Summary Of Dreamland By Sam Quinnoes

In his talk about his book dreamland, Sam Quinnoes discussed the drug war epidemic in the United States. He discussed that this is the first time in history where drug abuse and sales is seen all across the country and not isolated in a specific area. Sam Quinnoes, was a crime reporter in Stockton, CA, as well as, a reporter for the LA Times after he spent about 10 years living in Mexico. As a reporter he began investigating the prevalence of black tar heroin trafficking from Mexico to a small town in West Virginia after reading that in the span of 6 months a dozed people died from overdose. He was working with a team of reporters trying to answer the question of “how drugs are trafficked once they cross the boarder into the US, and how do

Originally pain medications were very limited and believed to be very addictive by most doctors. Doctors would first recommend more holistic ways to treat pain such as physical therapy and meditation. However, with the development of more pain medications big pharmaceutical companies convinced hospitals and doctors that opiates were virtually non addictive when used to treat pain, but they were careful not to describe the doses in which they were non addictive so they could sell more. Once doctors began using these drugs, big pharma kept pushing for the use of opiates in more patients with less severe cases, expanding their use beyond just those suffering from terminal diseases. The opiate, OxyContin, was promoted this way with aggressive sales men stating their research showed these drug were not addictive. This lead doctors to prescribe these drugs more frequently and in higher doses. In fact, every year since 1996 the prescription rate of these drugs has

There was a focus on expanding the community resources like softball fields and parks, not the commercial resources, such as strip malls. However, when big companies like strip malls and pharmaceuticals it took over dreamland. It then became a neighborhood of isolation, near a pill mill, and everyone had easy access to opiates. The traffickers saw this as an opportunity to exploit the people addicted to OxyContin and bridge them to the next best thing, heroin. In towns like this, heroin thrived, and the drug suppliers did everything they could to keep their customers coming back.

People saw opiates as a quick way to fix their complicated problems, but it led to even worse problems. People were too ashamed to admit their love one died from a opiate overdose (prescription or not) and the problem was hard to address. However, now as it has become more open the problem is no longer hidden and we can start trying to fix it. We can start getting people back to school, work and into the community. We can start rebuilding