Dreamland

The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic

By: Sam Quinones

Narrated by: Tom Jordan

Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's Summary

Bloomsbury presents Dreamland by Sam Quinones, read by Tom Jordan.

Winner of the NBCC Award for General Nonfiction.

Named on Slate's 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Past 25 Years, Amazon's Best Books of the Year 2015—Michael Botticelli, U.S. Drug Czar (Politico) Favourite Book of the Year—Angus Deaton, Nobel Prize Economics (Bloomberg/WSJ) Best Books of 2015—Matt Bevin, Governor of Kentucky (WSJ) Books of the Year—Slate.com’s 10 Best Books of 2015—Entertainment Weekly’s 10 Best Books of 2015—BuzzFeed’s 19 Best Nonfiction Books of 2015—The Daily Beast’s Best Big Idea Books of 2015—Seattle Times’ Best Books of 2015—Boston Globe’s Best Books of 2015—St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Best Books of 2015—The Guardian’s The Best Book We Read All Year—Audible’s Best Books of 2015—Texas Observer’s Five Books We Loved in 2015—Chicago Public Library’s Best Nonfiction Books of 2015

From a small town in Mexico to the boardrooms of Big Pharma to main streets nationwide, an explosive and shocking account of addiction in the heartland of America.

In 1929, in the blue-collar city of Portsmouth, Ohio, a company built a swimming pool the size of a football field; named Dreamland, it became the vital centre of the community. Now, addiction has devastated Portsmouth, as it has hundreds of small rural towns and suburbs across America—addiction like no other the country has ever faced. How that happened is the riveting story of Dreamland. 

With a great reporter’s narrative skill and the storytelling ability of a novelist, acclaimed journalist Sam Quinones weaves together two classic tales of capitalism run amok whose unintentional collision has been catastrophic. The unfettered prescribing of pain medications during the 1990s reached its peak in Purdue Pharma’s campaign to market OxyContin, its new, expensive—extremely addictive—miracle painkiller. Meanwhile, a massive influx of black tar heroin—cheap, potent and originating from one small county on Mexico’s west coast, independent of any drug cartel—assaulted small town and mid-sized cities across the country, driven by a brilliant, almost unbeatable marketing and distribution system. Together these phenomena continue to lay waste to communities from Tennessee to Oregon, Indiana to New Mexico.

Introducing a memorable cast of characters—pharma pioneers, young Mexican entrepreneurs, narcotics investigators, survivors and parents—Quinones shows how these tales fit together. Dreamland is a revelatory account of the corrosive threat facing America and its heartland.

©2015 Sam Quinones (P)2022 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Critic Reviews

"Does what Fast Food Nation did for fast food to black tar heroin and oxycodone.... A stunning journalistic journey that follows the history and narrative trajectories that lead to this entirely new style of cultivating drug addiction.... I just love this book." (Marc Maron)

Excellent

As an addiction medical professional I generally avoid listening to audiobooks on the topic as I like to use these as an escape from the occasional stressor of an emotional profession. however Dreamland was reccomended to me and I was blown away. The author does a tremendous job weaving together the many factors and faces and history of the opioid epidemic in America. I could not stop listening and thank him for his service with this book.

This book is.....addictive

From the myriad of interesting characters, to the history, design, and culture of some of the most addictive drugs on the planet, and the people who use and sell them, to the narrator's soothing voice, I was hooked right from the start. This is a great book for those who want to know about opioid history in the US.

Dreams and Disease

Digitized predatory pharmaceutical capitalism must be controlled or it will kill us all in America

Not fully in agreement with the conclusion

But there is much here that we ignore at our peril about capitalism run amok, both illegal and legal, and the mistaken belief that humans just shouldn’t ever need to feel pain.
As the child of a prescription drug addict who obtained her first narcotics and benzodiazepines from a physician in the 1960’s, I think it’s simplistic, reductive and frankly potentially harmful to say that we need to “get kids outside” and magically our addiction problem will resolve. My farm-reared mother existed in a world of skinned knees and outside play until dark, but still ended her life addicted to opioids and benzos.
And yet…there may be something in that bath water that should not be discarded. If nothing else, a healthy awareness of our systemic loopholes can’t hurt. Many other countries seem so much more adept at managing their “drug problems” than we do.
Maybe someday we will desire change enough to make it happen.

In-depth and comprehensive

Detailed and comprehensive discussion of the opioid epidemic from multiple perspectives. Factual versus sensationalized. Debunks many misconceptions regarding source(s) of illegal and legal opioids.

Informative book on the history of the opioid pandemic.

Very informative book and the history of USA’s narcotic pandemic. Gets a little repetitive with the many stories of addicted users. Overall, definitely worth the time.

Fascinating!

This has been one of the most interesting and fascinating books I have read in a long time.

Too much Repetition

Interesting book, but needed an editor to remove all the repeated information. Seemed like twenty short new stories strung together.

Fantastic

A great book; i found this after listening to authors notes at the end of Empire of Pain and really recommended it to anyone interested in the opioid epidemic and the human condition. Fantastic book.