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

by Johann Hari

Stop thinking only about individual recovery, he argues, and start thinking about “social recovery.” If we think like this, the question we need to answer with our drug policy shifts. It is no longer: How do we stop addiction through threats and force, and scare people away from drugs in the first place? It becomes: How do we start to rebuild a society where we don’t feel so alone and afraid, and where we can form healthier bonds? How do we build a society where we look for happiness in one another rather than in consumption? These are radical questions, with implications far beyond the drug war, and bigger than this book. But they have to be asked. We haven’t been able to reduce addiction, it occurs to me, because we have been asking the wrong questions.