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Empire of Pain
- The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
- Narrated by: Patrick Radden Keefe
- Length: 18 hrs and 6 mins
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Publisher's summary
National Book Critics Circle Nominee
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
New York Times best seller
A grand, devastating portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, famed for their philanthropy, whose fortune was built by Valium and whose reputation was destroyed by OxyContin. From the prize-winning and best-selling author of Say Nothing
The history of the Sackler dynasty is rife with drama—baroque personal lives; bitter disputes over estates; fistfights in boardrooms; glittering art collections; Machiavellian courtroom maneuvers; and the calculated use of money to burnish reputations and crush the less powerful. The Sackler name has adorned the walls of many storied institutions—Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, the Louvre. They are one of the richest families in the world, known for their lavish donations to the arts and the sciences. The source of the family fortune was vague, however, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing a blockbuster painkiller that was the catalyst for the opioid crisis.
Empire of Pain begins with the story of three doctor brothers, Raymond, Mortimer, and the incalculably energetic Arthur, who weathered the poverty of the Great Depression and appalling anti-Semitism. Working at a barbaric mental institution, Arthur saw a better way and conducted groundbreaking research into drug treatments. He also had a genius for marketing, especially for pharmaceuticals, and bought a small ad firm.
Arthur devised the marketing for Valium, and built the first great Sackler fortune. He purchased a drug manufacturer, Purdue Frederick, which would be run by Raymond and Mortimer. The brothers began collecting art, and wives, and grand residences in exotic locales. Their children and grandchildren grew up in luxury.
Forty years later, Raymond’s son Richard ran the family-owned Purdue. The template Arthur Sackler created to sell Valium—co-opting doctors, influencing the FDA, downplaying the drug’s addictiveness—was employed to launch a far more potent product: OxyContin. The drug went on to generate some 35 billion dollars in revenue, and to launch a public health crisis in which hundreds of thousands would die.
This is the saga of three generations of a single family and the mark they would leave on the world, a tale that moves from the bustling streets of early 20th-century Brooklyn to the seaside palaces of Greenwich, Connecticut, and Cap d’Antibes to the corridors of power in Washington, DC. Empire of Pain chronicles the multiple investigations of the Sacklers and their company, and the scorched-earth legal tactics that the family has used to evade accountability.
Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, exhaustively documented and ferociously compelling. It is a portrait of the excesses of America’s second Gilded Age, a study of impunity among the super elite and a relentless investigation of the naked greed and indifference to human suffering that built one of the world’s great fortunes.
Critic reviews
New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books of the Year • One of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of the Year • TIME Magazine 100 Must Read Books of 2021 • One the Best Books of the Year: NPR, Slate, EW, Boston Globe, Goodreads, The Guardian, Town & Country, BuzzFeed, LitHub, Vulture, and more
Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction and Finalist for the Baillie Gifford Winner of Winners Award
One of President Obama's Favorite Books of the Year
“An engrossing (and frequently enraging) tale of striving, secrecy and self-delusion….Keefe nimbly guides us through the thicket of family intrigues and betrayals… Even when detailing the most sordid episodes, Keefe’s narrative voice is calm and admirably restrained, allowing his prodigious reporting to speak for itself. His portrait of the family is all the more damning for its stark lucidity.”—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times
“I read everything he writes. Every time he writes a book, I read it. Every time he writes an article, I read it … he’s a national treasure.”—Rachel Maddow, host of MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” and author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Blowout
“A true tragedy in multiple acts. It is the story of a family that lost its moorings and its morals… Written with novelistic family-dynasty and family-dynamic sweep, EMPIRE OF PAIN is a pharmaceutical FORSYTHE SAGA, a book that in its way is addictive, with a page-turning forward momentum.”—David M. Shribman, The Boston Globe
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- The Shocking Story of the First Heart Transplant in the Segregated South
- By: Chip Jones
- Narrated by: JD Jackson
- Length: 12 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 1968, Bruce Tucker, a Black man, went into Virginia’s top research hospital with a head injury, only to have his heart taken out of his body and put into the chest of a White businessman. Now, in The Organ Thieves, Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist Chip Jones exposes the horrifying inequality surrounding Tucker’s death and how he was used as a human guinea pig without his family’s permission or knowledge.
