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Fentanyl, Inc. : how rogue chemists are creating the deadliest wave of the opioid epidemic
2019
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Library Journal Review
Exacerbating and complicating the epidemic of opioid misuse, addiction, and overdose is the careening growth in Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS), an ever-expanding array of synthetic drugs designed to mimic the effects of traditional recreational and pharmaceutical chemicals--but typically with much higher potency, and trafficked in disguise, so that users simply do not know what they are taking. As soon as one NPS is identified and banned, another is developed, produced, and distributed to take its place. Journalist Westhoff (Original Gangstas) traces fentanyl and other NPS from academic labs to Chinese firms, Mexican cartels, and Dark Web entrepreneurs. He meets with users, survivors, and dealers, and travels to China to visit suppliers in the guise of a customer. Critiquing prohibition-oriented drug policy, Westhoff explores more pragmatic responses including grassroots harm-reduction activism and supervised injection facilities, needle exchanges, and treatment programs that could lower public-health costs and reduce fatalities. VERDICT Following after Sam Quinones's Dreamland, which surveyed the ravages of prescription pills and black tar heroin, this book will assist policymakers, activists, and general readers in understanding better how to respond to the drug crisis that is only more intractable now.--Janet Ingraham Dwyer, State Lib. of Ohio, Columbus
Publishers Weekly Review
Investigative journalist Westhoff explores the many-tentacled world of illicit opioids, from the streets of East St. Louis to Chinese pharmaceutical companies, from music festivals deep in the Michigan woods to sanctioned "shooting up rooms" in Barcelona, in this frank, insightful, and occasionally searing exposé. Westhoff narrates the dangerous rise of fentanyl alongside the emergence of a wide variety of other synthetic drugs, including cannabinoids and novel-psychoactive substances (NPS), that are fast becoming readily accessible. Interviewing over 160 people, including the chemists who create the drugs and the dealers who distribute them, as well as users and law enforcement, Westhoff offers a truly multifaceted view of the landscape of fentanyl use and abuse. The disparate narrative strands he weaves together--including tragic stories of drug users, straightforward analysis of the history of opioid use, tension-filled episodes of drug runs and supplier meet-ups, and the humane and hopeful work of the "harm reduction" movement--all come together to provide a more complex understanding of the rise of, and response to, the opioid epidemic. Westhoff's well-reported and researched work will likely open eyes, slow knee-jerk responses, and start much needed conversations. Agent: Ethan Bassoff, Massie & McQuilkin. (Sept.)
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