From a psychiatrist on the frontlines of addiction medicine and an expert on the history of
drug use comes the authoritative engaging and accessible history of the flower that helped to
build (Booklist) -- and now threatens -- modern society.Opioid addiction is fast becoming the
most deadly crisis in American history. In 2018 it claimed nearly fifty thousand lives -- more
than gunshots and car crashes combined and almost as many Americans as were killed in the
entire Vietnam War. But even as the overdose crisis ravages our nation -- straining our prison
system dividing families and defying virtually every legislative solution to treat it -- few
understand how it came to be. Opium tells the fascinating (Lit Hub) and at times harrowing tale
of how we arrived at today's crisis mak[ing] timely and startling connections among
painkillers politics finance and society (Laurence Bergreen). The story begins with the
discovery of poppy artifacts in ancient Mesopotamia and goes on to explore how Greek
physicians and obscure chemists discovered opium's effects and refined its power how colonial
empires marketed it around the world and eventually how international drug companies developed
a range of powerful synthetic opioids that led to an epidemic of addiction. Throughout Dr.
John Halpern and David Blistein reveal the fascinating role that opium has played in building
our modern world from trade networks to medical protocols to drug enforcement policies. Most
importantly they disentangle how crucial misjudgments patterns of greed and racial
stereotypes served to transform one of nature's most effective painkillers into a source of
unspeakable pain -- and how using the insights of history state-of-the-art science and a
compassionate approach to the illness of addiction we can overcome today's overdose epidemic.
This urgent and masterfully woven narrative tells an epic story of how one beautiful flower
became the fascination of leaders tycoons and nations through the centuries and in their
hands exposed the fragility of our civilization.An NPR Best Book of the YearA landmark project.
-- Dr. Andrew WeilEngrossing and highly readable. -- Sam QuinonesAn astonishing journey through
time and space. -- Julie Holland MDThe most important provocative and challenging book I've
read in a long time. -- Laurence Bergreen
