Dopesick Themes

The current opioid crisis has affected people from all economic backgrounds, rich and poor. But Dopesick depicts how the poorest victims of the epidemic often face the most difficult path to recovery. Poorer people who want to seek treatment often face significant obstacles, including long wait lists, high treatment costs, and stringent requirements to qualify for aid. Furthermore, in order to save money, many states and local governments have limited the resources available to recovering…

One of the tragedies of the opioid epidemic, according to Beth Macy, is that the whole thing has happened before, and that anyone familiar with the history of opioids in the U.S. could have predicted the new epidemic. Knowledge of the addictive properties of opioids has existed in some form since the Neolithic Period. Much more recently, there was a widespread opioid epidemic in the U.S. around the turn of the twentieth century, when…

In Dopesick, Beth Macy argues that the American healthcare system has been broken in a significant way since at least the mid-1990s. Around the turn of the millennium, the healthcare industry began promoting the notion that pain was “the fifth vital sign,” and that physicians should respond to this sign by prescribing powerful painkillers, such as the opioid OxyContin. Conventional wisdom at that time also held that drugs like OxyContin were safe, with…

As a journalist, Beth Macy is interested in the stories of individuals, but in Dopesick she also frequently cites broader scientific studies, including statistics about relapse, recovery, and the most effective addiction treatments. The opioid epidemic is widespread, and while the experiences of individuals can be illuminating, statistics are an essential way to look at the epidemic on a macro level. At the same time, however, companies like Purdue Pharma often abuse the trust people…