Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic Summary
Sam Quinones

Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic Overview

Dreamland by Sam Quinones provides an extensive look into the convergence of two waves of opiate abuse: the over-prescribing of opiate painkillers like OxyContin, and the activity of a vast heroin trafficking network based out of the small Mexican state of Nayarit. These two concurrent waves met in America's Rust Belt area, resulting in what Quinones dubs an opiate epidemic. In this well-researched book, Quinones tells the tale of the opiate epidemic facing the nation from multiple perspectives - traffickers, users, families of overdose victims, the medical community, pill mill doctors, the pharmaceutical industry, counselors, and law enforcement. Though the opiate scourge left a mark on middle class America as unsavory as track marks, Quinones consistently reinforces the idea that the power of a strong and supportive community is the nation's biggest defense against the opiate epidemic.