Status
Available
Call number
Description
History. Medical. Sociology. Nonfiction. HTML:A comprehensive portrait of a uniquely American epidemic �?? devastating in its findings and damning in its conclusions The opioid epidemic has been described as "one of the greatest mistakes of modern medicine." But calling it a mistake is a generous rewriting of the history of greed, corruption, and indifference that pushed the US into consuming more than 80 percent of the world's opioid painkillers. Journeying through lives and communities wrecked by the epidemic, Chris McGreal reveals not only how Big Pharma hooked Americans on powerfully addictive drugs, but the corrupting of medicine and public institutions that let the opioid makers get away with it. The starting point for McGreal's deeply reported investigation is the miners promised that opioid painkillers would restore their wrecked bodies, but who became targets of "drug dealers in white coats." A few heroic physicians warned of impending disaster. But American Overdose exposes the powerful forces they were up against, including the pharmaceutical industry's coopting of the Food and Drug Administration and Congress in the drive to push painkillers �?? resulting in the resurgence of heroin cartels in the American heartland. McGreal tells the story, in terms both broad and intimate, of people hit by a catastrophe they never saw coming. Years in the making, its ruinous consequences will stretch years into the f… (more)
Publication
PublicAffairs (2018), Edition: 1, 336 pages
User reviews
LibraryThing member DavidWineberg
OxyContin: “Industrial-Scale Delivery of Death”
Opioids came to my attention a few years ago when a report came out that New York State doctors had written more than 24 million prescriptions for opioids the previous year. Unstated in the story, but obvious to me, was that there are only 19
Opioids are narcotics. The big three, Vicodin, Percocet and OxyContin are the most prescribed. A movement began in the 1980s to free up narcotics for any kind of pain relief at all. Doctors began prescribing them for the slightest pain, on the basis that they hadn’t been doing enough to relieve pain in general. And, incredibly, that opioids weren’t really addictive after all.
The story of OxyContin and the opiate crisis is the story of one family’s quest to provide unfettered freedom for narcotics in the USA. The Sacklers, with a long history of hustle and living just over the edge of legitimacy, built an empire in Purdue Pharma, making narcotics available to all, addicting them for life, shortened though it would be. Chris McGreal investigates the players, the history and the fallout in the thorough, gripping and excellent American Overdose. He spoke to all the key players and plugged in all the missing parts. The timeline at the end is invaluable – for some Congressional hearing that will never take place. At some point, this has to stop.
“OxyContin was not the result of good science or laboratory experiment. OxyContin was the child of marketers and bottom-line financial decision-making,” says John Brownlee, then a southwestern Virginia federal prosecutor. He considers Purdue Pharma a criminal enterprise.
In 1999, deaths from legal drugs overtook deaths from illegal drugs, and have not looked back. Deaths are increasing 18% a year, and the average age of death keeps declining. It’s the number one cause of death for those under 50. Ironically, the old and dying are the only group where opioids are not increasing the death rate. Mass prescribing was driving the epidemic. Addicts ravaged savings, relatives, homes – anything – to keep renewing prescriptions. The pain of withdrawal is that fearsome. Death can come suddenly in an instant, or drag out over days of agony. Even the most drug averse can find themselves hooked without knowing it.
American Overdose is a litany of failures. McGreal has chapters focused on doctors, on the police, on politicians, on drug distributors, and of course, on the manufacturers. Each is as bad as the next. It is astonishing how deeply criminal it was, and how little was done to stop it. Those who tried were squashed like bugs. Judges and police were purchased. Doctors became Mafiosi. Roadkill in this story are the children of addicts. Hundreds of thousands across the country have fallen into state care, because their parents were incapacitated, imprisoned or dead from opioids. Babies of addicted mothers are born addicted.
The relentless pressure from big pharma had the desired effect. Uniquely in America, doctors all over the country firmly believe that narcotics are necessary and appropriate for any kind of pain, for any age of person, in any kind of need. They believe that OxyContin is not addictive, because someone declared the resurgence of pain as the drug wears off is proof there is no addiction. And of course, they believe they need no educating on narcotics and that no one can tell them what to do. They’re doctors, after all. The result is a nationwide epidemic, where overdose deaths have bypassed illegal drugs, alcohol, auto collisions and gunshot fatalities. The grand total long ago eclipsed the number of deaths in the Vietnam war, and it is the only area of mortality that is skyrocketing. By itself, it has lowered the life expectancy of Americans.
