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

Product Description
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie MedalApple Best Books of 2021From 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.
Review
"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 about people and communities torn apart, and about the small, step-by-step reclamations earned through patient, daily, humble work. Few readers will keep dry eyes through the entire book" - Washington Post“American pain. This is the territory of Sam Quinones, a masterly reporter and vivid, lyrical writer, whose last book, Dreamland won a National Book Critics Circle Award and awakened readers to the problem of opiate addiction in the United States. . . . In The Least of Us, Quinones applies a similarly kaleidoscopic approach to ‘designer drugs’ like fentanyl and methamphetamine.” - 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. I normally don't write book reviews, but Quinones' book is well worth your time.” - 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“Sam Quinones is the indispensable ground-level guide to the epidemics of addiction that plague so many Americans. In The Least of Us, the tales of despair are brightened by seeing communities beginning to adapt and regrow to fight the horror that besets them. Everyone should read this.” - Angus Deaton, Nobel Laureate in Economics and co-author of DEATHS OF DESPAIR“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“When I was chairman of the Senate health committee in 2018 and we were focused on developing legislation to address the nation’s opioid crisis, I held a hearing where Sam Quinones was the only witness. Such is Quinones’ command of the issu