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

by Johann Hari

you can prescribe opiates for back pain, why can’t you prescribe them for psychological pain? Imagine if a woman addicted to Oxy in Oklahoma City wasn’t abruptly told to stop using, with directions to the nearest Narcotics Anonymous group and a brisk “Good luck.” Imagine if, instead, she was told exactly what the patients in Geneva are told: you will be given a safe, legal dose for as long as you need it, and while you receive it, we will give you support and care to help you to rebuild your life, get secure housing, and keep your job. It seems reasonable to expect that the results would be the same in Vermont or Alabama as they were in Switzerland—that most people would, over time, choose to reduce their dose and eventually give up their drugs as their pain abated. But that’s only the first step: it’s the bandage that stops the hemorrhaging. Then you need to have a deeper strategy—one that stops these wounds from forming in the first place. To do that, you need to change the culture so people find life less unbearable. We have to build a society that looks more like Rat Park and less like a rat race. If that sounds like pie in the sky, remember the alternative: addiction outbreaks that only swell, like an Oxy slick forming across the sky.