Download or read book Fentanyl Inc written by Ben Westhoff and published by Atlantic Monthly Press. This book was released on 2019-09-03 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A four-year investigation into the world of synthetic drugs—from black market factories to users & dealers to harm reduction activists—and what it revealed. A deeply human story, Fentanyl, Inc. is the first deep-dive investigation of a hazardous and illicit industry that has created a worldwide epidemic, ravaging communities and overwhelming and confounding government agencies that are challenged to combat it. “A whole new crop of chemicals is radically changing the recreational drug landscape,” writes Ben Westhoff. “These are known as Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS) and they include replacements for known drugs like heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, and marijuana. They are synthetic, made in a laboratory, and are much more potent than traditional drugs” —and all-too-often tragically lethal. Drugs like fentanyl, K2, and Spice—and those with arcane acronyms like 25i-NBOMe—were all originally conceived in legitimate laboratories for proper scientific and medicinal purposes. Their formulas were then hijacked and manufactured by rogue chemists, largely in China, who change their molecular structures to stay ahead of the law, making the drugs’ effects impossible to predict. Westhoff has infiltrated this shadowy world. He tracks down the little-known scientists who invented these drugs and inadvertently killed thousands, as well as a mysterious drug baron who turned the law upside down in his home country of New Zealand. Westhoff visits the shady factories in China from which these drugs emanate, providing startling and original reporting on how China’s vast chemical industry operates, and how the Chinese government subsidizes it. Poignantly, he chronicles the lives of addicted users and dealers, families of victims, law enforcement officers, and underground drug awareness organizers in the United States and Europe. Together they represent the shocking and riveting full anatomy of a calamity we are just beginning to understand. From its depths, as Westhoff relates, are emerging new strategies that may provide essential long-term solutions to the drug crisis that has affected so many. “Timely and agonizing. . . . An impressive work of investigative journalism.” —USA Today “Westhoff explores the many-tentacled world of illicit opioids, from the streets of East St. Louis to Chinese pharmaceutical companies, from music festivals deep in the Michigan woods to sanctioned ‘shooting up rooms’ in Barcelona, in this frank, insightful, and occasionally searing exposé. . . . Westhoff’s well-reported and researched work will likely open eyes, slow knee-jerk responses, and start much needed conversations.” —Publishers Weekly “Our 25 Favorite Books of 2019” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch “Best Books of 2019” —Buzzfeed “Best Nonfiction of 2019” —Kirkus Reviews “50 Best Books of 2019” —Daily Telegraph “Best Nonfiction Books of 2019” —Tyler Cowen “Best Books of 2019” —Yahoo Finance

Download or read book The Least of Us written by Sam Quinones and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2021-11-02 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Apple Best Books of 2021 Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal * Shortlisted for the Zocalo Book Prize From the New York Times bestselling author of Dreamland, a searing follow-up that explores the terrifying next stages of the opioid epidemic and the quiet yet ardent stories of community repair. Sam Quinones traveled from Mexico to main streets across the U.S. to create Dreamland, a groundbreaking portrait of the opioid epidemic that awakened the nation. As the nation struggled to put back the pieces, Quinones was among the first to see the dangers that lay ahead: synthetic drugs and a new generation of kingpins whose product could be made in Magic Bullet blenders. In fentanyl, traffickers landed a painkiller a hundred times more powerful than morphine. They laced it into cocaine, meth, and counterfeit pills to cause tens of thousands of deaths-at the same time as Mexican traffickers made methamphetamine cheaper and more potent than ever, creating, Sam argues, swaths of mental illness and a surge in homelessness across the United States. Quinones hit the road to investigate these new threats, discovering how addiction is exacerbated by consumer-product corporations. “In a time when drug traffickers act like corporations and corporations like traffickers,” he writes, “our best defense, perhaps our only defense, lies in bolstering community.” Amid a landscape of despair, Quinones found hope in those embracing the forgotten and ignored, illuminating the striking truth that we are only as strong as our most vulnerable. Weaving analysis of the drug trade into stories of humble communities, The Least of Us delivers an unexpected and awe-inspiring response to the call that shocked the nation in Sam Quinones's award-winning Dreamland.

Download or read book The Future of Fentanyl and Other Synthetic Opioids written by Bryce Pardo and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deaths involving synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl, increased from roughly 3,000 in 2013 to more than 30,000 in 2018. This book provides readers with insights intended to improve their understanding of the synthetic opioid problem.

