Patrick Wood

For a non-fiction public interest book, this easily deserves five stars. My reading (actualy the audio book) left me with a far better understanding of the impact and working of the drug epidemic than I had even after years of closely reading news stories on that subject. The writing is compelling. It presents a logical and understandable picture of a very large segment of the drug crisis and how diverse institutions and people contributed to it and how much we all have lost because of it. The book identifies roles played by some criminally greedy Pharmaceutical owners and medical doctors, by honest doctors and patients who were lied to, an incompetent and near criminally negligent FDA approval process for opioid drugs, the purchase of a large percent of illegally used opioids by Medicaid. It shows how and why crooked doctors placed massive numbers of able-bodied drug addicts on Medicaid disability so patients could get their drugs at an affordable price. The relationship between the OcyContin and Black Tar Heroin epidemics is identified. The emergence of a new model of the Heroin drug business from a little town in Mexico is amazing and instructive. Most of all it identifies the full impact of drug epidemics. The impact on the addicts is only the small tip of the iceberg. It destroys towns, neighborhoods, businesses, the value of Real Estate, the economy, jobs, and raises taxes and the need for more welfare. Most of all, it blackens the lives of spouses, mothers, fathers, children and friends of the addict. This is good story telling. That is often difficult to do in a book that sticks to hard facts. Anyone affected by the drug epidemic would do well to understand how it works before trying to end it or rescue a child, spouse, or friend from it.