Chasing The Scream - Johann Hari

Hussien Nasser
AFAM 2001
Professor Young
3 April 2017

Chapter 1 - The Black Hand 

1. He pledged to eradicate all drugs everywhere - and within thirty years, he succeeded in turning this crumbling department, with these disheartened men, into the headquarters for a global war that would last for a hundred years and counting. (pg. 11).

• Harry Anslinger creation of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics created a worldwide notice in terms of drugs. The agency consisted of corrupt and crooked individuals who wanted drugs out of the United States forever. Collectively they began to grow the agency and action was needed to wipe out marijuana and drugs that were still legal within the United States.   

2. Anslinger believed that if he had gotten the president's plea through only a little earlier, "a decent peace might have been written, forestalling any chance for a future Hitler gaining power, or a Second World War erupting. (pg. 13)

• Harry Anslinger believed that during the First World War as diplomatic agent, the future of civilization was in his hands at one point in time. He was sent on a mission to deliver a message to the German dictator from President Wilson that stated "Don't do It". He regretted and felt that he needed to now find a way to recover from his actions in Europe. 

3. He believed the most-feared groups in the United states - Mexican immigrants and African Americans - were taking the drug much more than white people, and he presented the House Committee on Appropriations with a nightmarish vision of where this could lead. (pg. 15)

• African Americans and Mexicans were being targeted and accused of consuming more drugs that white people. The thought that drugs were making African Americans and Mexicans step out of their racial boundary was problematic in the United States which is why Anslinger found the need to present this idea to the House of Appropriations. His goal was to get the a department in the government to not only get on his side, but support his idea and begin to believe set idea. 

4. The most frightening effect of marijuana, Harry warned, was on blacks. It made them forget the appropriate racial barriers - and unleashed their lust for women. (pg. 17)

• Harry Anslinger mentioned that blacks was being effected because it caused them o forget that racial barriers existed. He believed that because drugs was causing blacks to feel comfortable and laid back, it was not the appropriate move for society. When a black agent working for Anslinger complained about being called a nigger, he was fired. Anslinger felt that he was superior especially with the position he was in and found it necessary to fire William Davis, a black individual. 

5. "You have to be poor and black to know how many times you can get knocked in the head for trying to do something as simple as that". (pg. 20)

• Billie Holiday felt that in order to sneak into a store that did not allow black people, you must be poor and black. Being poor and black are the two factors that causes an individual to experience such lifestyle during the 1900s. Billie stopped saying "yes sir" and ma'am unless she felt it was necessary. The mistreatment towards African Americans was highly disliked by Holiday. She was referred to as Lady Day and her song that she written, a black women expressing grief and fury at the mass murders of her brothers bodies hanging from tress in the South.   

Chapter 2 - Sunshine and Weaklings

1. He (Henry Smith Williams) said that addicts were weaklings who should never have been brought into the world and wrote that the "idea that every human life has genuine value ...and therefore to be treasured, is an absurd banality. The world would be far better off if forty percent of its inhabitants had never been borned." (pg. 34).

• Williams believed that drugs led to the destruction of people and that nobody should take drugs because it affects the human body. As human we need to value and appreciate our life. We should not take are life to be unreal and as a joke. Addicts are becoming weak and ineffective to society which is why Williams mentions the world being "better off". There is no need to be in this world if you are not going to make an impact or a change that will benefit the world. 

2. Most of the people the bureau had picked on up to now - addicts and African Americans - were in no position to fight back. (pg. 35)

• African American doctors were being set up by the government and was in no position to fight back as stated above. The government will send a "stool pigeon" to trick doctors across the United States. They would con doctors into prescribing them a treatment that they did not need. once the drug was prescribed, the police would burst into the room and arrests these doctors, primarily African American doctors. 

3. An official government study found that before drug prohibition properly kicked in, three quarters of self-described addicts (not just users - addicts) had steady and respectable jobs. Some 22 percent of addicts were wealthy, while only 6 percent were poor. (pg. 36)

• Before drugs entered society, people were still functioning and living their everyday life while on drugs. People had jobs and were wealthy. Drugs was not affecting the livelihood of individuals even will the small percentage of poor people. Before people were being arrested for drugs and alcohol, everyone was going about their day unworried. With the implementation of more drugs however, there was a slight increase in the percent of poor people because of the cost of drugs.

4. The Williams brothers had watched as Anslinger's department created two crime waves. First, it created an army of gangsters to smuggle drugs into the country and sell them to addicts. In other words Anslinger claimed to be fighting the Mafia, he was in fact transferring a massive and highly profitable industry. Second, by driving up the cost of drugs by more of a thousand percent, the new policies meant addicts were forced to commit crime to get their next fix. (pg. 36)

• The first and second wave are both interrelated because addicts can not use drugs without money. Whatever the cost of drugs are, addicts will pay which is why increasing the cost created an unordinary lifestyle for addicts. they would begin to beg, steal, borrow and sometimes never return back, or forge just to get a hold on drugs. Men for example would find a way  to sell while women would become prostitutes. Both waves implemented by the Williams brothers caused individuals to be in a very unstable state and position in society. What was alarming however is the thought that Anslinger and his association with the Mafia. He was essentially assisting the mafia which is the center of the problem in terms of drugs in the United states, causing races such as Mexicans and African-Americans to be targeted.    

5. "The United States government, as represented by anti-drug officials", Henry explained, had just become "the greatest and most potent maker of criminals in any recent century." And every time Harry Anslinger created new drug criminals, he created new reasons for his department to be saved - and to grow. (pg. 37)

• Every time Harry felt that his agency was dwindling down, he always found a new thought or idea that he felt the government would also believe. With the thought of America being the "greatest" gives an idea of acknowledgement and being the best of something. Arresting criminals and such for the use of drugs and having the number of be the highest amongst all other countries throughout the world. Anytime he targeted a new area of the drug world, his agency expand and grew off of the backbone of another individual or group.