Chasing The Scream Hari Summary

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In the book, Chasing the Scream, Johann Hari, British Journalist claims that there is drug problem that is happening in the world, but focuses it mainly in the United States. Hari describes the history of the many policies that have attempted to stop this pandemic. He also explains how the war on drugs is also a race war, where law enforcement is only attacking minorities. He also shares stories of those who went through the usage of drugs and other contraband substances. Hari lets these folks describe in their own words with their experience with drugs and addicts. As the writer, Hari shares how he retrieved the evidence to prove his claim that something has to be done about the war on drugs. When he’s the reader, he imagines from the different …show more content…

In the early 20th century, drugs were freely available throughout the world. The crime rate has increased in cities across the United States. Violent criminals have engaged on each other for territory rights to sell their products. The products that are mainly sold on the streets are marijuana, opium, cocaine, crack, and psychedelics. Then in 1930, the Treasury Department created the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. Hari introduced to us a man named Harry Anslinger who became the first commissioner of the department. Ever since he encountered the effects of drugs as a kid when he encountered his neighbor who was in distress for consuming for getting drugs. He was later convinced that “ there was a group of people walking among us who may look and sound normal, but who could at any moment …show more content…

Hari’s inconsistent biased information neglects the possibility of the negative outcome if governments around the world decide to decriminalize all of the make major contraband drugs. Study after study that Hari has done has shown, is that incarcerating addicts does not rehabilitate them but instead increases the risk in making in repeating the same mistake again, and criminalizing drugs does not make these substances disappear, instead, it makes them more dangerous. Hari exaggerates more on the information that he has researched in the text instead of explaining the importance of what he has shared to the readers. He explains how and why addicts become addicted to their substances is that of the lack of “bonding” that he or she in their environment. Hari argues that this is why some people can use drugs and alcohol and not become addicted while others cannot. To the people who have a connection to their environment don’t become addicts. Those who don’t have that connection to their environment is part of the small percentage of the population that is addicted to drugs or alcohol. Hari does not provide the science within the text that examines the whole meaning of addiction. In a blog post written by Dr.Derek Simon, a neuroscientist and graduate from University of Michigan with a PhD, who is studying neurobiological basis for drug addiction at Rockefeller University, writes that “Hari’s argument makes no mention of the

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