Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America

by Beth Macy

Little did Davis or the other ER docs understand that the routine practice of sending patients home with a two-week supply of oxycodone or hydrocodone would culminate by the year 2017 in a financial toll of $1 trillion as measured in lost productivity and increased health care, social services, education, and law enforcement costs.

you’re not going after drugs to get high; you’re going to keep from being sick.”

“It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.”

Why had blacks failed to become ensnared in opioid addiction? That question was addressed in 2014 data issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Doctors didn’t trust people of color not to abuse opioids, so they prescribed them painkillers at far lower rates than they did whites.

“You have to constantly fight this notion that we shouldn’t wrap our arms around people who don’t want treatment.”