American pain
by John Temple · first published 2015
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The king of the pill mills was American Pain, a mega-clinic that served as a prototype for the rest. From a pristine former bank building, doctors distributed massive quantities of oxycodone to hundreds of customers a day, mostly traffickers and addicts who came by the vanload. Inked muscle-heads ran security, greeting the morning rush of pill poppers with cries of Welcome to the dope hole! Strippers and high-priced hookers operated the pharmacy, counting out pills and stashing cash in garbage bags.
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…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hurwitz. Though to hear Big Pharma tell it, there was no such thing as over-prescribing. If you want to get an idea of how out-of-hand the prescription frenzy got, take a look at John Temple's book American Pain, which describes the pill mills in South Florida. Towns in Appalachia used to send charter buses to these pharmacies. After a 12-20 hour bus ride, each passenger would pick up hundreds or thousands of…
on “Expert sounds alarm on new wave of US opioids crisis” ↗…His Multimillion-Dollar Cocaine Empire (by Marc Bowden). Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator (Ryan Holiday). Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic (Sam Quinones). American Pain: How a Young Felon and His Ring of Doctors Unleashed America’s Deadliest Drug Epidemic (John Temple). Rosemary's Baby (Ira Levin). The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order: 1905-1922…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