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

by Johann Hari

As I traveled from country to country, I started to realize that this story—of a street dealer—is only the story of the first layer of violence and criminality caused by transferring the drug trade into the illegal economy. Beyond Chino Hardin, there is another layer of gangsters controlling the neighborhood. Beyond them is a network of smugglers who transported the drugs from the U.S. border to New York. Beyond them is a mule who carried them across the border. Beyond them is a gang controlling the transit through Mexico, or Thailand, or Equatorial Guinea. Beyond them is a gang controlling the production in Colombia, or Afghanistan. Beyond them is a farmer growing the opium or coca. And at every level, there is a war on drugs, a war for drugs, and a culture of terror, all created by prohibition. I started to think of Chino, and all he has been through, as only one exploded and discarded shell, left behind on a global battlefield.