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American Craft Beer delivers craft beer news and lifestyle 24/7. And maybe that’s why we’re constantly being hit up by different media groups asking us to share with our readers about everything from hangover cures and beer-related products to new music, movies, and books….And yes, we get lots and lots of books to review.
Which leads us to Dreamland, a devastating account of America’s growing opiate epidemic, and one of the best books of 2015.
According to a recent study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heroin-related deaths tripled between 2010 and 2013. And Sam Quinones’ Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic takes an unflinching look at the wake of its destruction, and explains just how we got there.
Impeccably researched and written with a true story-teller’s skill, Dreamland chronicles the “perfect storm” of two disparate occurrences that converged to create an addiction problem unlike anything that this nation has ever seen.
On one hand, it tells the story of the pain management revolution that took place in the 1990s and led to the unfettered prescribing of pain medications. This new medical philosophy also led to the rise of OxyContin, an expensive and highly addictive drug that devastated small post-industrial towns like Portsmouth, Ohio, and led to the advent of illicit pill mills and an underground addict economy that further perpetuated the growing epidemic.
At the same time that opioids like OxyContin were spreading addiction and pain throughout America’s heartland, another ominous trend was occurring out west. A massive influx of black tar heroin started showing up in California. Both potent and inexpensive, this dangerous form of heroin quickly spread up to the Pacific Northwest where it wreaked havoc in places like Portland, Oregon. It also moved east into small towns and cities like Columbus, Ohio, and laid waste to communities already reeling from their own opioid epidemics.
In Dreamland, Sam Quinones deftly weaves together two stories of capitalism run amuck – and recounts how an ever-growing base of Americans already addicted to prescription drugs fell victim to the most powerful form of heroin that this country has ever seen.
Massive in scope and harrowing in detail, Dreamland is an epic work of non-fiction that will be remembered as one of the most important books of 2015. READ THIS!
