Beginning with a single dealer--who lands in a small Virginia town and sets about turning high school football stars into heroin overdose statistics--journalist Beth Macy endeavors to answer a grieving mother's question: why did her only die? She 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. The...

Quinones was among the first to see the dangers of synthetic drugs and a new generation of kingpins whose product could be made in Magic Bullet blenders. In fentanyl, traffickers landed a painkiller a hundred times more powerful than morphine. They laced it into cocaine, meth, and counterfeit pills to cause tens of thousands of deaths-- at the same time as Mexican traffickers made methamphetamine cheaper and more potent. He investigated these new...

Journeying through lives and communities wrecked by the opioid epidemic, McGreal reveals not only how Big Pharma hooked America on powerfully addictive drugs, but the corruption of medicine and public institutions that let the opioid makers get away with it. A few physicians warned of impending disaster, but the forces they were up against -- including the pharmaceutical industry's coopting of the Food and Drug Administration and Congress in the drive...

Examines the toll of opioid addiction in the U.S. on individuals, families, and communities through personal stories, including a couple who lost their son to prescription painkillers, and expert commentary.

A look at opioid addiction in the US profiles four families whose lives have been decimated by drug abuse that began with legitimate prescriptions to dangerous painkillers that are often a gateway to heroin.

America in is crisis: unemployment, deindustrialization, and a bitter hopelessness and malaise have resulted in an epidemic of diseases of despair. Hedges believes that as our society unravels and we face global upheaval caused by catastrophic climate change, these ills presage a frightening reconfiguration of the nation and the planet. He argues that since both political parties are captured by corporate power, neither will address the systemic problems....

"America is in the midst of the deadliest drug epidemic in US history. In 2017 alone, around 70,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, driven by a dramatic rise in the abuse of opioids like OxyContin, heroin, and fentanyl. It's a slow-motion disaster that is destroying whole communities, with no end in sight. As our nation looks for answers, take an unflinching look at the epidemic through the eyes of those living through it. Along the way, join...

"A deeply human story, Fentanyl, Inc. is the first deep-dive investigation of a hazardous and illicit industry that has created a worldwide epidemic, ravaging communities and overwhelming and confounding government agencies that are challenged to combat it. "A whole new crop of chemicals is radically changing the recreational drug landscape," writes Ben Westhoff. "These are known as Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS) and they include replacements...