Through it all, Purdue Pharma continued to lie. Its training video for doctors states there is “no evidence that addiction is a significant when persons are given opioids for pain control.” It got the Food and Drug Administration to label OxyContin as actually reducing the risk of addiction. Its reps guilted doctors into prescribing more because their competitors were. It bribed them with pizza and swag. It paid some of them for papers or speeches. It produced millions of pills to saturate small localities where people would drive for hours to get instant prescriptions, only fillable at co-opted pharmacies that would not report them.
-Doctors could make $20,000 a day writing scrips. They did them in advance, so receptionists could just fill in a name. No checkup necessary. Just $150-$250. Cash.
-Florida permits doctors to both prescribe and sell narcotics, saving a step in spreading narcotics to all. So hundreds of dispensaries popped up to take advantage of the flood of cash. By the end of the 2000s, Florida was number one in opioid prescriptions.
-As for Washington, its first act to tame the epidemic was to pass a law in 2016 handcuffing the Drug Enforcement Agency, basically preventing it from enforcing existing narcotics laws on distributors.
The Mexican drug cartels are entrepreneurial enough to know a good thing when they see one, and promoted heroin as a far cheaper substitute for OxyContin. Then an artificial opioid, Fentanyl, solved the import problem. Fentanyl is 50 times as powerful per gram, so far less of it has to be made or shipped or delivered. Fentanyl has overtaken heroin and OxyContin in the death race, but heroin and OxyContin are not fading either. A single badly mixed Fentanyl pill can kill by itself, without all the agony of addiction.
In 2018, Purdue Pharma finally said it would no longer promote OxyContin to doctors, and laid off all its sales staff. But the snowball is still rolling down the hill. The Centers for Disease Control estimates it will take another 15 years for the OxyContin epidemic to run its course. Purdue Pharma is all but guaranteed billions of dollars annually until that time. The current estimate of opioid addicts in the USA is at least two million.
McGreal ends with the whistleblowers finally making some progress. They are nibbling away at the edifice of prescription narcotics. A law here, a prosecution there, a help service, a publicity campaign. Incredibly, there is still a narcotics lobby working Washington for all its worth. Because it’s worth billions.
David Wineberg
Opioids came to my attention a few years ago when a report came out that New York State doctors had written more than 24 million prescriptions for opioids the previous year. Unstated in the story, but obvious to me, was that there are only 19
Show More
million people in the state, total. Doctors were flooding the state with narcotics. That can’t be right. Chris McGreal’s American Overdose details how very wrong it was and continues to be. It’s capitalism, greed and amorality at their finest.Opioids are narcotics. The big three, Vicodin, Percocet and OxyContin are the most prescribed. A movement began in the 1980s to free up narcotics for any kind of pain relief at all. Doctors began prescribing them for the slightest pain, on the basis that they hadn’t been doing enough to relieve pain in general. And, incredibly, that opioids weren’t really addictive after all.
The story of OxyContin and the opiate crisis is the story of one family’s quest to provide unfettered freedom for narcotics in the USA. The Sacklers, with a long history of hustle and living just over the edge of legitimacy, built an empire in Purdue Pharma, making narcotics available to all, addicting them for life, shortened though it would be. Chris McGreal investigates the players, the history and the fallout in the thorough, gripping and excellent American Overdose. He spoke to all the key players and plugged in all the missing parts. The timeline at the end is invaluable – for some Congressional hearing that will never take place. At some point, this has to stop.
“OxyContin was not the result of good science or laboratory experiment. OxyContin was the child of marketers and bottom-line financial decision-making,” says John Brownlee, then a southwestern Virginia federal prosecutor. He considers Purdue Pharma a criminal enterprise.
In 1999, deaths from legal drugs overtook deaths from illegal drugs, and have not looked back. Deaths are increasing 18% a year, and the average age of death keeps declining. It’s the number one cause of death for those under 50. Ironically, the old and dying are the only group where opioids are not increasing the death rate. Mass prescribing was driving the epidemic. Addicts ravaged savings, relatives, homes – anything – to keep renewing prescriptions. The pain of withdrawal is that fearsome. Death can come suddenly in an instant, or drag out over days of agony. Even the most drug averse can find themselves hooked without knowing it.
