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

by Johann Hari

This suggests we should look at the other possible explanation—a story taught to me by Bruce Alexander back on the streets of the Downtown Eastside. Bruce showed that at any given time, you and I and everyone around us has access to a huge array of chemicals that could drive away our pain for a while, from vodka to valium. Almost all of the time, we leave them on the shelf, unused. So the question is: Why are there sudden moments when large numbers of people, scattered across different bathrooms and barrooms, suddenly pick them up and swallow them compulsively, all at once? The answer doesn’t lie in access. It lies in agony. Outbreaks of drug addiction have always taken place, he proved, when there was a sudden rise is isolation and distress—from the gin-soaked slums of London in the eighteenth century to the terrified troops in Vietnam.