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A must-see event for anyone wanting to learn more about the people behind the raging opioid crisis from victims to profiteers. New York Times bestselling author Beth Macy will talk about her book, Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America. Macy doesn’t shy from the bleak realities, yet her message is hopeful.

How Americans Fell Prey to Dealers, Doctors and a Drug Company

In our politically divided times, the opioid tragedy has transcended lines of class, race, and party. In a groundbreaking and comprehensive new work, Beth Macy casts a light on the national epidemic that has been brewing for over 20 years. With real-life portraits of the families and first responders on the front lines of the opioid crisis in America, Macy unpacks the policies and profits that led us here.  

From the introduction of OxyContin in 1996 to the pharmaceutical industry that pushed highly-addictive drugs, Macy takes readers through the harrowing trajectory of the most critical drug epidemic in recent history. Macy’s is only book to fully chart the opioid crisis in America. In it, she returns to some of the same distressed communities seen in her bestselling book Factory Man—small towns in Central Appalachia as well as formerly idyllic farm towns. Dopesick charts more unassuming territory, too: the seemingly normal, upper echelons, where privileged teenagers trade pills in suburban cul-de-sacs and medical professionals routinely reap the incentives of over-prescribing painkillers.  

Though Macy never shies from these bleak realities, her message is nevertheless hopeful. These portraits reveal the spirit and tenacity of those facing addiction, and their resolve to build a better future for themselves and their families.  

Beth is the New York Times bestselling author of Factory Man and Truevine.

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ABOUT OUR GUEST HOST Peter Payette

Peter Payette is executive director of Interlochen Public Radio and has managed the news department since 2001. For more than a decade, he hosted the weekly program Points North and has reported on a wide range of issues critical to the culture and economy of northern Michigan. His work has been featured on NPR, Michigan Radio, Bridge magazine and Edible Grande Traverse. He has taught journalism and radio production to students and adults at Interlochen Center for the Arts. He is working on a book about the use of aquaculture to manage Great Lakes fisheries, particularly the use of salmon from the Pacific Ocean to create a sport fishery in the 1960s.

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