Library to Welcome National Expert on the Opiate Epidemic
Tuesday, October 3 at 7:00 p.m. Author Sam Quinones
discusses his award-winning book Dreamland: The True Tale
of America's Opiate Epidemic
Special to The Truth
In 1929, in the
blue-collar city of Portsmouth, Ohio, a company built a
swimming pool the size of a football field; named Dreamland,
it became the vital center of the community. Now, addiction
has devastated Portsmouth, as it has hundreds of small rural
towns and suburbs across America—addiction like no other the
country has ever faced.
How that happened is the
riveting story of Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s
Opiate Epidemic, winner of the National Book Critics
Circle Award, amongst other honors.
Acclaimed journalist Sam Quinones weaves together two
riveting tales of capitalism run amok whose unintentional
collision has been a catastrophic opiate epidemic.
The unfettered prescribing
of pain medications during the 1990s reached its peak in
Purdue Pharma’s campaign to market OxyContin, its new,
expensive—extremely addictive—miracle painkiller. Meanwhile,
a massive influx of black tar heroin—cheap, potent, and
originating from one small county, Xalisco, Nayarit, on
Mexico’s west coast and independent of any drug cartel,
assaulted small town and mid-sized cities across the
country, driven by a brilliant, almost unbeatable marketing.
and distribution system. Together these phenomena continue
to lay waste to communities from Tennessee to Oregon,
Indiana to New Mexico.
Finally, though, Quinones
finds hope in the same Rust Belt river town that led the
country into the opiate epidemic – Portsmouth, Ohio, where
townspeople are turning away from dependence and toward
economic as well as municipal self-reliance and, with that,
recovery.
Introducing a memorable
cast of characters—pharma pioneers, young Mexican
entrepreneurs, narcotics investigators, survivors, and
parents —Quinones shows how these tales fit together.
Dreamland
is a revelatory account of the corrosive threat facing
America and its heartland. The Toledo Lucas County Public
Library in partnership with the Mental Health & Recovery
Services Board of Lucas County is proud to host this
important community conversation. The author’s presentation
will be followed by Q and A, and a book sale and signing
opportunity.
Quinones will discuss his
work on Tuesday, October 3 at 7:00p.m. at the Toledo Lucas
County Public Library, Main Library in the McMaster Center .
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