Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America

Beth Macy immerses us in the centre of the United States' more than two decades-long battle with opiate addiction. It's a tragic trajectory that shows how this national issue has lasted for so long and been so deeply ingrained: from struggling tiny villages in Central Appalachia to affluent suburbia; from diverse metropolis to once-idylllic rural towns.

In an attempt to provide a solace-seeking mother with an explanation for her only son's death, Macy starts with a lone dealer who arrives in a tiny Virginia town and proceeds to transform high school football players into heroin overdose statistics. What she finds is a horrific tale of greed and desperation. Beginning with OxyContin's release in 1996, Macy analyses how America adopted a medical culture that made excessive use of opioids the standard. The unemployed use painkillers to both numb the pain of unemployment and pay their bills in some of the same distressed communities that she chronicled in her best-selling book Factory Man. Meanwhile, privileged teens trade pills in dead ends, and even high school standouts become victims of prostitution, jail, or even death.

Every aspect of the problem is brought to light via frank, but very compassionate, images of the families and first responders fighting to contain this pandemic. Surprisingly, Beth Macy demonstrates that opioid drug consumption is the single issue that unifies Americans across economic and geographic divides in these politically divided times. However, Macy sees cause for optimism—and indications of the will and determination required in individuals battling addiction to create better futures for themselves and their families—in a nation unable to provide universal access to basic healthcare.