Download or read book Pain Management and the Opioid Epidemic written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2017-09-28 with total page 483 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drug overdose, driven largely by overdose related to the use of opioids, is now the leading cause of unintentional injury death in the United States. The ongoing opioid crisis lies at the intersection of two public health challenges: reducing the burden of suffering from pain and containing the rising toll of the harms that can arise from the use of opioid medications. Chronic pain and opioid use disorder both represent complex human conditions affecting millions of Americans and causing untold disability and loss of function. In the context of the growing opioid problem, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched an Opioids Action Plan in early 2016. As part of this plan, the FDA asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to convene a committee to update the state of the science on pain research, care, and education and to identify actions the FDA and others can take to respond to the opioid epidemic, with a particular focus on informing FDA's development of a formal method for incorporating individual and societal considerations into its risk-benefit framework for opioid approval and monitoring.

Download or read book The Age of Fentanyl written by Brodie Ramin and published by Dundurn. This book was released on 2020-03-14 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ottawa Book Award 2021 — Shortlisted • The Donner Prize 2020 — Shortlisted • Speaker's Book Award 2020 — Shortlisted Is there a way to end North America’s opioid epidemic? “A fascinating, wise, and humane analysis of one of the most pressing health challenges of the 21st century.” — Steven Pinker, author of Enlightenment Now In The Age of Fentanyl, Brodie Ramin tells the story of the opioid crisis, showing us the disease and cure from his perspective as an addiction doctor working on the front lines. We meet his patients, hear from other addiction experts, and learn about the science and medicine of opioid addiction and its treatments. He shows us how addiction can be prevented, how knowledge can reduce stigma, and how epidemics can be beaten. Dr. Ramin brings the hopeful message that just as patients and health care workers rallied together to fight HIV one generation ago, a coalition of patients, advocates, scientists, doctors, and nurses is once again finding solutions and making plans to stem the overdose deaths, block the spread of fentanyl, and end the epidemic.

Download or read book The Hard Sell written by Evan Hughes and published by Doubleday. This book was released on 2022-01-18 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inside story of a band of entrepreneurial upstarts who made millions selling painkillers—until their scheme unraveled, putting them at the center of a landmark criminal trial. • SOON TO BE THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE PAIN HUSTLERS STARRING EMILY BLUNT AND CHRIS EVANS "Unfolds with the velocity and verve of a Scorsese film…A tour de force."—Patrick Radden Keefe, New York Times bestselling author of Empire of Pain and Say Nothing John Kapoor had already amassed a small fortune in pharmaceuticals when he founded Insys Therapeutics. It was the early 2000s, a boom time for painkillers, and he developed a novel formulation of fentanyl, the most potent opioid on the market. Kapoor, a brilliant immigrant scientist with relentless business instincts, was eager to make the most of his innovation. He gathered around him an ambitious group of young lieutenants. His head of sales—an unstable and unmanageable leader, but a genius of persuasion—built a team willing to pull every lever to close a sale, going so far as to recruit an exotic dancer ready to scrape her way up. They zeroed in on the eccentric and suspect doctors receptive to their methods. Employees at headquarters did their part by deceiving insurance companies. The drug was a niche product, approved only for cancer patients in dire condition, but the company’s leadership pushed it more widely, and together they turned Insys into a Wall Street sensation. But several insiders reached their breaking point and blew the whistle. They sparked a sprawling investigation that would lead to a dramatic courtroom battle, breaking new ground in the government’s fight to hold the drug industry accountable in the spread of addictive opioids. In The Hard Sell, National Magazine Award–finalist Evan Hughes lays bare the pharma playbook. He draws on unprecedented access to insiders of the Insys saga, from top executives to foot soldiers, from the patients and staff of far-flung clinics to the Boston investigators who treated the case as a drug-trafficking conspiracy, flipping cooperators and closing in on the key players. With colorful characters and true suspense, The Hard Sell offers a bracing look not just at Insys, but at how opioids are sold at the point they first enter the national bloodstream—in the doctor’s office.

Download or read book Painkiller Addict written by Cathryn Kemp and published by Sphere. This book was released on 2013-11-19 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE BIG RED READ PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION IN 2013. Cathryn Kemp was a successful travel journalist who was struck down by a life-threatening illness, pancreatitis. After four years of operations and mis-diagnoses she left hospital with a repeat prescription for fentanyl, a painkiller 100 times stronger than heroin. Within two years she was taking more than ten times the NHS maximum, all on prescription. Her family struggled to understand; her boyfriend left her, she hit rock bottom. Discovering she had only six months to live if she didn't give up the drugs she sold everything she owned and checked into rehab. In the addiction treatment centre she was told that she was unlikely to recover from 'the highest level of opiate-abuse in the clinic's history'. To everyone's amazement, she proved them wrong. This is an extraordinarily poignant, vivid and honest memoir. Based on the twenty-four diaries that the author kept during this period, we travel with Cathryn through her hospital agony, descend with her into the hell of addiction and cheer her as she pulls herself out and upwards. It is a love story, a horror story, a survival story, and one that shows only too clearly the very real dangers of the over-prescription of painkillers and tranquillisers. There is also a resource section for sufferers and their loved ones.