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Not your story to tell
- By Bianca S on 11-22-20
By: Chip Jones
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The Bettencourt Affair
- The World's Richest Woman and the Scandal That Rocked Paris
- By: Tom Sancton
- Narrated by: Amanda Carlin
- Length: 13 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Heiress to the nearly 40-billion-dollar L’Oréal fortune, Liliane Bettencourt was the world’s richest woman and the 14th wealthiest person. But her gilded life took a dark yet fascinating turn in the past decade. At 94, she was embroiled in what has been called the Bettencourt Affair, a scandal that dominated the headlines in France. Why? It’s a tangled web of hidden secrets, divided loyalties, frayed relationships, and fractured families, set in the most romantic city - and involving the most glamorous industry - in the world.
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A Juicy Chronicle
- By Jean on 10-24-17
By: Tom Sancton
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Targeted
- The Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower's Inside Story of How Big Data, Trump, and Facebook Broke Democracy and How It Can Happen Again
- By: Brittany Kaiser
- Narrated by: Brittany Kaiser
- Length: 13 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this explosive memoir, a political consultant and technology whistleblower reveals the disturbing truth about the multi-billion-dollar data industry, revealing to the public how companies are getting richer using our personal information and exposing how Cambridge Analytica exploited weaknesses in privacy laws to help elect Donald Trump - and how this could easily happen again in the 2020 presidential election.
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Heavy on Kaiser, Light on Cambridge Analytica’s Data Operations
- By Morgan H Hoban on 11-05-19
By: Brittany Kaiser
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Red Roulette
- An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China
- By: Desmond Shum
- Narrated by: Tim Chiou
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
As Desmond Shum was growing up impoverished in China, he vowed his life would be different. Through hard work and sheer tenacity he earned an American college degree and returned to his native country to establish himself in business. There, he met his future wife, the highly intelligent and equally ambitious Whitney Duan who was determined to make her mark within China’s male-dominated society. Whitney and Desmond formed an effective team and, aided by relationships they formed with top members of China’s Communist Party, the so-called red aristocracy.
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Desmond Shum is not a rube! He knows about wine, ok?
- By Peter L Hansen on 10-06-21
By: Desmond Shum
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Where You Are Is Not Who You Are
- A Memoir
- By: Ursula Burns
- Narrated by: Ursula Burns
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The first Black female CEO of a Fortune 500 company looks back at her life and her career at Xerox, sharing unique insights on American business and corporate life, the workers she has always valued, racial and economic justice, how greed is threatening democracy, and the obstacles she’s conquered being Black and a woman.
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Relatable story, flaws and all
- By Anonymous User on 01-06-22
By: Ursula Burns
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How Chuck Feeney Made and Gave Away a Fortune
- The Billionaire Who Wasn't
- By: Conor O'Clery
- Narrated by: Erik Synnestvedt
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 1988 Forbes magazine hailed Chuck Feeney as the 23rd richest American alive. No one knew until then that he was extremely wealthy. Or was he? Born during the Depression in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Feeney had made a fortune as co-founder of Duty Free Shoppers, the world's largest duty-free retail chain. How he did it is one of the great untold retail stories of modern times. The greater untold story is that Feeney had in fact given away his fortune, in its totality, to endow Atlantic Philanthropies - one of the most generous and secretive philanthropic funds in the world.
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Horizons I never knew were there!
- By DTU_Garza on 08-13-17
By: Conor O'Clery
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Enabling Acts
- The Hidden Story of How the Americans With Disabilities Act Gave the Largest US Minority Its Rights
- By: Lennard Davis
- Narrated by: Kevin Stillwell
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The first significant book on the history and impact of the ADA - the "eyes on the prize" moment for disability rights. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is the widest-ranging and most comprehensive piece of civil rights legislation ever passed in the United States, and it has become the model for disability-based laws around the world. Yet the surprising story behind how the bill came to be is little known.
