"Massively increase prison sentences for alcohol dealers until they were all locked up. Wage war on booze until it was only a memory"(Hari, pg 14). The reason why I think this quote is important is because I think the author is trying to draw similarities between the war on drugs and the prohibition. The was that Harry went about dismantling the use of alcohol has transformed into how the country is now fight to "end the use of drugs". I think it is important to draw similarities like the author is doing, because it proves that the so called war on drugs has always been around and has simply developed into the big machine that it is now.
"He believed the two 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 of Appropriations with a nightmarish vision of where this could lead" (Hari, pg. 15). I found this quote very interesting because it cleared up a lot of my questions as to where the assumption that African Americans consumed more than white people originated from. This is also a great example of an early case of cognitive bias. This bias would set the climate surrounding the war on drugs and how it pertained to people of color, especially African Americans, in the United States.
Harry couldn't control the flow of drugs, but he was discovering he could control the flow of ideas- and it was not only scientists Harry believed he had to silence" (Hari, pg. 18). In society, we currently have the problem that people in power tend to abuse their power. Something that has been seen in the war on drugs crusade, both now and apparently then, is that people that have a higher standing in society state things that are often taken as facts by the rest of society. This phenomenon also plays a huge part in the cognitive bias against African Americans.
"'Where else [but in the Bureau of Narcotics] could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill, cheat, steal, rape, and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the All-Highest'"(Hari, pg. 29). Again, the parallel in today's society and how it was back then are present in this. The government and lawmakers are putting up a front that they are doing what is best for society, but behind the scene
s they are actually making all of the trouble themselves.
"Billie didn't blame Anslinger's agents as individuals; she blamed the drug war itself- because it forced the police to treat ill people like criminals" (Hari, pg. 31). I choose the quote because this is still an ever present issue that ties into the prison system. A large majority of the people in prison today are there because of drug charges. I'd say a large majority of them are drug addicts and also in some sort of poverty. Instead of the government funding rehabs to get these people well, they throw them into prison, which in turn benefits them.
"Some 22 percent of addicts were wealthy, while only 6 percent were poor. They were more sedate as a result of their addiction, and although it would have been better for them to stop, they were rarely out of control or criminal" (Hari. pg. 36). This quote shows the extreme proportions that lawmakers, Harry Anslinger especially, blew the use of cocaine out to be. They, again, used cognitive bias to make the general public believe that all forms of the drug are deplorable, when in fact it could have been saving people. This cognitive bias allowed the people to stay in fear and thus lead to Anslinger being able to continue his mission.
"The drug dealer could now charge extortionate prices. In the pharmacies, morphine had cost two or three cents a grain; the criminal gangs charged a dollar" (Hari pg. 36). This is an element of how the war on drugs works today. The drugs are placed in these poverty stricken neighborhood and once the people in the neighborhood are hooked they are force to choose between getting drugs the legal way or the illegal way. 9 time out of 10 the illegal way is the cheapest way.
"The world we recognize now- where addicts are often forced to become criminals, in a desperate scramble to feed their habit from gangsters- was being created" (Hari, pg. 36). In continuation from my previous quote, these poverty stricken people choose the illegal, cheap way to get drugs. This forces all of these people, who are now addicted to these drugs, to become criminals just so they can feed their addiction.
"'The United States government . as represented by its [anti-drug] officers', Henry explained had just become 'the greatest and most potent maker of criminals in any recent century'"(Hari pg. 37). This quote basically sums up how the government, the people who are supposedly here to stop the crime, are the people who are making it themselves.
"Harry worked very hardtop keep the country in a state of panic on the subject of drugs so that nobody would ever again see the logical contradictions" (Hari pg. 41). This moral panic allows whoever is running it to say or do whatever they want, under the guise that they are the savoir of whatever is creating the "panic". If you keep the people afraid, they will follow your every command, and that is essentially what Anslinger was successful at doing.
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