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dark informative medium-paced

Informative but redundant.

After they received a call, they would drive to a location where they will sell their product, in this case, heroin, to a buyer as if they were delivering a pizza. This bizarre narrative of how men from a small town in Mexico would bring a corporate like nature to the drug business is merged together with American doctors' decision to prescribe pain medication to their patients without regard, which results in a major heroin epidemic in the United States.

In Dreamland:The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic, Sam Quinones tells the story of how and why doctors begin to misuse a case study to make the argument that there is little chance for patients to become addicted to the latest drug, Oxycontin.

What was supposed to be this discovery of this miracle drug to cure pain, results in creating a gateway for people to use heroin. Reading how these two events come together is like witnessing a car crash.

Recently it was reported by CNN that a Southern Californian doctor, Hsiu-Ying "Lisa" Tseng, was convicted of murder in the connection of the death of three of her patients while The New York Times published an op-ed piece regarding the fact that the subject of drug addiction has only now changed after those who are hooked onto heroin are now mostly white people.

Chances are strong that this topic will continue to be reported more in the news media in the days to come. How could did this have happened? This book will tell you how.

Holy hell this is a good book.

Sobering and eye-opening. A must-read in this day and age.
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alexiscole's profile picture

alexiscole's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 59%

The anti-poor, pro-cop vibes were just too much. Way too much undercurrent of stigmatizing drug users.

Also it was deeply repetitive and could have used a much heavier editing hand.

Eye opening and well written, great narrator.
challenging dark informative reflective tense slow-paced
challenging dark informative inspiring reflective relaxing sad medium-paced

Insightful, creatively written and expansive story about how heroin and oxy converged to create the opioid epidemic. follows many storylines but pulls it all together with a fresh perspective on how to create new space for addiction recovery. so inspiring and entertaining!