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this book is so informative
- By Anonymous User on 01-10-23
By: Lennard Davis
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Mike Bloomberg
- Money, Power, Politics
- By: Joyce Purnick
- Narrated by: Mark Moseley
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Michael Bloomberg is not only New York City's 108th mayor; he is a business genius and self-made billionaire. He has run the toughest city in America with an independence and show of ego that first brought him great success and eventually threatened it. Yet while Bloomberg is internationally known and admired, few people know the man behind the carefully crafted public persona.
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Not the most captivating, but a decent summary
- By liz w on 03-06-17
By: Joyce Purnick
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US of AA
- How the Twelve Steps Hijacked the Science of Alcoholism
- By: Joe Miller
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Five years in the making, this brilliant, in-depth investigative reporting on the history, politics, and science of alcoholism will show how AA became our nation's de facto treatment policy, even as evidence for more effective remedies accumulated. US of AA is a character-driven, beautifully written exposé, full of secrecy, irony, liquor industry money, the shrillest of scare tactics and, at its center, a grand deception. US of AA shines a much-needed spotlight on the addiction treatment industry. It will forever change the way we think about the entire enterprise.
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A Detailed History of Alcoholism
- By Tricia O. on 04-03-19
By: Joe Miller
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The Last Lone Inventor
- A Tale of Genius, Deceit, and the Birth of Television
- By: Evan I. Schwartz
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In a story that is both of its time and timeless, Evan I. Schwartz tells a tale of genius versus greed, innocence versus deceit, and independent brilliance versus corporate arrogance. Many men have laid claim to the title "father of television," but Philo T. Farnsworth is the true genius behind what may be the most influential invention of our time. Driven by his obsession to demonstrate his idea, by the age of 20 Farnsworth was operating his own laboratory above a garage in San Francisco and filing for patents. The resulting publicity caught the attention of RCA tycoon David Sarnoff, who became determined to control television in the same way he monopolized radio.
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Thank you, Philo.
- By JPALJ on 03-29-20
By: Evan I. Schwartz
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"The Rest of Us"
- The Rise of America's Eastern European Jews
- By: Stephen Birmingham
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 18 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The wave of Eastern European Jewish immigrants who swept into New York in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by way of Ellis Island were not welcomed by the Jews who had arrived decades before. These refugees from czarist Russia and the Polish shtetls who came to America to escape pogroms and persecution were considered barbaric, uneducated, and too steeped in the traditions of the "old country" to be accepted by the more refined and already well-established German-Jewish community. But the new arrivals were tough, passionate, and determined.
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Book 3 of 3
- By Etoile NEOhio on 11-15-22
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The LEGO Story
- How a Little Toy Sparked the World’s Imagination
- By: Jens Andersen
- Narrated by: Peter Cross
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It’s estimated that each year between eighty and ninety million children around the globe are given a box of LEGO, while up to ten million adults buy sets for themselves. Yet LEGO is much more than a dizzying number of plastic bricks that can be put together and combined in countless ways. LEGO is also a vision of the significance of what play can mean for humanity.
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Great book! Don't miss this
- By hgpilot - MM on 04-27-23
By: Jens Andersen
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How Money Became Dangerous
- The Inside Story of Our Turbulent Relationship with Modern Finance
- By: Christopher Varelas, Dan Stone
- Narrated by: Roger Wayne
- Length: 14 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
From a veteran of the trade, a provocative and entertaining voyage into the turbulent heart of modern money that sheds new light on the rise of our threatening and complicated financial system, how money became our adversary, and why finding a new course is crucial to a healthy society.
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Must read
- By Craig M. Stratton on 02-08-20
By: Christopher Varelas, and others
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Dirty Work
- Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America
- By: Eyal Press
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 11 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Drone pilots who carry out targeted assassinations. Undocumented immigrants who man the "kill floors" of industrial slaughterhouses. Guards who patrol the wards of America's most violent and abusive prisons. In Dirty Work, Eyal Press offers a paradigm-shifting view of the moral landscape of contemporary America through the stories of people who perform society's most ethically troubling jobs. As Press shows, we are increasingly shielded and distanced from an array of morally questionable activities that other, less privileged people perform in our name.
