Dopesick

Beth Macy reveals the disturbing truth behind America's opioid crisis and explains how a nation has become enslaved to prescription drugs. 

"Dopesick goes to the heart of one of the most urgent problems of our time."  - The Tablet

This powerful and moving story explains how a large corporation, Purdue, encouraged small-town doctors to prescribe OxyContin to a country already awash in painkillers. The drug's dangerously addictive nature was hidden, whilst many used it as an escape, to numb the pain of joblessness and the need to pay the bills. Macy tries to answer a grieving mother's question – why her only son died – and comes away with a harrowing tale of greed and need.

"...a masterwork of narrative journalism, interlacing stories of communities in crisis with dark histories of corporate greed and regulatory indifference ... The further Macy wades into the wreckage of addiction, the more damning her indictment becomes ... Macy introduces so many remarkable people that, midway through Dopesick, readers may find it challenging to keep track of them. (Imagine the writer as the literary equivalent of a triage doctor, with more patients to stabilize than she can linger on.) Taken as a whole, however, this gripping book is a feat of reporting, research and synthesis."  -  Jessica Bruder, New York Times Book Review