The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth

by Sam Quinones

Overview

Apple Best Books of 2021
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal * Shortlisted for the Zocalo Book Prize

From the New York Times bestselling author of Dreamland, a searing follow-up that explores the terrifying next stages of the opioid epidemic and the quiet yet ardent stories of community repair.

Sam Quinones traveled from Mexico to main streets across the U.S. to create Dreamland, a groundbreaking portrait of the opioid epidemic that awakened the nation. As the nation struggled to put back the pieces, Quinones was among the first to see the dangers that lay ahead: synthetic drugs and a new generation of kingpins whose product could be made in Magic Bullet blenders. In fentanyl, traffickers landed a painkiller a hundred times more powerful than morphine. They laced it into cocaine, meth, and counterfeit pills to cause tens of thousands of deaths-at the same time as Mexican traffickers made methamphetamine cheaper and more potent than ever, creating, Sam argues, swaths of mental illness and a surge in homelessness across the United States.

Quinones hit the road to investigate these new threats, discovering how addiction is exacerbated by consumer-product corporations. “In a time when drug traffickers act like corporations and corporations like traffickers,” he writes, “our best defense, perhaps our only defense, lies in bolstering community.” Amid a landscape of despair, Quinones found hope in those embracing the forgotten and ignored, illuminating the striking truth that we are only as strong as our most vulnerable.

Weaving analysis of the drug trade into stories of humble communities, The Least of Us delivers an unexpected and awe-inspiring response to the call that shocked the nation in Sam Quinones's award-winning Dreamland.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781639730476
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	11/01/2022
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	101,941
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.00(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Sam Quinones is a journalist, storyteller, former LA Times reporter, and author of four acclaimed books of narrative nonfiction, including New York Times bestseller and National Book Critics Circle Award winner Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic. "The most original writer on Mexico and the border" (San Francisco Chronicle), he lives with his family in Southern California.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Part I

Angie and Starla I: Alone 13

The Project I: Chicago 15

Neuroscience I: "A Critical Point" 20

Meth I: "Streets of Bakersfield" 24

Janssen 33

Sacklers I: "Overworked and Unprepared Doctors" 40

Henderson 47

The Project II: Toluca, Mexico 51

Clarksburg I: Doc O 57

Part II

Angie and Starla II: "Like Our Family Survived and Had a Baby" 73

Fentanyl I: Magic Bullet 77

Neuroscience II: "These Rats Weren't on Heroin. They Were on Sugar" 81

Fentanyl II: Tommy Rauh 85

Fentanyl III: "Is This Really Happening?" 93

Fentanyl IV: Gordon Jin 102

Sacklers II: "A Fresh Start" 110

Muncie I 118

Muncie II 123

Muncie III 130

Part III

Angie and Starla III: "Who Do You Belong To?" 137

Neuroscience III: "Built to Be Social" 143

Fentanyl V: Kingpins 156

Fentanyl VI: "The Intention Is Very Deliberate" 168

Sacklers III: "A Dangerous Concentration of Risk" 173

Meth II: P2P 181

Meth III: Ephedrine's Last Gasp 188

Hardin County I 193

Hardin County II 200

Hardin County III 210

Part IV

Angie and Starla IV: "We'll Figure Out a Way" 219

Neuroscience IV: "Modern Skulls House a Stone-Age Mind" 224

Eric and Mundo I: "All of a Sudden You're Stuck" 230

Meth IV: "Just Escapes All Limits" 233

Kenton County I 244

Meth V: "There's No Way Into That Person" 258

Kenton County II 271

Sacklers IV: "The Incentives Were Tilted" 278

Kenton County III 286

Part V

Angie and Starla V: "The One to Make It Out" 295

Neuroscience V: "Craveable, Mind-Blowing Flavor" 300

Meth VI: Pimps & Tents 305

Meth VII: Colt 312

Meth VIII: Rashad 318

Sacklers V: "We Feel Absolutely Terrible" 327

Clarksburg II: "A Meth Apocalypse" 336

Clarksburg III: Saving the Despised 348

Eric and Mundo II: Leave the Drug, Gain the World 357

The Least of Us 361

Angie and Starla VI 372

Epilogue: Return to Dreamland 375

Afterword 391

Acknowledgments 400

Vocabulary 401

Notes 403

Editorial Reviews

This layered chronicle traces how methamphetamine and fentanyl became scourges of American life. . . . Quinones places the narrative in a range of illuminating contexts.” - The New Yorker