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A Must Read for Conservatives
- By Nice guy on 11-05-21
By: Eyal Press
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Anna is at a stage of her life when she's beginning to wonder who she really is. She has separated from her husband, her daughter is all grown up, and her mother - the only parent who raised her - is dead. Searching through her mother's belongings one day, Anna finds clues about the African father she never knew. His student diaries chronicle his involvement in radical politics in 1970s London. Anna discovers that he eventually became the president - some would say dictator - of a small nation in West Africa. And he is still alive.
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Really addictive!
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What listeners say about Empire of Pain
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Nina Jacobson
- 04-20-21
Unputdownable
You won't find a better reporter or storyteller than Patrick Radden Keefe. I was spellbound from the first page.
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- L. Gronet
- 04-21-21
Excellent!
Great writing and investigating. This family is beyond evil, and now I know the FDA is too!
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18 people found this helpful
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- Xavier
- 04-20-21
Excellent
This and his book on the troubles, Say Nothing, are excellently reported and well written.
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13 people found this helpful
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- Paul A. Hinenburg
- 05-06-21
Greed , and evilOn display
Well in 1900 the Sacklers would have built a cottage in Newport, raced for the America Cup, built. Mansion on Fifth Avenue: all on the back of pioneering a major industry; and in the 21st Century they accomplished much the same by moving the likes of the SinaLoa drug cartel to the East Coast of the United States with headquarters in Connecticut, When the death toll of ~500,000 give or take, related to successful marketing of their product seemed ominous, the Sackler clan moved the bulk of their monies off shore and then successfully proved innocence is for sale in this “nation of laws “! ; as they reiterated their skills at the subversion of Federal Agencies, Judges and the like while keeping the bulk of their blood money: the price 500,000 permanently dead, millions permanently addicted, the Sackler name temporarily besmirched.
Easy though very disturbing reading in journalistic style and you can tell the author to have really had their heart in this work .
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4 people found this helpful
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- stephan
- 05-07-21
An amazing deep dive into the Sackler family
It’s amazing to realize that the wealth these people built has prevented them from being punished in a more meaningful way. The bankruptcy judge seems to be on the family side and that’s sickening.
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4 people found this helpful
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- S.
- 05-29-21
This is a 6 star book - a Pulitzer
This is a fantaistic book - the writing is superb, the reserach excellent, the structure of the book outstanding (which is saying something consdiering the length of time it covers and the complexity of the topic), and his narration excellent. I rarely ever listen to a book performed by its author, they are usually awful, but I heard Mr. Keefe interviewed on Fresh Air so I took a chance.
I cannot say enough great things about this book - Mr. Keefe deserves a Pulitzer for this one. Congratulations.
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- elizabeth skane
- 06-20-21
A story I never knew.
Wow this book is enthralling. I never knew this story. And found it fascinating from beginning to end.
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- oldmanwagner
- 06-13-21
As Vile as One Might Imagine
I remember the first time I heard about OxyContin, it was about 2000, and I was reading an article about this “hillbilly heroin” that was prescribed by doctors, highly addictive, and ruined lives. A few weeks later, I’d know some folks who enjoyed it recreationally. This was in Florida, at the beginning (then height) of the pill mill party. I always wondered how such a nasty drug could find it’s way into medicine. Now I know.
A fascinating and enraging book that underscores my own goals to never use/accept opiates. They’re vile and the folks that peddle them are worse.
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- H. Carey
- 02-08-22
Lots of Facts, No Real Explanations
It was a tough listen, for a couple reasons. I have many personal relationships with family and friends addicted to opioids. The whole thing is tragic. Through the book I think I was looking for something more, an explanation rather than just the blame game on the Sacklers. By the end I was trying to speed through the book, I felt like fact after fact and I had gotten his point, it didn’t need to drone on. The authors narration was not helping me either, his tone of voice made the book sound gossipy and righteous.
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- Joseph
- 08-06-21
Simply too much information
I think this story about the Sacklers, which I mostly already knew, would have been better without so much early background information. Brilliant people, with good intentions, driven mad by greed and a need to be famous, and unwilling to accept the magnitude of what they did not create, but accelerated.
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