2001; there, the average drug use is now lower than any rate in Europe. It is one of the few glimmers of hope, alongside movements to legalize marijuana, in a worldwide war whose fight should not be against drugs but for humanity in general. A compassionate and humane argument to overturn draconian drug policies.

Kirkus Reviews