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
While watching a close relative and ex-boyfriend battle addiction, Johann Hari develops a drug habit of his own: he starts taking narcolepsy pills to fuel days-long writing binges. He has often surrounded himself with addicts, whom he calls “my tribe, my group, my people.” Nearly every country wages a war on drugs and treats addicts as criminals. Hari has long opposed this approach, but he is actually replicating it by criticizing and punishing himself for his pill habit.
Hari starts by describing his personal connection to the drug war. This explains his interest in the topic and helps him connect with his readers—who may have picked up a book about the drug war because they, too, have personal connections to addiction or drug violence. These anecdotes also show that Hari doesn’t take drugs lightly: he deeply understands the suffering that addiction can cause, so he cares deeply about finding the best solutions for it. For Hari, like for most people living in modern Western societies, the drug war is a deeply ingrained part of everyday life—so much so that it’s easy to forget that drugs haven’t always been illegal, and drug addicts haven’t always been treated as criminals.
Themes
One morning, Hari decides to learn about the bigger picture of the war on drugs. He throws away his pills and flies to New York City to start interviewing experts—but his journey will ultimately span nine countries over three years. In the process, he will meet a diverse cast of characters who will show him that most popular assumptions about drugs, drug addiction, and the war on drugs simply don’t match up with reality.
In addition to presenting the vast range of topics that Chasing the Scream will cover, Hari explains why he structures the book around the stories of the individuals he interviewed and researched. Together, these stories offer a diverse, memorable picture of all sides of the drug war. Hari doesn’t pretend that these people agree on everything—but he will show that they do agree on certain key points about how drug policy ought to work.
Themes
