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11+ Works 1,299 Membros 39 Críticas

About the Author

Sam Quinones is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times.

Includes the name: Sam Quinones

Séries

Obras por Sam Quinones

Associated Works

National Geographic Magazine 2016 v229 #6 June (2016) — Contribuidor — 17 exemplares

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Data de nascimento
1958-12-13
Sexo
male
Nacionalidade
USA
Educação
University of California, Berkeley
Ocupações
journalist
author (nonfiction)

Membros

Críticas

I was just finishing “Dreamland” — a book published in 2015, before the Trump reign — as the returns of the 2020 election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump came rolling in. Early on there was a hint that Biden might flip Ohio from the Republicans, but that was not to be.

Dreamland is largely set in the border town of Portsmouth, Ohio, facing Kentucky on the Ohio River.

The area appears to be part of the Republican rural stronghold.

According to Quinones compelling, strange, and frightening story it was also Ground Zero for the confluence of two major trends in rural American life: the seeming endless supplies of painkillers sometimes dispensed by dubious “pills mills,” pain treatment clinics, and the growth of high grade heroine imported by an endless stream of drug runners from a small, poor, and rural Mexican community.

Not only were poor, often unemployed in rural America subject to the pill economy, but relatively wealthy suburbanites and their children were dragged into it, sometimes motivated by the same forces that kept them on top: affluence.

Even as I read this book hundreds of millions of pain killers are prescribed across America — and here in Canada — where physicians often haven’t the time nor the expertise to manage paid reduction regimens, or the expertise to wean their patients off them.

Quinones’ story begins with a small town in prosperous America enjoying the industrial expansion of the early 1900’s and ends with that same town trying to repair its footing after most of the jobs have left, the town tax rolls impoverished, and a booming business in drug rehab.

The pain and resentment of Trump followers aside, rural America is slowly making a comeback, particularly as the COVID pandemic moves a lot of those downtown urban jobs back to the hinterland.

This is a story of communities in evolution.

It’s not pretty but really relevant.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
MylesKesten | 30 outras críticas | Jan 23, 2024 |
I would argue that this is essentially two books, not one. It's not that it's written that way. It's just that there is a significant portion that is quite clear and concise and important information for the average reader to know about the ins and outs of what America is dealing with regarding its current and significant drug-related morass. (What I will label the "Walmart Drug Ecosystem" was especially intriguing to me.) There is a great deal included in this book, with convincing evidence, that the typical mass media is not passing along to the public in any meaningful way. It was just yesterday that I read a news story in a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper that mentioned certain "truths" about current community drug issues that were known to this book's author -- and, of course, to anyone who would have read this book -- at least as far back as late 2021 when this book was first published. So, not new news. Old news that the media is just now reporting? And then there is the rest of the book, which is basically all coming from the author's personal interviews with several specific people at a handful of locations in America, locations that the author clearly has taken as a clear representative sampling of all drug-related issues. There is no effort to verify that what he has been told by individuals in these locations is universally true everywhere else. (Though, I will grant that they touch on likely issues in a lot of communities.) Indeed, especially at the end of the book, the author hands out what he regards as solutions that are not tested elsewhere or even clearly successful. I got the distinct impression I was being subjected to a classic Frank Capra movie. "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" immediately came to mind. I would think that even Mr. Capra, if he were alive, would agree that those movies may be inspirations for community change but would never be foundations for legislation and policy decisions to tackle problems. In my opinion, that uplifting thinking is in contrast to the hard realities presented elsewhere in the book. A point which reminds me that the author effectively never mentions the massive political barriers to acting on the "enlightenment" he seems so fond of pointing out from the individuals he interviewed. I am rating this book as highly as I am because of what is mostly reported in the first part of the book. Unfortunately, most readers, people who much prefer fiction over non-fiction, will not bother to read this book unless the "human interest" part of the book is there. They might even skim over the part I think is so important, and I don't think that will help find solutions, just empathy.… (mais)
 
Assinalado
larryerick | 2 outras críticas | Dec 8, 2023 |
one of those books you want to share with everyone... without having to push it on anyone... and you regret the fact that the book ever needed to be written.
 
Assinalado
zizabeph | 30 outras críticas | May 7, 2023 |
Sadly 5 stars is the most you can give a book.
The author of Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic which came out in 2015 was one of the best books I have ever read.
This new book The Least Of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth.
If you wonder how we got where we are today, if you or someone you know, has an addiction or wants to know more about how addiction affects the brain, or if you have children this needs to be required reading.
Even something as simple as America’s addiction to sugar and how the brain way as if does to narcotics and why is fascinating.
And for people my age make no mistake today’s drugs are so much more potent and dangerous than what was available in the 70’s and 80’s, anything can easily lead to something far more dangerous.
Do yourself a favor and read this book!
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
zmagic69 | 2 outras críticas | Mar 31, 2023 |

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Estatísticas

Obras
11
Also by
1
Membros
1,299
Popularidade
#19,773
Avaliação
4.2
Críticas
39
ISBN
34
Línguas
2

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