Memorial Hall Library

Dopesick, dealers, doctors, and the drug company that addicted America, Beth Macy

eng

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Dopesick

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1053843070

Beth Macy

dealers, doctors, and the drug company that addicted America

"Beth Macy takes us into the epicenter of America's twenty-plus-year struggle with opioid addiction. From distressed small communities in central Appalachia to wealthy suburbs, from disparate cities to once-idyllic farm towns, it's a heartbreaking trajectory that illustrates how this national crisis has persisted for so long and become so firmly entrenched. Beginning with a single dealer who lands in a small Virginia town and sets about turning high school football stars into heroin overdose statistics, Macy endeavors to answer a grieving mother's question- why did her only son die?-and comes away with a harrowing story of greed and need. From the introduction of OxyContin in 1996, Macy parses how America embraced a medical culture where overtreatment with painkillers became the norm. In some of the same distressed communities featured in her book Factory Man, the unemployed use painkillers both to numb the pain of joblessness and to pay their bills, while privileged teens trade pills in cul-de-sacs, and even high school standouts fall prey to prostitution, jail, and death. Through unsparing yet deeply human portraits of the families and first responders struggling to ameliorate this epidemic, each facet of the crisis comes into focus. In these politically fragmented times, Beth Macy shows that, astonishingly, the only thing that unites Americans across geographic and class lines is opioid drug abuse. But in a country unable to provide basic health care for all, Macy still finds reason to hope -- and finds signs of the spirit and tenacity necessary in those facing addiction to build a better future for themselves and their families."--, Provided by publisher

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Dope sick