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Chapter 15
Themes
and Colors
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
Hari’s next stop is Portugal, the only country in the world that has decriminalized all drugs. He walks around beautiful, sunny Lisbon, then meets João Goulão, the doctor who pioneered the country’s drug policy. When Goulão was 19, Portugal was suffering under a repressive dictatorship. Goulão secretly joined the resistance movement, even though his father was a loyal employee of the regime. In April 1974, he joined the bloodless revolution that overthrew the dictatorship and established democracy. He credits the revolution with teaching him that it’s always possible to change powerful systems when they aren’t working.
Thus far, Hari has discussed small-scale victories, like Vancouver’s safe injection site, to wider-ranging experiments, like Switzerland’s system of heroin clinics. Now, in his final section, he looks at the most radical and transformative drug policy of all. In addition to explaining Goulão’s push for reform, Portugal’s 1974 revolution also serves as a metaphor for the nation’s revolutionary drug policy (and the anti-drug war revolution that Hari hopes to help launch). But it’s also evidence of Portugal’s strong commitment to true democracy—namely, the principle that everyone in society has equal value and an equal right to lead a dignified life. As the reader will soon learn, Portugal is one of the only countries in the world that extends this dignity to drug addicts.
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After the fall of the dictatorship, the beautiful Algarve region in southern Portugal saw an unprecedented influx of tourists—and drugs, especially heroin. Goulão was working there as a doctor. The medical system had little experience treating heroin addicts, and the government adopted “the international prohibitionist playbook” of criminalizing drugs. But throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Portugal’s serious heroin and AIDS epidemics only got worse and worse because addicts were afraid to seek medical care.
By the 1980s, countries like the U.S. had built a strong political and cultural consensus around the “international prohibitionist playbook” over the course of decades. In contrast, Portugal faced an overnight drug epidemic and had to build a new system of drug policies all at once. This gave Portuguese leaders more latitude to experiment with new and innovative drug policies. Of course, they stuck to the U.S.’s drug war playbook at first, but they faced far less political pressure to adhere to these policies in the long term.
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Goulão set up an addiction treatment center in the Algarve. In 1997, he became the nation’s chief addiction doctor, and in 1999, he joined a government commission to redesign the national drug policy. The commission recognized that most drug users aren’t addicted, and that criminalizing addicts only worsens their issues. It declared that the government should treat addicts with compassion and help them build better lives. It proposed reintegrating drug users into society, decriminalizing all drugs, and shifting money from policing and prisons to education and recovery programs.
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Portugal’s heroin epidemic was so massive, Goulão argues, that almost everyone personally knew and sympathized with an addict. This helped persuade Portugal’s parliament to pass the commission’s plan. The nation decriminalized drug use and possession, but it did not legalize the drug trade, which would have triggered significant international backlash. While prohibitionists were predicting a massive spike in drug use, Goulão was busy repurposing “the big, lumbering machinery of the drug war” to focus on treatment and prevention instead.
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Hari visits the Dissuasion Commission, the office where the Portuguese police send any drug users they encounter. A psychologist interviews each user to see if they just do drugs recreationally, or if they have a serious addiction. Recreational users then meet professionals like the sociologist Nuno Capaz, who offer advice about how to use drugs safely. For instance, Hari watches Capaz tell a 17-year-old boy who was caught smoking marijuana about how the drug might affect his concentration in school. The Commission also directs riskier users and addicts to the services they need, ranging from needle exchanges to immediate, free treatment.
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Next, Hari visits a Portuguese drug rehabilitation center, where he watches addicts receive massages designed to help them deal with withdrawal pain and learn to relax without drugs. Goulão understands that addicts choose drugs in order to escape internal pain, so he has designed the facility to help patients develop insight into themselves. Over the year and a half that addicts spend in treatment, they learn to acknowledge and express their emotions through group games. This approach couldn’t be more different than the U.S.’s prison system.
