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

by Johann Hari

Some twenty thousand doctors were charged with violating the Harrison Act alongside Edward Williams, and 95 percent were convicted. Most were charged massive fines, but some faced five years in prison for each and every prescription written. In many places, horrified juries refused to convict, because they could see the doctors were only treating the sick as best they could. But Anslinger’s crackdown continued with full force. Harry wanted Edward Williams to be broken more than any other doctor, because he was widely respected and many people listened to him. “The moral effect of his conviction,” Anslinger wrote, “will most certainly result in greater circumspection.” You only have to destroy a few doctors to silence the rest. Go for the top. Maximum intimidation. This was always Harry’s way. “Anybody that came out with any academic work that could be critical of him, his Bureau, or his philosophy, had to go to prison,” Howard Diller, one of his agents, said later. “Or be beheaded.”