The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth

by Sam Quinones

The opioid epidemic was very different. It came with no street violence to speak of. On the contrary, it spread because it was quiet, insidious. Crime rates fell across America as addiction and overdoses rose. Instead of violence, the dead were the barometers now. Later, some people would claim that the opioid addiction epidemic was only getting attention because the great majority of its victims were middle-class White people. That was true. The other truth was that the plague hid for years because so many of its victims were middle-class Whites. Families seared by the loss also had to navigate the shame. They covered up, mortified at how their loved ones had died, afraid to stain their memories. Newspaper obituaries reported that a twenty-seven-year-old died of a “heart attack”; a middle-aged brother “died suddenly” at home. Amid this nationwide silence the plague festered, metastasized, and, like a virus, took on a life of its own.