Dreamland- The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones
Product Details
Web ID: 4134676Couldn’t Put It Down
This book should be required reading for everyone. It reads like a thriller and I was hooked from page one. I stayed up late to read it, which I normally don’t do, that’s how good it was. It is about how heroin came to middle and southern America as well the history of OxyContin. If you’re going to read one book about the opiate epidemic, read this one, you’ll learn so much as well as be completely absorbed by the book.
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Thorough and illuminating
Sam Quinones, a US journalist, carves a trail—from west to east, with black tar heroin, and from east to west, with OxyContin—of the beginnings of the opiate explosion. Black tar heroin sped across the country as people from a small town in Mexico engineered a remarkable delivery system focused on convenience and customer satisfaction. OxyContin streaked the other way as Purdue Pharma aggressively pushed a fabulously effective painkiller via aggressive marketing tactics, leading to pill mills and millions of unnecessary prescriptions. As black tar and OxyContin overlapped the country, the US, without realizing it, started drowning in addictions. I think this book is for people who seek to understand: (1) how the Xalisco Boys so shrewdly marketed black tar heroin to middle- and upper-middle class white families; (2) why Purdue’s OxyContin became a blockbuster terror that tore through communities; and (3) how these two forces—black tar heroin and OxyContin—reveal the worst of capitalism and the best of government and community. --Pithy Summary
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
A Metaphor for American Redemption
Sam Quinones has written an epochal expose that is more poetry than prose. His analysis is keen. His tone is one of openness and sympathy. Ultimately, he provides the reader with a journey into a deep, dark tunnel of opiod addiction and dependence...but there is a light. Hitting on tried and true American values and sins, Dreamland speaks to both an America that once was and an America that can be.
Recommends this product
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com
Great survey with experiences--not numbers heavy
i thought this would be a dense book with stats and charts--i was wrong. It was situational--filled with micro and macro parallelisms across its subject matter. It's a bit jumbled at the beginning as the structure of the book is vignette based. However, once you understand the stories--it becomes a quick read.
Customer review from barnesandnoble.com