Reddit mentions of Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic

Thanks. I had just finished reading Dreamland so that didn't help. I was able to just take Advil by Saturday (surgery was on a Monday night/Tuesday morning) so it wasn't too bad.

I rarely find posts like this terribly interesting or incisive. But this is actually very good. It's literally Orwellian, isn't it, the way we try to treat existential problems with drugs, and then we're left instead with entire communities doped up on Oxy, stealing lawnmowers from Wal-Mart to use as currency to get the next week of pills.

I always tell people that maybe the most important book of the last five years is Dreamland by Sam Quinones.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U19DTS0/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

If you want to understand anything about 21st Century America, where the country is headed, why Trump won, and how deep the moral disillusionment in the country runs, then read this book. It was truly, for me, a life-changer.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U19DTS0/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Read a little bit, you may learn something. That book won the Pulitzer. What do you know? Are you a doctor or a pharmacologist?

Guys, stop down voting Prince. We're having a discussion. He isn't doing anything wrong.

Anyway.

> But this shit backs up the fact that Trump won the election and it goes well in parallel with research like Case-Deaton.

Except it's more complex then that. On the one hand, you've got this demography study showing that Trump tended to do the best in areas particularly hard hit by economic decline and various public health crisis. On the other hand, there's analysis like this that indicate that racial resentments also played a big role and this article, which makes a good case that the real core of Trump's support isn't the homeless drug addict(who, to be blunt, is likely so alienated from the political system they don't even vote at all), but the petit bourgeois in suburbia and exurbia.

More broadly though, with regards to the issues of economic instability and declining health that many American communities are facing, I just don't find Arnade very useful compared to other works I've read. Books like Chasing the American Dream and Dreamland paint a much better picture of these issues without going into heavy handed over-dramatization.

That's my real issue with Arnade. It's not his intention, which I think comes from a good enough place. It's his method, which I think leaves much to be desired, particularly with regards to how he frames his subjects and the communities he goes to.

Strongly recommend that those interested in this nail in the country's coffin read Dreamland.

https://www.amazon.com/Dreamland-True-Americas-Opiate-Epidemic-ebook/dp/B00U19DTS0/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1

Black tar heroin from mexico is something a lot of people are dying from.
https://www.amazon.com/Dreamland-True-Americas-Opiate-Epidemic-ebook/dp/B00U19DTS0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503058526&sr=8-1&keywords=dreamland
A great read that explains a lot of the opioid epidemic.

They tried this once before, all Perdue got was a slap on the wrist in the form of a fine that probably barely scratched a line in their overhead. Read Dreamland, it's got alllllll the details about their part in it and the changes that happened after (spoiler: not many).

I am from Pike County and I would say Portsmouth more so than Chillicothe. At least Chillicothe gets some growth/money being close to Columbus but Portsmouth is a real bummer. It was sad when I was taking a look at this book and cover looked familiar.