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Bestselling author Beth Macy gives new details on her upcoming release, as well as tips on reversing the trend of opioid and heroin abuse.
New York Times bestselling author and journalist Beth Macy first wrote about heroin in the suburbs in 2012 for The Roanoke Times, where she worked as a reporter for 25 years. After over two years of researching the heroin epidemic, Macy has written her third book called “Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America.”
Based on her research, she says that the heroin epidemic “was really seeded by the OxyContin (opioid pill) epidemic, which began in the rural hinterlands in the late 1990s and had the perfect-storm timing of being aligned with the national ‘Pain as the Fifth Vital Sign’ movement to treat (over treat, actually) pain, which was also heavily financed by the pharmaceutical industry.”
As opioids became more easily accessible, addictions began to rise among both rural and suburban teens and young adults. The epidemic remained hidden due to several factors.
“Problems among pill-taking teenagers were easier to hide in pockets of affluence, aided by greater access to cash and kept quiet because of stigma and shame,” Macy says. “When this crisis hits a family, it’s like a tsunami. It wears people out. It breaks some families apart. I can’t say this enough: it’s devastating to families, and we are basically leaving it to weary families to deal with the worst drug epidemic in the history of our nation.”
Macy thinks that the medical community and legislative efforts have worked to clamp down on overprescribing but says that the two million people still addicted nationwide need medication-assisted treatment, or MAT. She strongly believes that better collaboration among the disparate groups and stronger alliances between criminal justice and health care are necessary to solve the problem. Often, they work at cross purposes. For instance, she points out that Drug Courts in the Roanoke region don’t allow participants to be on MAT.
An umbrella organization that “brings the disparate stakeholders together has worked with excellent results in the Tri-Cities area of Tennessee, which I write about near the end of my book,” Macy says. “We need real leadership, now more than ever. We have 175 people a day dying in America, the equivalent of a jetliner crash, and leadership at every level has been impotent in the face of it.”
Individuals can also help reverse the trend of opioid and heroin abuse. Macy suggests the following:
- “Rid your medicine cabinets of opioid-containing medications. Almost every addicted young person I interviewed started out with medication pilfered from their parents’ or grandparents’ medicine cabinets. One took a job at a moving company with the express purpose of stealing seniors’ medications.
- Be a better medical advocate for yourself. I had outpatient surgery last spring and was sent home with 15 oxycodone. I took two the first day then switched to Tylenol. Err on the side of not-treating pain with narcotics; too many lives are ruined by patients who didn’t know to do that. You have to be your own best advocate.
- Get involved with Roanoke’s Hope Initiative, which seeks to divert users from jail to treatment.
- Educate yourself about medication-assisted treatment. Lobby elected officials to do the same.”
Macy’s book “Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America” provides an in-depth look at opioid and heroin addiction in America. It releases in early August and is available for pre-order on Amazon.
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