"Why had blacks failed to become ensnared in opioid addiction? That question was addressed in 2014 data issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Doctors didn’t trust people of color not to abuse opioids, so they prescribed them painkillers at far lower rates than they did whites"
Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America is a 2018 non-fiction book by American author Beth Macy. The book covers the origin and evolution of the opioid epidemic in the United States beginning primarily with the 1996 release of the drug OxyContin, and examines its effects on small town America and the Appalachian region in particular. It was well received by critics a
"Drug-overdose deaths had doubled every eight years over that time: Three hundred thousand Americans had died of overdose in the past fifteen years, and lacking dramatic interventions, the same number would die in just the next five."
"Back in 2015, Roanoke police chief Chris Perkins, forty- six, knew immediately fentanyl was going to be a game changer. It meant more teenagers would be drawn to the ever- potent blends, able to get high simply by snorting the drug and avoiding the stigma new users have about injecting and, later, the telltale track marks."