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

by Johann Hari

Rothstein got in the deal up front, he kept. As I pieced together Arnold’s story in the shadow of the Capitol, I kept thinking of all the dry sociology studies I had been reading about the drug war—and they began to make sense. They explain that when a popular product is criminalized, it does not disappear. Instead, criminals start to control the supply and sale of the product. They have to get it into the country, transport it to where it’s wanted, and sell it on the street. At every stage, their product is vulnerable. If somebody comes along and steals it, they can’t go to the police or the courts to get it back. So they can only defend their property one way: by violence. But you don’t want to be having a shoot-out every day—that’s no way to run a business. So you have to establish a reputation: a reputation for being terrifying. People must believe that you are so violent and brutal that they are too afraid to even try to pick a fight with you. You can only establish that reputation with attention-grabbing acts of brutality.