Opioids for the Masses: Big Pharma's War on Middle America and the White Working Class by Trey Garrison & Richard McClure

Author:Trey Garrison & Richard McClure [Garrison, Trey & McClure, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, Industries, Pharmaceutical & Biotechnology, True Crime, Murder, Mass Murder, Organized Crime
ISBN: 9781953730916
Google: vjqPzgEACAAJ
Publisher: Antelope Hill Publishing
Published: 2021-08-30T04:00:00+00:00

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During our time in Lexington, we met some of the most incredible people we’ve seen on the front line of this. We saw through their eyes the toll of the opioid crisis on their community, and everything they’re doing to fight it.

We also saw something that has become almost normal since we started this project. The day after we met Rob Perez and Brian Martin at Saul Good and the day before we met Rob’s wife, Diane, and Patrick Branam at DV8 Kitchen, one of Rob and Diane’s former waiters died of an overdose.

“You don’t have to look for hurt. Hurt will find you,” Martin said.

We want to see this world up close and personal without a filter. Thanks to our time with the police, those working in outreach, and the community paramedicine team, we have a good handle on where the hotspots are.

So, we spend an evening along Seventh Street, dressed down in thrift shop clothes. We see a shirtless guy slumped over in his car and his friends trying to get him into the house. Hungry-eyed homeless— either by choice, mental illness, or as victims of the generally broken American economic system—as well as prostitutes, ne’er-do-wells, and hustlers. Despite our best efforts, either we’re sticking out like a sore thumb, or just imagining it, but it seems hard to get any conversation going with people here. We’re pretty nervous and it probably shows.

The second evening it’s almost eight o’clock and the sun is still up. We’re in a park off Limestone Street by the Robert F. Stephens Courthouse. Across the way are some restaurants and bars with patios. Normal, happy people are dining and drinking. There’s a fountain on one end of the park and some parents are watching kids cooling themselves off in the water fountain. We’re in a part of the park that is decidedly less celebratory. There’s a shirtless guy skateboarding. He’s a skinny White guy in a headband and red Nike’s. A couple of fat White girls are talking with some black men. There’s a guy with a flowing white beard and baseball cap next to older dude in polo shirt and sunglasses. There’s a look people who live on the street have. Hard to put into words, but they’re not there enjoying the evening. They’re working some angle or another.

This is where we meet “Red.” That’s the name he goes by. He used to be a University of Kentucky student. He dropped out just six years ago, he says, even though his face looks a lot more aged than thirty. He asks if we’re “holding” and we tell him no. He doesn’t ask for money or anything else so we take it he thinks we’re also street addicts.

We ask him if he’s holding and he says he’s waiting for a friend to get in touch. We talk a while. Not sure how to play this and we don’t want to spook him with too many questions. Eventually we get from him that he was a student and started using Adderall to study.

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