American Overdose is a litany of failures. McGreal has chapters focused on doctors, on the police, on politicians, on drug distributors, and of course, on the manufacturers. Each is as bad as the next. It is astonishing how deeply criminal it was, and how little was done to stop it. Those who tried were squashed like bugs. Judges and police were purchased. Doctors became Mafiosi. Roadkill in this story are the children of addicts. Hundreds of thousands across the country have fallen into state care, because their parents were incapacitated, imprisoned or dead from opioids. Babies of addicted mothers are born addicted.
The relentless pressure from big pharma had the desired effect. Uniquely in America, doctors all over the country firmly believe that narcotics are necessary and appropriate for any kind of pain, for any age of person, in any kind of need. They believe that OxyContin is not addictive, because someone declared the resurgence of pain as the drug wears off is proof there is no addiction. And of course, they believe they need no educating on narcotics and that no one can tell them what to do. They’re doctors, after all. The result is a nationwide epidemic, where overdose deaths have bypassed illegal drugs, alcohol, auto collisions and gunshot fatalities. The grand total long ago eclipsed the number of deaths in the Vietnam war, and it is the only area of mortality that is skyrocketing. By itself, it has lowered the life expectancy of Americans.
Through it all, Purdue Pharma continued to lie. Its training video for doctors states there is “no evidence that addiction is a significant when persons are given opioids for pain control.” It got the Food and Drug Administration to label OxyContin as actually reducing the risk of addiction. Its reps guilted doctors into prescribing more because their competitors were. It bribed them with pizza and swag. It paid some of them for papers or speeches. It produced millions of pills to saturate small localities where people would drive for hours to get instant prescriptions, only fillable at co-opted pharmacies that would not report them.
-Doctors could make $20,000 a day writing scrips. They did them in advance, so receptionists could just fill in a name. No checkup necessary. Just $150-$250. Cash.
-Florida permits doctors to both prescribe and sell narcotics, saving a step in spreading narcotics to all. So hundreds of dispensaries popped up to take advantage of the flood of cash. By the end of the 2000s, Florida was number one in opioid prescriptions.
-As for Washington, its first act to tame the epidemic was to pass a law in 2016 handcuffing the Drug Enforcement Agency, basically preventing it from enforcing existing narcotics laws on distributors.
The Mexican drug cartels are entrepreneurial enough to know a good thing when they see one, and promoted heroin as a far cheaper substitute for OxyContin. Then an artificial opioid, Fentanyl, solved the import problem. Fentanyl is 50 times as powerful per gram, so far less of it has to be made or shipped or delivered. Fentanyl has overtaken heroin and OxyContin in the death race, but heroin and OxyContin are not fading either. A single badly mixed Fentanyl pill can kill by itself, without all the agony of addiction.
In 2018, Purdue Pharma finally said it would no longer promote OxyContin to doctors, and laid off all its sales staff. But the snowball is still rolling down the hill. The Centers for Disease Control estimates it will take another 15 years for the OxyContin epidemic to run its course. Purdue Pharma is all but guaranteed billions of dollars annually until that time. The current estimate of opioid addicts in the USA is at least two million.
McGreal ends with the whistleblowers finally making some progress. They are nibbling away at the edifice of prescription narcotics. A law here, a prosecution there, a help service, a publicity campaign. Incredibly, there is still a narcotics lobby working Washington for all its worth. Because it’s worth billions.
David Wineberg
Show Less
LibraryThing member Beamis12
Unconsciousable, if there is one word I would use to describe the greed I read about in this book, this would be the word. One would have to be completely out of touch to have not heard on the news, or read in the papers, about the opoid epidemic striking our nation. Untold deaths, families, lives
This book explains how this happened, how it was allowed to happen. The greed of drug companies, basically pushing to doctors, what they tooted as the newest pill in pain relief, from cooked doctors, clinics, and pharmscies. Taking advantage of the pain those with injuries or previous trauma experienced,to addict them to a pill that they needed more and more of I increasing dosages. Hard to believe this is happening in my country, but it is and it is deplorable.
So many lives ruined, even those who had seen this becoming a problem seen what it did to people, find themselves after an accidental addicted. This book explains in three separate sections how this was done, how greed and the love of money, addicted so many. A very important read and one that is easy to read but explains things very well.
ARC from Netgalley.
