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A review by morgan_blackledge
The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth by Sam Quinones
5.0
I have been working as a therpaist in addiction recovery in Los Angeles for the past decade.
I began my career working in a methadone clinic in South LA.
The clinic was mostly African American and Latinx elders, many of whom began using heroin in the 1970’s and 80’s.
Around 2013, the demographics of the clinic began to change abruptly, as young white kids started pouring in from all over the country.
I remember a flyer circulating around the clinic warning the clients about a batch of dope that was going around LA that had fentanyl in it.
That was the first time I heard about fentanyl.
My boss informed me that it had killed hundreds of people in Chicago a few years prior, and he was really concerned for the safety of the community.
Shortly there after, I started working at a residential treatment center in West Hollywood.
Over the next year or two, meth and fentanyl were suddenly everywhere.
The young gay men in the clinic were getting pulled into the death trap of meth fueled grinder hookups known as chemsex.
Scores of other young people became hopelessly ensnared in shooting meth and fentanyl together.
A death sport known colloquially as goof-balling.
People were dying left and right.
It was devastating.
Here we are, a decade into the opioid epidemic, and the situation is escalating well beyond what anyone could have imagined ten years ago.
The Least Of Us is author Sam Quinones’s investigation of how precisely all of this came to be.
Quinones’s previous book Dream Land chronicling the first wave of the opioid epidemic, traced the influx of strong, inexpensive heroin to a relatively small group in Mexico, and linked it all to the prescription opioid debacle that we’re only recently getting to the bottom of.
The Least Of Us picks up where Dream Land left off, and explains how and why literal tons of even cheaper, even more deadly fentanyl and “super meth” are flooding into America.
According to Quinones. Early efforts to quell meth production focused on limiting access to ephedrine, a key ingredient in homemade meth labs. That’s why CVS keeps that shit under lock and key and asks for your ID when you buy cold and allergy medications with ephedrine in it.
More recent meth production methods bypasses the need for ephedrine via a chemical compound known as P2P, which incidentally makes it cheaper, easier and safer to produce in large batches.
The good old fashioned meth made with ephedrine was primarily D-Methamphetamine (D-MAMP).
D-MAMP elicits the energized euphoria sought after by recreational users.
The new P2P methods produce a variant refered to as L-methamphetamine (L-MAMP), which almost exclusively elicits the severe schizophrenia type psychosis previously mentioned.
P2P MAMP and Fentanyl are being made from wholesale chemicals produced in China, and assembled in Mexico just outside the boarder.
It’s easy to disguise and transport.
I recently saw a news story about a bust that found hundreds of pounds of meth pressed into the shape of onions coming across the boarder as if it were a shipment of produce.
It’s dirt cheap.
And it’s everywhere.
It’s global capitalism’s chickens coming home to roost.
And knowing how hard it is to recover from that situation.
I’m very afraid we are nearing the point of no return.
This is a really good book.
Quinones does it again.
Crucial read.
5/5 stars.
I began my career working in a methadone clinic in South LA.
The clinic was mostly African American and Latinx elders, many of whom began using heroin in the 1970’s and 80’s.
Around 2013, the demographics of the clinic began to change abruptly, as young white kids started pouring in from all over the country.
I remember a flyer circulating around the clinic warning the clients about a batch of dope that was going around LA that had fentanyl in it.
That was the first time I heard about fentanyl.
My boss informed me that it had killed hundreds of people in Chicago a few years prior, and he was really concerned for the safety of the community.
Shortly there after, I started working at a residential treatment center in West Hollywood.
Over the next year or two, meth and fentanyl were suddenly everywhere.
The young gay men in the clinic were getting pulled into the death trap of meth fueled grinder hookups known as chemsex.
Scores of other young people became hopelessly ensnared in shooting meth and fentanyl together.
A death sport known colloquially as goof-balling.
People were dying left and right.
It was devastating.
Here we are, a decade into the opioid epidemic, and the situation is escalating well beyond what anyone could have imagined ten years ago.
The Least Of Us is author Sam Quinones’s investigation of how precisely all of this came to be.
Quinones’s previous book Dream Land chronicling the first wave of the opioid epidemic, traced the influx of strong, inexpensive heroin to a relatively small group in Mexico, and linked it all to the prescription opioid debacle that we’re only recently getting to the bottom of.
The Least Of Us picks up where Dream Land left off, and explains how and why literal tons of even cheaper, even more deadly fentanyl and “super meth” are flooding into America.
According to Quinones. Early efforts to quell meth production focused on limiting access to ephedrine, a key ingredient in homemade meth labs. That’s why CVS keeps that shit under lock and key and asks for your ID when you buy cold and allergy medications with ephedrine in it.
More recent meth production methods bypasses the need for ephedrine via a chemical compound known as P2P, which incidentally makes it cheaper, easier and safer to produce in large batches.
The good old fashioned meth made with ephedrine was primarily D-Methamphetamine (D-MAMP).
D-MAMP elicits the energized euphoria sought after by recreational users.
The new P2P methods produce a variant refered to as L-methamphetamine (L-MAMP), which almost exclusively elicits the severe schizophrenia type psychosis previously mentioned.
P2P MAMP and Fentanyl are being made from wholesale chemicals produced in China, and assembled in Mexico just outside the boarder.
It’s easy to disguise and transport.
I recently saw a news story about a bust that found hundreds of pounds of meth pressed into the shape of onions coming across the boarder as if it were a shipment of produce.
It’s dirt cheap.
And it’s everywhere.
It’s global capitalism’s chickens coming home to roost.
And knowing how hard it is to recover from that situation.
I’m very afraid we are nearing the point of no return.
This is a really good book.
Quinones does it again.
Crucial read.
5/5 stars.