But whatever the DEA was thinking in 1996 and ’97, the government missed the real story about opium, as in fact did I. While we were caught up in this remote and ridiculous skirmish in the drug war, the drug in question was quietly and legally making its way into the bodies of millions of Americans, as Purdue Pharma pursued its marketing campaign, seeding the culture with seductive disinformation about the safety of OxyContin.