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After recovering addicts go through the treatment center, the Portuguese government helps them find dignified work. It gives companies tax breaks to hire them, and it helps them start small businesses. Hari again notes that the drug war does the opposite: it marks addicts for life with a criminal record, making it nearly impossible for them to find work.
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Portugal also has a solution for the addicts who aren’t yet ready to quit. At Lisbon housing project, Hari watches a line of addicts receive methadone and counseling at a parked van. The psychologist knows them all, and his job is to help them make safer decisions, like smoking heroin instead of injecting it. Hari points out that these addicts are standing in public, where “their friends and neighbors and employers” can see them—he argues that this is why treatment can’t succeed without decriminalization. Later, he follows the social workers who help the city’s most vulnerable, homeless addicts, particularly by offering them clean needles. Again, he’s struck by the addicts’ reaction: under drug prohibition, they would panic and run away.
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In Oporto, Hari meets Sergio Rodrigues. Years ago, during the age of drug prohibition, the police used to beat Sergio up for fun. His friends were addicts, and they were constantly dying. Then, when Portugal’s drug policy changed, a street team approached Sergio to offer clean needles, safety advice, and a pathway to recovery. He went to a treatment center, but it didn’t work, so he tried a “therapeutic community,” where he received methadone and counseling. He found a job, started a relationship, and almost entirely quit using drugs. Now, he’s an ordinary citizen, a taxpaying family man. Hari thinks about how differently Sergio’s life would have turned out in a prohibitionist country.
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Hari explains that his main concern about drug legalization is how it might affect children. For instance, scientists know that regular marijuana use permanently damages teenagers’ brains. To understand how the Portuguese system affects them, he visits a high school, where the class watches a video of a man offering cocaine to a girl and then debates what she should do. The students openly discuss their own drug use, while the teacher patiently mediates the conversation and explains the true risks of cocaine use. The class decides that the girl should say no. By prioritizing honest conversation, Hari argues, the Portuguese approach helps young people make better decisions.
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Hari acknowledges that decriminalization scares many people, who fear that it could backfire and increase drug use. This is how João Figueira, Portugal’s top drug policeman, once felt. He passionately opposed decriminalization, and then was astonished to see it work. He tells Hari that Portugal’s overall rate of drug use is well below the European average, while its number of addicts, overdoses, and HIV cases fell sharply after decriminalization. Teenage drug use is also very low. Drug-related crime has disappeared, Figueira explains, and poor people no longer fear the police, which makes investigations far easier. Regardless of their political leanings, most Portuguese people are happy with decriminalization, which they view as common sense, or a settled issue.
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After meeting João Figueira, Hari wanders around Lisbon “lost in a head-rush of optimism.” Figueira’s change of heart proves that reformers can win over even staunch “drug warriors.” Hari believes that most of these warriors are compassionate and well-intentioned (like Figueira), not paranoid and resentful (like Harry Anslinger). In this way, they’re just like the reformers: they want to save lives, protect young people, and reduce addiction. Portugal shows that there’s no contradiction between embracing compassion and crushing addiction. Rather, compassion for addicts is the way to crush addiction. If the U.S. took Portugal’s approach, it would save $87.8 billion per year. People like Leigh Maddox are already fighting for this.
But as Hari wanders around Lisbon, he also meets many drug dealers. He admits that, with the drug trade still illegal, users still have to buy from criminal gangs. Still, Goulão knows that it’s just a matter of time before a changing international consensus makes it possible for Portugal to legalize the drug trade, too.
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Hari closes with the story of Antonio Gago, a boy who started using heroin in the Algarve in 1996. During drug prohibition, Dr. Goulão helped Gago find help and deal with childhood trauma. After decriminalization, Gago moved into one of Goulão’s therapeutic communities and quit using drugs. Now, like many former users throughout Portugal, he spends his mornings driving around and reaching out to addicts on the street. Gago’s story shows Hari that while drug prohibition spreads violence and suffering across society, decriminalization spreads “a healing ripple.” Hari concludes that Portugal’s drug policy is the truest expression of the 1974 revolution’s democratic spirit: it treats everyone, including addicts, as equally important.
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