In Chasing the Scream, Johann Hari blames people’s addiction to drugs on their environment. He uses an experiment conducted by Bruce Alexander using drugs and rats to explain why addiction is influenced by their habitat. In this experiment, rats that were in an empty cage took more drugs than rats that were in a cage filled with toys, activities, and friends, which took less drugs. Hari uses this experiment to prove that the lonely rats had no choice but to become addicted to these drugs. He argues that the rats that were in a happy environment chose to stay away from the drugs and spend their time doing other things. Johann Hari also uses studies done on humans to link drug use to people’s surroundings. According to studies done on soldiers in the Vietnam War, about twenty percent of them had become addicted to heroine while being deployed. The same study later showed that 95% of the soldiers that were addicted, stopped using the drug when they returned home. This led Johann Hari to further believe that these people were simply addicted to drugs not because of a chemical issue, but because their environment gave them no other choice. Bruce Alexander’s rat experiment and the study on the soldiers during Vietnam War both showed results of addiction to drug forming because of the subject’s surroundings. These conclusions are the reason as to why Hari argues that drug abuse isn’t chemically induced. Through these examples and more, he has proven to us that a person’s environment plays a role in how they can either become victims of drug abuse or completely avoid it.