Mason Tvert is the Colorado activist who led his state’s campaign to legalize marijuana. Whereas Tonia Winchester focused her campaign in Washington on the harms of drug prohibition, Tvert focused his on the scientific evidence showing that marijuana is far safer than alcohol. While Hari sees the value of this argument when it comes to marijuana, he argues that it probably won’t persuade the public to legalize other drugs or reform the drug war in general.
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Mason Tvert Character Timeline in Chasing the Scream
The timeline below shows where the character Mason Tvert appears in Chasing the Scream. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 18: High Noon
In Colorado, the activist Mason Tvert challenged the state governor, the millionaire brewery owner John Hickenlooper, to a tongue-in-cheek duel: Tvert...
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Mason Tvert and Tonia Winchester attacked Harry Anslinger’s war on drugs from completely opposite angles. Tvert defended...
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...a prosecutor and explained how drug prohibition was ruining young people’s lives. She believed that Tvert’s focus on the safety of marijuana was “a stupid argument [that] doesn’t persuade people.” Instead,...
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...helped her overcome her prejudices about the drug. Still, Hari is apprehensive about some of Tvert’s arguments, like the idea that it’s better for teenagers to smoke marijuana than drink beer....
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When choosing between Tvert and Winchester’s approaches, there’s one more key question: which can be applied to other drugs...
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Mason Tvert is right to say that marijuana is safer than alcohol, but Hari wonders whether the...
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...still cause “only-slightly-less-horrible harm.” In the future, Hari concludes, citizens and activists will determine whether Tvert or Winchester’s approach is more successful.
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