Chasing The Scream

Chasing The Scream is a scathing review of the failed war on drugs, explaining its history with surprising statistics and identifying new ways that we can think about addiction, recovery, and drug laws.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, drugs we now consider illicit were widely used and sold at places like department stores. The crackdown came in 1914 when the US started prohibiting the sale of drugs. It was the outbreak of WWI, and the US was becoming rapidly industrialized.

There was a lot of anxiety about this changing world. One way people felt they could control this, rather than focusing on class tensions or other less tangible problems, was to prohibit drugs.

The primary proponent, Harry Anslinger, cracked down zealously as the first officer of the US Bureau of Narcotics. But when he noticed they still flowed freely in, he suspected communists were selling them to undermine him. He used his position to help convince other countries to crack down too.

More recent campaigns have worked to convince us the war on drugs was for noble reasons, like helping addicts. But in 1914, proponents really just saw it as a way to suppress minorities.

Harry Anslinger made claims in interviews that the increase in drug use was entirely among blacks. He and others pushed the idea it was a black problem. Through this, they were able to tap into people’s prejudices and fear of minorities to garner support for fighting drugs.

When Anslinger started their crusade to ban drugs, they thought they would slowly disappear from the streets. But as it turns out, criminalizing a product doesn’t make it disappear. People instead find ways to get it illegally. This is especially true with drugs because addiction drives people to try to find a way to get their fix at any cost. This is why the biggest legacy of drug criminalization has been the creation of criminal networks controlling the distribution of illegal drugs. And it’s been extremely profitable. Before the criminalization of morphine, it only cost a few cents per grain. After, drug dealers charged a dollar for the same amount. Addicts were forced to pay the higher cost, and their addiction didn’t leave them a choice. Often, they started committing small crimes to pay for their addiction. What we now think of as junkie who spends their days stealing and prostituting is a product of the war on drugs. Cheap, legal drugs allowed addicts to live somewhat normal lives, but after their criminalization, they started quitting jobs and obligations so they could support the addiction. It also has increased violence because of the risky nature of drug dealing. Because they can’t turn to law enforcement, gangs…