Winner of the NBCC Award for General NonfictionNamed on Slate’s 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Past 25 Years, Amazon’s Best Books of the Year 2015–Michael Botticelli, U.S. Drug Czar (Politico) Favorite Book of the Year–Angus Deaton, Nobel Prize Economics (Bloomberg/WSJ) Best Books of 2015–Matt Bevin, Governor of Kentucky (WSJ) Books of the Year–Slate.com’s 10 Best Books of 2015–… the Year–Slate.com’s 10 Best Books of 2015–Entertainment Weekly’s 10 Best Books of 2015 –Buzzfeed’s 19 Best Nonfiction Books of 2015–The Daily Beast’s Best Big Idea Books of 2015–Seattle Times’ Best Books of 2015–Boston Globe’s Best Books of 2015–St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Best Books of 2015–The Guardian’s The Best Book We Read All Year–Audible’s Best Books of 2015–Texas Observer’s Five Books We Loved in 2015–Chicago Public Library’s Best Nonfiction Books of 2015
From a small town in Mexico to the boardrooms of Big Pharma to main streets nationwide, an explosive and shocking account of addiction in the heartland of America.
In 1929, in the blue-collar city of Portsmouth, Ohio, a company built a swimming pool the size of a football field; named Dreamland, it became the vital center of the community. Now, addiction has devastated Portsmouth, as it has hundreds of small rural towns and suburbs across America–addiction like no other the country has ever faced. How that happened is the riveting story of Dreamland.
With a great reporter’s narrative skill and the storytelling ability of a novelist, acclaimed journalist Sam Quinones weaves together two classic tales of capitalism run amok whose unintentional collision has been catastrophic. The unfettered prescribing of pain medications during the 1990s reached its peak in Purdue Pharma’s campaign to market OxyContin, its new, expensive–extremely addictive–miracle painkiller. Meanwhile, a massive influx of black tar heroin–cheap, potent, and originating from one small county on Mexico’s west coast, independent of any drug cartel–assaulted small town and mid-sized cities across the country, driven by a brilliant, almost unbeatable marketing and distribution system. Together these phenomena continue to lay waste to communities from Tennessee to Oregon, Indiana to New Mexico.
Introducing a memorable cast of characters–pharma pioneers, young Mexican entrepreneurs, narcotics investigators, survivors, and parents–Quinones shows how these tales fit together. Dreamland is a revelatory account of the corrosive threat facing America and its heartland.
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A single molecule has killed tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people; relieved millions from unnecessary pain; started wars; relieved whole geographic areas of chronic poverty; driven hoards of women and men to a life of self degradation; allowed people the opportunity to have some measure of dignity in death; and spawns violent crime on an international scale. Angel of Mercy or the Highway To Hell?
If you have any interest in the opioid epidemic that currently plagues the U.S., this is a must read – informative, well researched and extremely well written.
Very informative but a bit repetitive.
It’s a great book.
This is a story of how the opioid epidemic took off in America. Truly a tragic moment for individuals, their families, communities and our nation.
Fantastic. I highly recommended it.
Should be required reading for everyone
if you ever wanted to know “how did the opioid problem get so bad?”, then this is the book to read. the only complaint I have ever seen is a small minority who feel the stories are redundant. I and most people do not feel that way. No one -and I mean no one – has been able to dispute the facts and coherence of his account, This may be the most important but unrecognized book of the 21st century.
This essay, along with Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari should be essential reading for anyone concerned about the opiate/opioid epidemic in the U.S. given that we lose another life every sixteen minutes, ninety people daily and about as many in a single year as died over the entire course of the Viet Nam war. Quiñones traces the origins and spread of a very sophisticated model of illicit heroin distribution that defies efforts to eradicate. This epidemic is responsible for a decrease in average life expectancy in the U.S.for a second straight year. Surely we all ought to be concerned.
Could not put it down. I live in Columbus, Ohio where a lot of it takes place. Fascinating and disturbing. A must read.
Great interesting read. If your interested in the whys and how of the opioid epidemic this is the book. It does so in a non judge mental but still effecting manner.