(4/22/2023)
This should be required reading--for everyone.
"Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic" is the tragic, frightening and prescient story of the heroin and opiate epidemic in the United States. And if you think none of this applies to you, that is all the more reason to read this book. Although it's especially corrosive in the heartland of Ohio, this is a nationwide problem, and we all need to be educated.
Reading more like a novel or a detective story, this cross between journalism and storytelling traces the "perfect storm" that led so many people--from professionals to prostitutes, teachers to cheerleaders--to became hooked on painkillers. Occurring in tandem was the uptick in heroin addictions, led primarily from high-quality "black tar heroin" from Mexico with dealers following business models that rival the nation's best-run corporations and delivery methods as efficient as your favorite pizza parlor. And then all hell broke loose when the paths of opiates and heroin crossed.
For five years author Sam Quinones did prodigious on-the-ground research to write this book that is on the one hand the most fascinating tale I have read in ages and on the other scarier than anything Stephen King could dream up--because this is real. And it's in your community. Find out how young men from Xalisco, Nayarit, a tiny village on the Pacific Coast of Mexico, became heroin entrepreneurs in the United States using methods that confused and confounded local law enforcement. Find out how Big Pharma embraced nefarious marketing methods for painkillers, especially OxyCotin, to convince family doctors to write millions of prescriptions. Find out how doctors, who were taught in medical school to be wary of prescribing addictive painkillers, found their hospitals' accreditation was at risk if patients were not aggressively treated for pain. Find out about quack MDs, who set up pill mills in hard-hit communities in southern Ohio and eastern Kentucky, became extremely wealthy off the residents' addictions. Find out how Walmart became an unwitting accomplice in the scourge of opiate addiction.
But there is hope. A lot of hope. The book ends on a positive note about all that is being done--finally--to fight the opiate epidemic, especially in southern Ohio.
"Dreamland" is compelling , riveting and eye-opening because it is not only the story of what has happened, but also the tale of the people--the individual lives--who got caught up in it. I gave this book five stars, but I would give it 10 if I could.