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

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From the New York Times bestselling author of Dreamland, a searing follow-up that explores fentanyl, the unprecedented addition to the illegal drug trade, and the quiet yet groundbreaking steps communities are taking to end the opioid crisis across the nation. Sam Quinones has traveled far and wide to investigate how drugs are created, sold, and used. Since Dreamland, he has taken note as the drug world has radically changed with the introduction of fentanyl on the market. Fentanyla painkiller created to be more powerful and more potent than morphineis often found laced in cocaine, methamphetamine, and sometimes even marijuana. Highly profitable and easy to traffic, fentanyl is the new go-to addictive behind hundreds of overdoses all over the United States. Heartbroken by the harrowing rise of an already steep death toll, counties and communities both large and small have been charged with the responsibility of stopping this opioid epidemic from taking any more lives. Quinones reveals how college presidents, Chambers of Commerce, clergy, hospital administrators, parents, PTAs, and others are coming together to fight the scourge in a period of extreme political and cultural division. United by the urgent necessity for change, these task forces, working groups, and alliances are paving the way to recoveryigniting hope along the way that our country can be whole again. Weaving together his analysis of the drug trade with moving stories about humble communities braving the tragic darkness of an epidemic, Sam Quinones delivers an unexpected and awe-inspiring response to the call that shocked the nation in his award-winning Dreamland.

Reviews

Over the last 15 years, he has filed the best dispatches about Mexican migration and its effects on the United States and Mexico, bar none. * Los Angeles Times Book Review, on DREAMLAND *
[A] compelling examination . . . a driven and important narrative. * Wall Street Journal, on DREAMLAND *
Quinones' research ensures that there is something legitimately interesting (and frequently horrifying) on every page. * Entertainment Weekly, on DREAMLAND *
Dreamland is at once a heartbreaking narrative about the individuals in the grips of addiction, and a thorough history of how that addiction was made possible by a variety of key players . . . a must-read for anyone grappling with the story of heroin addiction in the United States. * Bustle, on DREAMLAND *
Quinones recounts individual tales from junkies in Portland, Ore., to pill mills in Appalachia to entrepreneurial heroin traffickers from small-town Mexico to describe a catastrophic synergy in which over-prescription of opioid painkillers begets addicts, many of whom then turn to heroin, which is cheaper and just as ubiquitous. * Boston Globe, DREAMLAND included in Best Books of 2015 *
You wont find this story told better anywhere else, from the economic hollowing-out of the middle class to the greedy and reckless marketing of pharmaceutical opiates to the remarkable entrepreneurial industry of the residents of the obscure Mexican state of Nayarit . . . Dreamland--true crime, sociology, and expos--illuminates a catastrophe unfolding all around us, right now. * Slate, on DREAMLAND *
The most original writer on Mexico and the border out there. * San Francisco Chronicle Book Review, on DREAMLAND *
Former Los Angeles Times reporter Sam Quinones deftly recounts how a flood of prescription pain meds, along with black tar heroin from Nayarit, Mexico, transformed the once-vital blue-collar city of Portsmouth, Ohio, and other American communities into heartlands of addiction. With prose direct yet empathic, he interweaves the stories of Mexican entrepreneurs, narcotics agents, and small-town folks whose lives were upended by the deluge of drugs, leaving them shaking their heads, wondering how they could possibly have resisted * Mother Jones, on DREAMLAND *

Author Bio

Sam Quinones is a journalist, storyteller, former LA Times reporter, and author of three 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.