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4.11 AVERAGE
4.11 AVERAGE
Dreamland is heartbreaking. The opiate epidemic is very foreign to me in that I haven't struggled with drugs or personally known someone that has been deeply affected. However, I know it is significant problem that needs to be addressed with compassion. Like any complex challenge, the solution is just as (if not more) complicated. We need to have these honest conversations at the policy, medical, and personal levels to begin to counteract the damaging effects of opioids.
Quinones' writing is thorough to a fault, so some portions of the book felt repetitive and long-winded.
Quinones' writing is thorough to a fault, so some portions of the book felt repetitive and long-winded.
This was a very interesting, but also very disturbing book. It delves into the epidemic of opiate overdoses sweeping through the suburban white middle class of America, a perfect storm of over-prescription and a new pizza-delivery-style style of heroin dealing from a small state in Mexico. Really amazing research and an engaging read. I found myself admiring the style with which the dealers handled and hooked customers, but was also repulsed because of the deadly product they are selling.
This book should be considered required reading for every single person. It should be included in the high school senior curriculum. Works like this generate an awareness of the nuances behind addiction. The type of awareness that sparks a conversation, and can ultimately lead to change.
Although it was very dark, I found this book to be very compelling and informative. It is bizarre to be reading about something occurring during my lifetime which I was only vaguely aware of. Incredibly thoroughly researched, the portions about the Mexican drug dealers from the rural west coast in particular. I would highly recommend reading if you've ever wondered how heroin and opioid abuse took off once more in the United States.
This book honestly was terrifying. Quinones did a superb job presenting the facts and telling stories without showing bias. Ultimately, the book made me realize that there is no one factor that is most to blame nor is there one clear solution.
A thought-provoking and informative read on the history of opiate addiction and how it led to an explosion of heroin/opiate-related deaths in rural middle class America.
Bro my review didn’t save for this and I wrote such a good review. Piss off good reads
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
The story here is on the quiet scourage of prescription drug abuse, precipiated by an economic collapse in the rust belt and the economic opportunity found in Nayarit Mexico.
From the story of a farm boy Enrique, who has a modest lifestyle in Mexico's 5th smallest state, Nayarit, we see the story of a young man who wants more freedom. Clean-cut, well spoken, polite, disciplined, and loyal, Enrique's story weaves through the book as a driver, manager and authority of black tar heroin distribution across the U.S. Like the other Xalisco Boys, whose power increased with wealth, women, and personal authority, they did not use drugs, or weapons, but simply provided an alternative to a white junkie middle class youth culture.
The distribution was enabled largely by changing attitude of America toward pain management. Oxytocin, considered a non-addictive powerful painkiller was prescribed for a variety of treatments, and easily obtainable as insurance companies covered it for a variety of ills. Pill mills turned the rust belt to the oxy belt. The use was benign, since it was backed by the well intended Purude research by Porter and Jick about the nonexistent addictions from Oxy.
Time-released oxycodone is very addictive of course, a strange illicit economy surged. Seniors selling to kids. Junkies stealing from the local Walmart and selling clothing to afford pills. Doctors like David Proctor sexually abusing women for distribution of pills. And when patients-turned-addcits could no longer afford from the legal sources, they found an equivalent high with a populated black tar heroin in black balloons. The marriage of the young aspirant Mexicans of Nayarit and the privilleged white middle class youth took class across the country. The effects of which are still being seen today.
Recorded here is the responses from educators, law enforcement, the judicial system, pharmaceuticals and policy makers. An epidemic that was far beyond the insulated city walls of a mafia controlled New York or even a regional crisis. The Xalisco distribution emerged unparelleled because of how little attention it drew to itself, and the leadership's easy ability to find young men and product. Only in recent years, with the deaths of actors like Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Anna Nicole Smith, have the profiles of oxycontin abuse, and all its consequences been discussed openly.
Through the stories of many of the players, and the story of the town Portsmouth, Ohio, we see a problem that is not only about drugs, but about fatalism. A lost of community spirit echoed by the closed smokestacks, closed family stores, and youth without a future to aspire to. Dreamland in title is a reference to what Portsmouth, Ohio use to be called, an All-American city, with a large commuity pool attended to by people of all classes. Opiate pain relief research has in recent years produced new drugs like zohydro that offer no addictive properties. Time will tell if the research bears out lofty claims, and if the communities of small town america will be around to listen.
From the story of a farm boy Enrique, who has a modest lifestyle in Mexico's 5th smallest state, Nayarit, we see the story of a young man who wants more freedom. Clean-cut, well spoken, polite, disciplined, and loyal, Enrique's story weaves through the book as a driver, manager and authority of black tar heroin distribution across the U.S. Like the other Xalisco Boys, whose power increased with wealth, women, and personal authority, they did not use drugs, or weapons, but simply provided an alternative to a white junkie middle class youth culture.
The distribution was enabled largely by changing attitude of America toward pain management. Oxytocin, considered a non-addictive powerful painkiller was prescribed for a variety of treatments, and easily obtainable as insurance companies covered it for a variety of ills. Pill mills turned the rust belt to the oxy belt. The use was benign, since it was backed by the well intended Purude research by Porter and Jick about the nonexistent addictions from Oxy.
Time-released oxycodone is very addictive of course, a strange illicit economy surged. Seniors selling to kids. Junkies stealing from the local Walmart and selling clothing to afford pills. Doctors like David Proctor sexually abusing women for distribution of pills. And when patients-turned-addcits could no longer afford from the legal sources, they found an equivalent high with a populated black tar heroin in black balloons. The marriage of the young aspirant Mexicans of Nayarit and the privilleged white middle class youth took class across the country. The effects of which are still being seen today.
Recorded here is the responses from educators, law enforcement, the judicial system, pharmaceuticals and policy makers. An epidemic that was far beyond the insulated city walls of a mafia controlled New York or even a regional crisis. The Xalisco distribution emerged unparelleled because of how little attention it drew to itself, and the leadership's easy ability to find young men and product. Only in recent years, with the deaths of actors like Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Anna Nicole Smith, have the profiles of oxycontin abuse, and all its consequences been discussed openly.
Through the stories of many of the players, and the story of the town Portsmouth, Ohio, we see a problem that is not only about drugs, but about fatalism. A lost of community spirit echoed by the closed smokestacks, closed family stores, and youth without a future to aspire to. Dreamland in title is a reference to what Portsmouth, Ohio use to be called, an All-American city, with a large commuity pool attended to by people of all classes. Opiate pain relief research has in recent years produced new drugs like zohydro that offer no addictive properties. Time will tell if the research bears out lofty claims, and if the communities of small town america will be around to listen.