Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Chasing the Scream, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Drug Legalization and U.S. Policy
Addiction and Human Connection
Prohibition and the Cycle of Violence
Stories and Human Psychology
Summary
Analysis
The “dealers and users and cops” who choose to join the war on drugs aren’t the only ones who have died from it. There are also “mushrooms.” They’re people like six-year-old Tiffany Smith, who was playing on the street when she was shot and killed during a turf war. “They call them mushrooms,” Hari writes, “because they can pop up anywhere.”
The drug war creates a backdrop of constant, unpredictable suffering that affects everyone who lives in the societies that are fighting it. Tiffany Smith is just one of the most tragic examples of this suffering. Of course, the drug war’s physical and psychological toll falls disproportionately on the poorest and most vulnerable people in these societies.
Themes