Show More
ruined. A documentary about West Virginia, which was literally a opoid mill, was shown a few months back, towns completely taken over by addiction. What I didn't realize was how this was accomplished. A literal pill mill.This book explains how this happened, how it was allowed to happen. The greed of drug companies, basically pushing to doctors, what they tooted as the newest pill in pain relief, from cooked doctors, clinics, and pharmscies. Taking advantage of the pain those with injuries or previous trauma experienced,to addict them to a pill that they needed more and more of I increasing dosages. Hard to believe this is happening in my country, but it is and it is deplorable.
So many lives ruined, even those who had seen this becoming a problem seen what it did to people, find themselves after an accidental addicted. This book explains in three separate sections how this was done, how greed and the love of money, addicted so many. A very important read and one that is easy to read but explains things very well.
ARC from Netgalley.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Darcia
"Tragedy" is an apt word for the way opioids have been managed by pharmaceutical companies, doctors, and our government. I've read several books on this topic, and American Overdose is right up there with the best.
One aspect that makes this a standout read is that Chris McGreal addresses the FDA's
American Overdose is an exceptionally well written and researched narrative. McGreal takes us through the madness of the pharmaceutical company's lies, doctors' ignorance and arrogance, FDA's negligence, and, ultimately, the human tragedy caused by a drug that should never have been allowed for such broad use. We're given an inside view on all counts, keeping us invested and making the story feel personal.
Ultimately, the financial penalty imposed on a handful of those responsible means nothing to the millions of people whose lives were ruined by or lost to opioid addiction. The best we can do is arm ourselves with knowledge and question everything, so that maybe we can keep anything like this from ever happening again. Reading American Overdose is a great place to start.
*The publisher provided me with an advance copy, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.*
One aspect that makes this a standout read is that Chris McGreal addresses the FDA's
Show More
absolute failure in oversight, and perhaps even complicity in the false and dangerous claims about a prescription drug that led to nationwide addiction. If you happen to come to this book with the belief that the FDA works to protect the public, you'll find it difficult to hold on to that belief by the end.American Overdose is an exceptionally well written and researched narrative. McGreal takes us through the madness of the pharmaceutical company's lies, doctors' ignorance and arrogance, FDA's negligence, and, ultimately, the human tragedy caused by a drug that should never have been allowed for such broad use. We're given an inside view on all counts, keeping us invested and making the story feel personal.
Ultimately, the financial penalty imposed on a handful of those responsible means nothing to the millions of people whose lives were ruined by or lost to opioid addiction. The best we can do is arm ourselves with knowledge and question everything, so that maybe we can keep anything like this from ever happening again. Reading American Overdose is a great place to start.
*The publisher provided me with an advance copy, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.*
Show Less
LibraryThing member schatzi
Reading this book was personal to me, and it broke my heart. I'm originally from the Appalachian foothills, and Appalachia (particularly the tri-state area of West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, and southern Ohio) is ground zero for the opioid epidemic.
I first remember hearing about opioids back in
I left Ohio in 2010, and although I visited, it was easy to block out the blight that was overtaking my hometown. Things had never been "good" there as long as I could remember - the factories and big coal companies left when I was a little kid - but my sister, who stayed, told me that it was getting worse. The murder rate was getting higher. Driveby shootings not only happened, but were becoming increasingly common. Drugs were running rampant through the streets. The sidewalks downtown were covered with sleeping homeless people every night.
But when I returned briefly in 2015, I was shocked, absolutely SHOCKED, at what I saw. What had happened in the five years that I was gone? Like I said, opioids weren't a new story to me - I'd heard about them for years - but the occasional overdose was now a literal epidemic. I worked for six months in a hospital in Columbus Ohio, and I was just appalled. There aren't even words to describe what I saw while there. Countless people came into the ER every night overdosing on opioids, heroin, and fentanyl (they're all related, by the way - the book explains how). People were passed out on the streets or in their cars from overdosing. Grandparents were struggling to take care of their drug-addicted adult children and their grandchildren. Our NICU was full of babies in various stages of detox, all born incredibly prematurely (I'm talking 22-24 weeks gestation, for the most part) and with numerous health problems (birth deformities, drug dependencies, brain bleeds from their early births, etc). Women handed you their babies and walked away because they were so strung out on drugs they knew they couldn't care for them. I saw fetuses having literal seizures in the womb because of drugs. And I didn't understand. What the hell had HAPPENED?
