Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America by Beth Macy, 376 pages.Macy presents a stunning and depressing overview of the current opioid epidemic, traces the twenty-some-year timeline of said epidmic, and explores the marketing campaign behind Purdue Pharma's new OxyContin, a supposedly addiction-free pain-relief compound that fueled its current fire. Macy focuses (many of) her stories in and around Roanoke, Virginia, reporting on the quickly growing problems with OxyContin and prescription opiods, and then with regular old heroin when the supply prescription pills dries up there.
Macy tells the story of Purdue spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on OxyContin-related merchandise, and pushing the "Pain: the fifth vital sign" mind-set among physicians and patients, encouraging the belief that pain-relief, with then new "non-addictive" drugs was the way to go.
There are the stories of many of the individuals caught up in the crisis, drug users and their family members, law enforcement officers, lawyers, doctors and the people at Purdue. An interesting book, shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for nonfiction.
The downloadable audio was narrated by the author.
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