“Sam Quinones is perhaps our best big-picture analyst of America’s markets for addictive drugs ... He is a fluent storyteller who delivers his argument through a palette of affecting stories ... Few readers will keep dry eyes through the entire book” - The Washington Post

“American pain. This is the territory of Sam Quinones, a masterly reporter and vivid, lyrical writer.” - New York Times Book Review

“Jam-packed with amazing facts and, like all of Quinones' work, reads like a thriller. You may think you know this story. Trust me, you don't.” - Ann Coulter, Townhall

“Together with his earlier Dreamland, The Least of Us confirms his place as a leading chronicler of an American nightmare.” - New York Journal of Books

“Chronicles how meth-ravaged communities have broken the cycle of drug abuse, violence and despair.” - Los Angeles Times, 11 Books to Add to Your Reading List

“This well-researched follow-up traces the next stage of the epidemic, with synthetic drugs and the next generation of kingpins. There is plenty of heartache, yes, but there is also hope in its exploration of communities trying to repair themselves.” - New York Post

“Excellent ... an urgent and gripping account.” - Plough Quarterly, Editors' Pick

“A richly rewarding report from the front lines of an ongoing emergency.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Readers looking for the latest take on the drug trade and recovery as well as those who flock to well written journalism will dig into this.” - Booklist

“Explores the fentanyl and meth crisis sweeping the U.S. while at the same time spotlighting the moments of hope and community that keep us going. From the wreckage of ruined lives come stories of faith, trust and belief in our fellow humans.” - Newsweek

“Outstanding ... elegantly written.” - Taki's Magazine

“A heartrending depiction of the current phase of the quixotic drug war. Sam Quinones covers the human drama with an admirable empathy.” - Seattle Book Review

“A painful sequel [to Dreamland] because it’s an admission that we haven’t beaten the national opioid addiction. Far from it. Quinones makes the convincing case that the problem has simply moved underground, changing locations from the doctor’s office to back alleys, or to the internet.” - Jacobin

“[Dreamland] dug deeply into the circumstances and lives of the people who created, profited, battled, and suffered from the drug epidemic that has devastated huge swaths of the heartland beginning in the 1990s. . . . The Least of Us picks up where Dreamland left off and describes how the drug crisis — fueled as much by the Sacklers as by Mexican traffickers — has evolved.” - Washington Independent Review of Books

“A welcome corrective to the tendency to ignore the local roots of this crisis.” - Front Porch

“In The Least of Us, Quinones has continued his meticulous reporting to capture a full picture of how America’s communities are working to resist the damage caused by illegal synthetic drugs – and also to fight the epidemic of isolation by repairing the threads of connection that have so badly frayed.” - Sen. Lamar Alexander

“With deep compassion and piercing insight, Sam Quinones beautifully captures the pain of America's opioid addiction and the gaping holes in society that allowed the tragedy to fester. He then not only offers condemnation of how we got here but true hope of how we can get out.” - Ioan Grillo, author of BLOOD GUN MONEY

“By combining rigorous research, keen insight and listening to people’s stories across the country, Sam [Quinones has once again captured not only the pain and sadness but the resiliency and optimism that have come to be the hallmark of this epidemic.” - Michael Botticelli, Former Director, White House Office of National Drug Control Policy

“Sam Quinones is the indispensable ground-level guide to the epidemics of addiction that plague so many American ... Everyone should read this.” - Angus Deaton, Nobel Laureate in Economics and co-author of DEATHS OF DESPAIR

