The Pain Killers
“Once a bustling industrial town, Huntington, West Virginia has become the epicenter of America’s modern opioid epidemic, with an overdose rate 10 times the national average. This flood of heroin now threatens this Appalachian city with a cycle of generational addiction, lawlessness, and poverty.” The new Netflix documentary Heroin(e) (produced in collaboration with my friends at the excellent Center for Investigative Reporting) tells the story of three women on the front lines of the battle to save small towns from the perfect storm of America’s opioid/heroin disaster. It’s only thirty minutes. Take the time to watch it. Below, I’ve shared a collection of articles to frame this pressing story.
+ Cincinnati Enquirer: Seven days of heroin: This is what an epidemic looks like.
+ “Often omitted from the conversation about the epidemic is the fact that it is also inflicting harm on the American economy, and on a scale not seen in any previous drug crisis.” Even if politicians are not moved by the moral issue, they should be moved by the economic factors. The New Yorker on the cost of the opioid crisis.
+ “Distributors have fed their greed on human frailties and to criminal effect. There is no excuse and should be no forgiveness.” From the Charleston Gazette-Mail: Drug firms poured 780M painkillers into WV amid rise of overdoses.
+ What can a company like Purdue Pharma do to make ends meet when the domestic market finally gets hit with regulations? The family behind the company decided to follow in the deadly footsteps of big tobacco. From the LA Times: OxyContin goes global.
+ Bloomberg: Big Pharma’s Tobacco Moment as Star Lawyers Push Opioid Suits.
+ When American states started to legalize marijuana, drug cartels saw the writing on the wall. They knew they’d need a new source of income, and the opioid crisis provided them with a market of addicts suddenly facing a legal crackdown on pain pill mills. From the great Don Winslow: El Chapo and The Secret History of the Heroin Crisis.
+ And for a look at the rise of pill mills (a hurricane that hit Florida long before Irma), check out the book American Pain, by John Temple.