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parsed(2015-01-20) - pubdate: 2015-01-20
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pub date: 1421733600
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Chasing the Scream

The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs

January 20, 2015 | Hardcover
ISBN: 9781620408902
$37.00
Reader Reward Price: $33.30 info
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Description

It is now one hundred years since drugs were first banned in the United States. On the eve of this centenary, journalist Johann Hari set off on an epic three-year, thirty-thousand-mile journey into the war on drugs. What he found is that more and more people all over the world have begun to recognize three startling truths: Drugs are not what we think they are. Addiction is not what we think it is. And the drug war has very different motives to the ones we have seen on our TV screens for so long.

In Chasing the Scream, Hari reveals his discoveries entirely through the stories of people across the world whose lives have been transformed by this war. They range from a transsexual crack dealer in Brooklyn searching for her mother, to a teenage hit-man in Mexico searching for a way out. It begins with Hari's discovery that at the birth of the drug war, Billie Holiday was stalked and killed by the man who launched this crusade--and it ends with the story of a brave doctor who has led his country to decriminalize every drug, from cannabis to crack, with remarkable results.

Chasing the Scream lays bare what we really have been chasing in our century of drug war--in our hunger for drugs, and in our attempt to destroy them. This book will challenge and change how you think about one of the most controversial--and consequential--questions of our time.

About this Author

Johann Hari was a columnist for the Independent in London for nine years and was twice named Newspaper Journalist of the Year by Amnesty International UK. He has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, Slate, the New Republic, and the Nation, among others. He has also been awarded the Comment Award for Cultural Commentator of the Year by Editorial Intelligence, and has been named Journalist of the Year by Stonewall. Hari lives in London.

ISBN: 9781620408902
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 400
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: 2015-01-20

Reviews

Hari talks to cops, dealers, convicts, addicts, scientists, and politicians from New York to Juarez to Amsterdam, assembling stories from all corners of what he calls a 'global battlefield.' Their combined testimony forms a convincing brief that drug prohibition may have spawned as much crime, violence, and heartache as drug use ever did. (Boston Globe)

"Breathtaking ... Chasing the Scream is a powerful contribution to an urgent debate." (The Guardian)

Hari spent three years meticulously researching and footnoting the book, which puts a vivid human face on our behemoth and often abstract anti-drug efforts (The Atlantic)

"Hari debunks many myths and fallacies surrounding addiction and the drug wars. But this book is also an eloquent reminder of an easily forgotten truth, one that the doctor in 1938 used as the title of his own book: 'Drug Addicts Are Human Beings.'"- Christian Science Monitor

Chasing the Scream is a remarkable book. It is moving and articulate and impossible to put down. Read it and demand our politicians take note. (Evening Standard)

"Chasing the Scream is a riveting book, and Hari is an effective storyteller." - San Francisco Chronicle

Important and beautifully written. (Baltimore City Paper)

"A timely book, and one that might even change minds." (The Times)

"Hari's empathy and keen eye for detail bring a disparate group of characters to life." (New York Times Book Review)

"Hari debunks many myths and fallacies surrounding addiction and the drug wars. But this book is also an eloquent reminder of an easily forgotten truth, one that the doctor in 1938 used as the title of his own book: "Drug Addicts Are Human Beings"." (Christian Science Monitor)

Chasing the Scream is a fascinating extensively researched and heartfelt contribution to a debate over drugs policy that continues to rage today. (Esquire UK)

"Hari has made a stimulating hybrid of a book (simultaneously a readable history of the war on drugs and a powerful case for radical reform." - Publishers Weekly)

"A compassionate and humane argument to overturn draconian drug policies." - Kirkus Reviews

"[Hari] unites the history, the human story, and the arguments for reform in a complex and compelling account." - Library Journal

"A frank and often brutal examination of the origins of the American war-on-drugs policy . . . Hari concisely lays out the history and long-term effects of the war on drugs with both depth and precision. He portrays everyone with empathy, from drug dealers to drug addicts, law enforcement personnel, and civilans caught in the middle . . . [He ends with] hope for a new understanding of drug use in the future." - Booklist

"Superb journalism and thrilling story-telling." (Naomi Klein)

Chasing the Scream vividly paints the war on drugs as the century-long bad LSD trip that it is; in doing so it sticks a big nail in its coffin. (Ioan Grillo, author of El Narco)

"An absolutely stunning book. It will blow people away." - Elton John

"Johann Hari's book is the perfect antidote to the war on drugs, one of the most under-discussed moral injustices of our time. It combines rigorous research and deeply human story-telling. It will prompt an urgently needed debate." - Glenn Greenwald

"This book is an entertainment, a great character study, and page-turning story-telling all rolled into one very sophisticated and compelling cry for social justice." - Stephen Downing, former deputy chief, LAPD

"Wonderful. I couldn't put it down." (Noam Chomsky)

"This book is as intoxicatingly thrilling as crack, without destroying your teeth. It will change the drug debate forever." (Russell Brand)

"Johann Hari has written a drug policy reform book like no other. Many have studied, or conducted, the science surrounding the manifold ills of drug prohibition. But Hari puts it all into riveting story form, and humanizes it . . . Chasing the Scream is beautifully wrought: lively, humorous, and poignant. And, it's a compelling case for why the drug war must end, yesterday." (Norman Stamper, former chief of the Seattle Police)

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