Download or read book The Essence of Analgesia and Analgesics written by Raymond S. Sinatra and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-10-14 with total page 551 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Essence of Analgesia and Analgesics is an invaluable practical resource for clinicians giving pain relief in any clinical setting, describing the pharmacologic principles and clinical use of all available pain medications. As well as detailed overviews of pain processing and analgesic theory, sections are dedicated to oral and panteral opioid analgesics, neuraxial opioids, NSAIDs, local anesthetics, anticonvulsant type analgesics, NMDA antagonists, alpha adrenergic analgesics, antidepressant analgesics, muscle relaxants, adjuvant medications, and new and emerging analgesics. The concise format of the chapters allows for quick and easy reading and assimilation of information. Enhanced by summary tables and figures, each chapter provides an overview of a particular drug, covering chemical structure, mode of activity, indications, contraindications, common doses and uses, advantages and disadvantages, and drug related adverse events. Key references are also provided. Edited by leading experts in pain management, this is essential reading for any clinician involved in pain management.

Download or read book Fentanyl written by Amy Sterling Casil and published by Mason Crest Publishers. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fentanyl was developed as a drug that could relieve severe pain and assist doctors in performing complex surgeries. Due to its potent effects, fentanyl is often sold illegally as an ingredient in counterfeit opioid pills or mixed with heroin or cocaine. Because it is nearly impossible to gauge the strength of illegal fentanyl doses, tens of thousands of Americans have overdosed on the drug in recent years. This book provides information about the effects of fentanyl and how it contributes to the ongoing opioid crisis. Opioids are psychoactive drugs derived from the opium poppy, such as heroin or morphine, or synthetic versions that mimic their effects, such as fentanyl or oxycodone. The series Opioid Education: Devastation and the Grip on Society examines various aspects of opioid use and treatment in the United States and the rest of the world. The purpose of this series is to provide young readers with a greater understanding of the ongoing opioid crisis.

Download or read book Synthesis of Essential Drugs written by Ruben Vardanyan and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2006-03-10 with total page 635 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Synthesis of Essential Drugs describes methods of synthesis, activity and implementation of diversity of all drug types and classes. With over 2300 references, mainly patent, for the methods of synthesis for over 700 drugs, along with the most widespread synonyms for these drugs, this book fills the gap that exists in the literature of drug synthesis. It provides the kind of information that will be of interest to those who work, or plan to begin work, in the areas of biologically active compounds and the synthesis of medicinal drugs. This book presents the synthesis of various groups of drugs in an order similar to that traditionally presented in a pharmacology curriculum. This was done with a very specific goal in mind – to harmonize the chemical aspects with the pharmacology curriculum in a manner useful to chemists. Practically every chapter begins with an accepted brief definition and description of a particular group of drugs, proposes their classification, and briefly explains the present model of their action. This is followed by a detailed discussion of methods for their synthesis. Of the thousands of drugs existing on the pharmaceutical market, the book mainly covers generic drugs that are included in the WHO's Essential List of Drugs. For practically all of the 700+ drugs described in the book, references (around 2350) to the methods of their synthesis are given along with the most widespread synonyms. Synthesis of Essential Drugs is an excellent handbook for chemists, biochemists, medicinal chemists, pharmacists, pharmacologists, scientists, professionals, students, university libraries, researchers, medical doctors and students, and professionals working in medicinal chemistry. * Provides a brief description of methods of synthesis, activity and implementation of all drug types* Includes synonyms* Includes over 2300 references

Download or read book Drug Induced Liver Injury written by and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2019-07-13 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drug-Induced Liver Injury, Volume 85, the newest volume in the Advances in Pharmacology series, presents a variety of chapters from the best authors in the field. Chapters in this new release include Cell death mechanisms in DILI, Mitochondria in DILI, Primary hepatocytes and their cultures for the testing of drug-induced liver injury, MetaHeps an alternate approach to identify IDILI, Autophagy and DILI, Biomarkers and DILI, Regeneration and DILI, Drug-induced liver injury in obesity and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, Mechanisms of Idiosyncratic Drug-Induced Liver Injury, the Evaluation and Treatment of Acetaminophen Toxicity, and much more. - Includes the authority and expertise of leading contributors in pharmacology - Presents the latest release in the Advances in Pharmacology series

Download or read book American Overdose written by Chris McGreal and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive portrait of a uniquely American epidemic -- devastating in its findings and damning in its conclusions The opioid epidemic has been described as "one of the greatest mistakes of modern medicine." But calling it a mistake is a generous rewriting of the history of greed, corruption, and indifference that pushed the US into consuming more than 80 percent of the world's opioid painkillers. Journeying through lives and communities wrecked by the epidemic, Chris McGreal reveals not only how Big Pharma hooked Americans on powerfully addictive drugs, but the corrupting of medicine and public institutions that let the opioid makers get away with it. The starting point for McGreal's deeply reported investigation is the miners promised that opioid painkillers would restore their wrecked bodies, but who became targets of "drug dealers in white coats." A few heroic physicians warned of impending disaster. But American Overdose exposes the powerful forces they were up against, including the pharmaceutical industry's coopting of the Food and Drug Administration and Congress in the drive to push painkillers -- resulting in the resurgence of heroin cartels in the American heartland. McGreal tells the story, in terms both broad and intimate, of people hit by a catastrophe they never saw coming. Years in the making, its ruinous consequences will stretch years into the future.

