John Marks Character Analysis in Chasing the Scream

John Marks is an English doctor who treated drug addicts by prescribing them heroin for many years, until the U.S. persuaded the U.K. government to shut down his program. Still, Marks saw how the program transformed his patients’ lives. It gave them a safe and reliable heroin supply, eliminated their need to commit crimes or do sex work to pay for the drug, and freed up their time for other pursuits like work and education. In short, he learned that heroin addicts can live ordinary, stable lives if they receive heroin through a prescription rather than through the black market. His work is an important model for drug legalization efforts, and it inspired Ruth Dreifuss’s decision to create a nationwide system of heroin clinics in Switzerland.

John Marks Character Timeline in Chasing the Scream

The timeline below shows where the character John Marks appears in Chasing the Scream. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...the Americas. He goes to Europe instead—starting with his home, the U.K. He contacts John Marks, who ran an experiment prescribing heroin in Liverpool as a young psychiatrist. During the region’s... (full context)

Tasked with planning a regional anti-drug strategy, John Marks hired the researcher Russell Newcombe to study his patients. Newcombe found no HIV infections, drug... (full context)

Marks expanded the heroin prescription program, enrolling hundreds of new patients. Over the next 18 months,... (full context)

Unlike Henry Williams, John Marks didn’t think that heroin users would remain addicted for life—he assumed that his patients would... (full context)

While some opposed John Marks’s prescription policy—like the Communists, who thought he was delaying the revolution by drugging the masses—the... (full context)

...national health policy. She met with addicts, sex workers, and doctors. One told her about Marks’s experiment in Liverpool, and she decided to replicate it. She convinced the Swiss government to... (full context)