Well, opioids happened, and this book spells out clearly the string of events that led to this epidemic. It's full of drug companies whose only concern was profits and didn't care that "dumb hillbillies" were getting hooked on their pills because we are expendable people to them. This book shows how all of the safeguards that should have helped prevent this - the FDA, the AMA, Congress, etc - failed us all, and spectacularly. Purdue Pharma was allowed to push through a drug that was incredibly addictive (OxyContin) and say the whole time that it wasn't, and few people said a damned thing about it. Purdue Pharma was allowed to amass HUGE sales forces that pushed doctors to prescribe drugs, and even got JCAHO to support them in the process. And while alarm bells were going off all over the place, Purdue Pharma (along with other opioid manufacturers) had enough money and clout to encourage Congress to pass laws that favored them and made it even EASIER to make people addicted to their products (and all the while blaming the addicts for being bad eggs).
My blood is boiling just writing this review. If anyone needs any evidence showing that the American "healthcare" system is broken, just read this book. You'll see all that you need and more.
I wish that I could force those who made billions (or even millions) of dollars from peddling opioids to come to Appalachia with me for one week. Just one day, even. Hell, I could get my point across in five minutes. I'd love to take them through the NICU at my former job and show them all of the babies they have fucked up for life because they were so driven by profits that they unleashed a largely untested drug onto a community already suffering from grinding poverty and despair. These are the lives their wealth is built upon, and I sincerely hope they dream of nothing but dying babies every night in their mansions.
I first remember hearing about opioids back in
Show More
the early 2000s - and I'd even heard about the loose standards in Williamson. But it didn't spread very fast in my part of Ohio - or, if it did, I didn't notice. I mean, they were prescriptions from a doctor, you know? I'm pretty sure most of us thought, at least at the time, that that meant they were safe, that they were regulated, that the doctors wouldn't give us things that would get people hooked. I left Ohio in 2010, and although I visited, it was easy to block out the blight that was overtaking my hometown. Things had never been "good" there as long as I could remember - the factories and big coal companies left when I was a little kid - but my sister, who stayed, told me that it was getting worse. The murder rate was getting higher. Driveby shootings not only happened, but were becoming increasingly common. Drugs were running rampant through the streets. The sidewalks downtown were covered with sleeping homeless people every night.
But when I returned briefly in 2015, I was shocked, absolutely SHOCKED, at what I saw. What had happened in the five years that I was gone? Like I said, opioids weren't a new story to me - I'd heard about them for years - but the occasional overdose was now a literal epidemic. I worked for six months in a hospital in Columbus Ohio, and I was just appalled. There aren't even words to describe what I saw while there. Countless people came into the ER every night overdosing on opioids, heroin, and fentanyl (they're all related, by the way - the book explains how). People were passed out on the streets or in their cars from overdosing. Grandparents were struggling to take care of their drug-addicted adult children and their grandchildren. Our NICU was full of babies in various stages of detox, all born incredibly prematurely (I'm talking 22-24 weeks gestation, for the most part) and with numerous health problems (birth deformities, drug dependencies, brain bleeds from their early births, etc). Women handed you their babies and walked away because they were so strung out on drugs they knew they couldn't care for them. I saw fetuses having literal seizures in the womb because of drugs. And I didn't understand. What the hell had HAPPENED?
Well, opioids happened, and this book spells out clearly the string of events that led to this epidemic. It's full of drug companies whose only concern was profits and didn't care that "dumb hillbillies" were getting hooked on their pills because we are expendable people to them. This book shows how all of the safeguards that should have helped prevent this - the FDA, the AMA, Congress, etc - failed us all, and spectacularly. Purdue Pharma was allowed to push through a drug that was incredibly addictive (OxyContin) and say the whole time that it wasn't, and few people said a damned thing about it. Purdue Pharma was allowed to amass HUGE sales forces that pushed doctors to prescribe drugs, and even got JCAHO to support them in the process. And while alarm bells were going off all over the place, Purdue Pharma (along with other opioid manufacturers) had enough money and clout to encourage Congress to pass laws that favored them and made it even EASIER to make people addicted to their products (and all the while blaming the addicts for being bad eggs).
My blood is boiling just writing this review. If anyone needs any evidence showing that the American "healthcare" system is broken, just read this book. You'll see all that you need and more.