From the Publisher

★ 09/13/2021

Journalist Quinones follows Dreamland with a sweeping portrait of the destruction wrought by pharmaceutical companies, Mexican cartels, and other drug profiteers, and an inspirational call for a renewed sense of community to combat the isolation of addiction. Quinones reports from Mexican meth labs, Ohio treatment centers, federal prosecutors’ offices, and the Stamford, Conn., headquarters of OxyContin makers Purdue Pharma, where sculptor Domenic Esposito displayed an 800-pound “Opioid Spoon” in 2018. Quinones also delves into the history of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid first manufactured in the 1950s that began to appear in significant quantities in the U.S. in the mid-2010s. More addictive and profitable than previous opioids—and also far more likely to result in a fatal overdose—fentanyl has largely displaced heroin in the street trade, according to Quinones, who lucidly explains how opioid usage rewires the brain’s dopamine receptors, making it impossible to achieve a feeling of happiness without the aid of the drug. Vivid character profiles of drug runners and abusers, their family members, and social workers and addiction treatment counselors make the scale of the tragedy clear, while providing persuasive evidence that the battle against the opioid crisis can be won by “breaking down silos,” fostering interpersonal connections, and believing “that the least of us lies within us all.” This is a richly rewarding report from the front lines of an ongoing emergency. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 10/01/2021

Quinones follows up Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic (a 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award winner) with new reportage on drug trade and addiction in the United States. The book profiles individuals and communities to illustrate how the illicit drug trade has shifted from opioids to the far more dangerous fentanyl and new methamphetamine formulations; he makes the case that the nation is saturated with these potent fentanyl concoctions and homemade meth. His data demonstrates that fentanyl kills a steadily increasing number of people in the U.S., while the new meth can cause methamphetamine psychosis, with huge impacts for people experiencing homelessness. Quinones also interviews neuroscientists about addiction's effects on the brain and learns that sugar and addictive drugs follow the same neural pathways. He writes that legal prescription opiates fueled the illicit drug trade, which he compares to American capitalist culture and powerful consolidated markets that promote consumerism. He also posits that the American culture of individualism leaves people with addiction on their own. VERDICT Highly recommended for those interested in social justice and the strength of communities. Quinones argues that community can and must save "the least of us."—Caren Nichter, Univ. of Tennessee at Martin

Library Journal

2021-07-18
Quinones sounds an alarm about a rapidly spreading form of meth in a follow-up to his award-winning Dreamland.

Buried in this overstuffed book lies an urgent story the author sees as overshadowed by the opioid crisis: the explosive growth of the potentially lethal form of synthetic methamphetamine known as P2P (phenyl-2-propanone). Through extensive but rambling interviews with people ranging from dealers to Drug Enforcement Administration agents, Quinones found that unlike earlier types of meth, made with hard-to-get ephedrine, P2P meth could be more easily made from “legal, cheap, and toxic” chemicals in Mexican labs and shipped north by traffickers. P2P, he learned, could cause intense paranoia and terrifying hallucinations and faster and worse harm than ephedrine-based forms: The new meth “was quickly, intensely damaging people’s brains.” Quinones maps the wreckage nationwide, including that it drew Black dealers to what had been “a working-class white drug.” What he learned is genuinely alarming but embedded in background material on topics that have been extensively covered elsewhere: the neuroscience behind addiction, the pre–P2P shifts from prescription painkillers to heroin to fentanyl, the toll opioids have taken in West Virginia, and the Sackler family’s disastrous stewardship of Purdue Pharma. The author also describes effective community-based responses to the crisis, such as church shelters for homeless addicts and “drug courts” that offer substance abusers an alternative to prison. Quinones concludes that the nation has forsaken “what has made America great” and that “when drug traffickers act like corporations and corporations like drug traffickers, our best defense, perhaps our only defense, lies in bolstering community.” After his account of the corporate missteps of the Sacklers and others, readers may be unpersuaded that the “best defense” might come from hard-hit communities themselves rather than from remedies such as tighter government regulation of rapacious corporations like Purdue Pharma.

A valuable but overlong overview of an underappreciated drug crisis.

Kirkus Reviews