The Dayton Heroin Bust
Dreamland » The Heroin Heartland
by samquinones
2y ago
Cops in Dayton, Ohio this week took down a reputed major Sinaloan trafficker, along with a bunch of cash and a million dollars worth of dope. What this bust shows is that the larger Mexican cartels, which for a long time ignored heroin as a revenue generator, have in the last few years figured out the new market that exists in the U.S., created by the overprescribing of narcotic pain pills nationwide, and shifted priorities. Through the 1990s and into the last decade, these cartels didn’t dabble too much in heroin. Other drugs were more popular and profitable. Plus, in Mexico heroin is viewed ..read more
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A Mother’s Story: Sam Chappell
Dreamland » The Heroin Heartland
by samquinones
2y ago
I continue to receive letters from parents whose children have been consumed in America’s opiate epidemic. Here is one:   Your book, Dreamland, does an excellent job of outlining how the convergence of the pharmaceutical environment with heroin trafficking from Mexico over the last two decades provided the avenue for the addiction that killed my son. I believe his story is the third leg of your book. Sam Chappell Sam was born in 1994. The next year, OxyContin was approved. Sam was a sweet toddler when Purdue began its aggressive and misleading marketing campaign for the drug ..read more
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Forcing Pharma to Pay To Take Back Drugs
Dreamland » The Heroin Heartland
by samquinones
2y ago
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is today holding hearings on a proposal that would force pharmaceutical companies to pay to “take back” their drugs and needles that are not used by consumers. Los Angeles County is following the lead of Alameda County in northern California, which enacted an ordinance requiring pharmaceutical companies to provide funds to collect and dispose of unused pills. The ordinance survived Supreme Court review last spring, and is now in place under the concept of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). According to the L.A. County departmen ..read more
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Thank You!
Dreamland » The Heroin Heartland
by samquinones
2y ago
The last few days have been tumultuous for my family and me – and filled with strong emotions. But I wanted to say how much I appreciated all those who wrote in, via various media, with kind words, words of support and encouragement. Tens of thousands read the blogpost below. Thousands of people shared the post below on Facebook. Hundreds more tweeted it. I received many e mails, and (now that my WordPress comments section is fixed) comments on my blog.  Many folks wrote in on the 60 Minutes website and the show’s Facebook page to object. It means so much that you would do that. Than ..read more
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Sad for 60 Minutes
Dreamland » The Heroin Heartland
by samquinones
2y ago
I grew up admiring 60 Minutes for its storytelling and investigative reporting. So many original stories. No one on television was doing what 60 Minutes was doing then. It looked so exciting and that was part of why I became a journalist. So six months after the publication of my book Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic, it saddened and appalled me to watch the show last night. Last night, 60 Minutes ran a piece about heroin in Ohio. I’m very happy that these Ohioans, who I know and like and respect, are getting this megaphone. Their story needed telling. But I have to stand ..read more
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Heroin and the Sugar Added
Dreamland » The Heroin Heartland
by samquinones
2y ago
We have spent too long demanding that doctors fix our pain. As Americans, too often we’re angered when they don’t – or, more likely, can’t – as if we’re entitled to solutions. That wouldn’t be so disturbing were it not that at the same time it seems a national malaise that we don’t feel much accountability for our own wellness. This combination has given rise to the overuse and overprescribing of pain pills. They are the solutions that doctors have for a country that doesn’t (won’t) address its pain in a more holistic way. But those pills are also the reason why across America we have so much ..read more
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Why I Voted Against California’s Prop. 47
Dreamland » The Heroin Heartland
by samquinones
2y ago
Last year, Californians were asked to approve Prop. 47, which made misdemeanors of several felonies. The idea was to send fewer people to prison and a majority of Californians voters approved it. I wasn’t one of them. I voted against Prop. 47 for exactly the reason mentioned in a recent op-ed piece in the LA Times: that addicts frequently need the threat of jail or prison to get their minds around the idea of entering rehab. The threat of prison was, in other words, a rock bottom from which some could achieve recovery. This comes from interviews with many recovering addicts whose lives were sa ..read more
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Heroin & Hyperconsumption – A Poem
Dreamland » The Heroin Heartland
by samquinones
2y ago
Ever since beginning work on my book, Dreamland, I’ve been struck by the way opiates isolate those addicted to them. As I wrote and researched, they grew into a metaphor for modern American life. Opiate addiction, seems to me, is some kind of final expression of our own destruction of community, our lack of connection across the country – both in poor communities and wealthy ones. We exalt consumption and the individual over community and have for a long time now. These drugs seem to fit that; they turn everyone who abuses them into self-absorbed, lonely hyper-consumers. The poem below was wr ..read more
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`Two are better than one’ … Why heroin now?
Dreamland » The Heroin Heartland
by samquinones
2y ago
“Two are better than one … for if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up.” King Solomon Those who know me will find it strange to read me quoting the Bible. But these words, which I just read for the first time, talk about what we’ve lost and what has tenderized the country for widespread heroin and pain-pill addiction described by the CDC/DEA in my blogpost below. We are an enormous country too often isolated, siloed in our rooms/phones/cars alone. The magnificent ethos of self-reliance that began this ..read more
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DEA: Heroin now increasing everywhere in America
Dreamland » The Heroin Heartland
by samquinones
2y ago
The DEA today issued a press release that begins like this: “Heroin use has increased across the United States among men and women, most age groups, and all income levels. The greatest increases have occurred in groups with historically lower rates of heroin use, including women and people with private insurance and higher incomes.” The release discusses a new report by the FDA and CDC about heroin’s use across the country. The only fact it appears to leave out is that almost all the new addicts are white. Still, for a long time, heroin has seemed to me a way of talking about America. One reas ..read more
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