August 11, 2015 Editor

Chasing the Scream

The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, Johann Hari, New York: Bloomsbury, 2015, 389 pp.

WN: An excerpt from my book review you may click on below:

The author is an established British journalist–though he has been found guilty of plagiarism and fabrication. In the “Introduction” he explains that his research took him “across nine countries and thirty thousand miles, and it would last for three years (p. 2).” At the end of the Introduction, the author writes:

It turns out that many of our most basic assumptions about this subject are wrong. Drugs are not what we think they are. Drug addiction is not what we have been told it is. The drug war is not what our politicians have sold it as for one hundred years and counting. And there is a very different story out there waiting for us when we are ready to hear it – one that should leave us thrumming with hope (p. 3).

I confess at the outset that so much of his material corresponded to what I have known as a longstanding practitioner in the criminal justice field.

Please click on: Book Review of Chasing the Scream

Visits: 212


Genre: journalism
Subjects: (international) politics, drugs, war on drugs

Editor

Wayne Northey was Director of Man-to-Man/Woman-to-Woman – Restorative Christian Ministries (M2/W2) in British Columbia, Canada from 1998 to 2014, when he retired. He has been active in the criminal justice arena and a keen promoter of Restorative Justice since 1974. He has published widely on peacemaking and justice themes. You will find more about that on this website: a work in progress.

Always appreciate constructive feedback! Thanks.