Fentanyl, Inc. is the first deep-dive investigation of a hazardous and illicit industry that has created a worldwide epidemic, ravaging communities and overwhelming and confounding government agencies that are challenged to combat it.
... a history lesson on American drug use and drug laws, a crash course in chemistry and neuroscience, a multifaceted portrait of addiction and a look at how harm reduction programs can atone for the failures of the War on Drugs ... a finely woven and accessible analysis of the connection between university chemistry professors, dark web sales, drug cartels, law enforcement, and the dealers and addicts dependent on it ... Westhoff is a skilled and empathetic biographer, and this gift serves the composite of the dealers, users and bereaved of Fentanyl, Inc. Throughout the book are the human faces and voices of the crisis: their insights, their histories ... It’s in this focus on the human cost of the crisis, of empathy over criminalization, that this accomplished book feels most urgently important.
Critiquing prohibition-oriented drug policy, Westhoff explores more pragmatic responses including grassroots harm-reduction activism and supervised injection facilities, needle exchanges, and treatment programs that could lower public-health costs and reduce fatalities. ... this book will assist policymakers, activists, and general readers in understanding better how to respond to the drug crisis that is only more intractable now.
A detailed and far-ranging investigation into the production, marketing and usage of fentanyl reveals an intertwined business network that spans continents and kills thousands.