I wish that I could force those who made billions (or even millions) of dollars from peddling opioids to come to Appalachia with me for one week. Just one day, even. Hell, I could get my point across in five minutes. I'd love to take them through the NICU at my former job and show them all of the babies they have fucked up for life because they were so driven by profits that they unleashed a largely untested drug onto a community already suffering from grinding poverty and despair. These are the lives their wealth is built upon, and I sincerely hope they dream of nothing but dying babies every night in their mansions.
Show Less
LibraryThing member The_Hibernator
Summary: In this heartbreaking work, McGreal covers a detailed history of illegal distribution of opioids by doctors, immoral advertising and drug pushing by big pharma, and the failures of the DEA and FDA in regulating prescriptions. He described how the careless over-prescription of opioids led
My thoughts: This book was utterly tragic. I am horrified at the failures of these powerful people who are responsible for keeping us safe. I already knew about the opioid epidemic and how people were switching from prescribed medications to heroin, but I had no clue how careless the FDA and DEA had been. I had no idea about the magnitude of immoral advertising by drug companies and of the illegal prescribing by doctors. I realize, of course, that most doctors prescribe as they see best, and that this book spent a lot of time focusing on a few doctors and pharmacies who did their best to make fortunes off of illegal prescriptions – so I’m not trying to say that all doctors are to blame. That was not McGreal’s point, either, though he did point out that even doctors who are prescribing as they see best may be working under misinformation about how well opioids work on chronic pain and about the addictiveness of these medicines.
This is by far the most powerful bit of nonfiction I’ve read in quite a while. I would highly recommend this book to everybody – it’s a book that should be read. Especially for people who blame the “addicts” rather than recognizing the failures in the system that led to their addictions.
Show More
to addiction, and too frequently to a switch to heroin and/or to overdose.My thoughts: This book was utterly tragic. I am horrified at the failures of these powerful people who are responsible for keeping us safe. I already knew about the opioid epidemic and how people were switching from prescribed medications to heroin, but I had no clue how careless the FDA and DEA had been. I had no idea about the magnitude of immoral advertising by drug companies and of the illegal prescribing by doctors. I realize, of course, that most doctors prescribe as they see best, and that this book spent a lot of time focusing on a few doctors and pharmacies who did their best to make fortunes off of illegal prescriptions – so I’m not trying to say that all doctors are to blame. That was not McGreal’s point, either, though he did point out that even doctors who are prescribing as they see best may be working under misinformation about how well opioids work on chronic pain and about the addictiveness of these medicines.
This is by far the most powerful bit of nonfiction I’ve read in quite a while. I would highly recommend this book to everybody – it’s a book that should be read. Especially for people who blame the “addicts” rather than recognizing the failures in the system that led to their addictions.
Show Less
LibraryThing member SocProf9740
If Americans had better health benefits such as paid sick leave, maybe they wouldn't need as many painkillers and opioids. Which might also be why the opioids epidemic is unique to the US.
McGreal's book is a perfect case study in the importance of C. Wright Mills's sociological imagination. Look
As I often tell my students, nothing ever happens by chance in society. An epidemic of addiction to opioids does not just happen. The book shows how it was constructed back in the 1990s, and has morphed over several decades with no clear end in sight.
McGreal's book is a perfect case study in the importance of C. Wright Mills's sociological imagination. Look
Show More
for the intersection of social structure, history, power, and social location. This is what the book does. Because the epidemic is not a question of people with failing morals, defective hillbilly culture and other such nonsense. The book demonstrates that the structure of development, regulation, approval, distribution, prescription, and delivery of opioids is truly what was at the root of this, along with the powerful entities backing the spread of opioids for everything, pain as the 5th vital sign, and the data-less idea of an epidemic of pain. There is the power of Big Pharma, its sales reps and lobbyists, and their influence in Congress and government agencies, along with that of the medical profession. All of this goes beyond the unsavory characters the book also describes. And the selection of depressed areas such as poor counties in West Virginia, as the "target" for mass dumping of Oxycontin.As I often tell my students, nothing ever happens by chance in society. An epidemic of addiction to opioids does not just happen. The book shows how it was constructed back in the 1990s, and has morphed over several decades with no clear end in sight.
Show Less
LibraryThing member JessicaReadsThings
A tough but necessary read
Call number
C > Addiction, Recovery
Collection
Awards
Orwell Prize (Longlist — 2019)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2018
Physical description
336 p.; 9.55 inches
ISBN
1610398610 / 9781610398619