Download or read book Demystifying Opioid Conversion Calculations A Guide for Effective Dosin written by Mary Lynn McPherson and published by ASHP. This book was released on 2018-08-28 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praised by practitioners, students and instructors for its engaging approach to teaching a very complex subject, Demystifying Opioid Conversion Calculations: A Guide for Effective Dosing, has long been the go-to guide for learning how to calculate opioid conversions. Now in its second edition, this reference is a must-have for clinicians involved in pain management at all levels. Written by pain management expert Mary Lynn McPherson, PharmD, MA, MDE, BCPS, CPE, Demystifying Opioid Conversion Calculations focuses on the calculations that practitioners use in actual practice, providing realistic scenarios for decision making. The revised edition covers the entire spectrum of opioid analgesics used to manage patients with moderate-to-severe pain and serious life­-limiting illnesses.

Download or read book Ten Drugs written by Thomas Hager and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2019-03-05 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The stories are skillfully told and entirely entertaining . . . An expert, mostly feel-good book about modern medicine” from the award-winning author (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Behind every landmark drug is a story. It could be an oddball researcher’s genius insight, a catalyzing moment in geopolitical history, a new breakthrough technology, or an unexpected but welcome side effect discovered during clinical trials. Piece together these stories, as Thomas Hager does in this remarkable, century-spanning history, and you can trace the evolution of our culture and the practice of medicine. Beginning with opium, the “joy plant,” which has been used for 10,000 years, Hager tells a captivating story of medicine. His subjects include the largely forgotten female pioneer who introduced smallpox inoculation to Britain, the infamous knockout drops, the first antibiotic, which saved countless lives, the first antipsychotic, which helped empty public mental hospitals, Viagra, statins, and the new frontier of monoclonal antibodies. This is a deep, wide-ranging, and wildly entertaining book. “[An] absorbing new book.” —The New York Times Book Review “[A] well-written and engaging chronicle.” —The Wall Street Journal “Lucidly informative and compulsively readable.” —Publishers Weekly “Entertaining [and] insightful.” —Booklist “Well-written, well-researched and fascinating to read Ten Drugs provides an insightful look at how drugs have shaped modern medical practices. Towards the end of the book Hager writes that he ‘came away surprised by some of the things he had learned.’ I had the very same reaction.” —Penny Le Couteur, coauthor of Napoleon’s Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History

Download or read book Dreamland YA edition written by Sam Quinones and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2019-07-16 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As an adult book, Sam Quinones's Dreamland took the world by storm, winning the NBCC Award for General Nonfiction and hitting at least a dozen Best Book of the Year lists. Now, adapted for the first time for a young adult audience, this compelling reporting explains the roots of the current opiate crisis. In 1929, in the blue-collar city of Portsmouth, Ohio, a company built a swimming pool the size of a football field; named Dreamland, it became the vital center of the community. Now, addiction has devastated Portsmouth, as it has hundreds of small rural towns and suburbs across America. How that happened is the riveting story of Dreamland. Quinones explains how the rise of the prescription drug OxyContin, a miraculous and extremely addictive painkiller pushed by pharmaceutical companies, paralleled the massive influx of black tar heroin--cheap, potent, and originating from one small county on Mexico's west coast, independent of any drug cartel. Introducing a memorable cast of characters--pharmaceutical pioneers, young Mexican entrepreneurs, narcotics investigators, survivors, teens, and parents--Dreamland is a revelatory account of the massive threat facing America and its heartland.

Download or read book Davis s Drug Guide for Rehabilitation Professionals written by Charles D. Ciccone and published by F.A. Davis. This book was released on 2013-03-21 with total page 1217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A one-of-a-kind guide specifically for rehabilitation specialists! A leader in pharmacology and rehabilitation, Charles Ciccone, PT, PhD offers a concise, easy-to-access resource that delivers the drug information rehabilitation specialists need to know. Organized alphabetically by generic name, over 800 drug monographs offer the most up-to-date information on drug indications, therapeutic effects, potential adverse reactions, and much more! A list of implications for physical therapy at the end of each monograph helps you provide the best possible care for your patients. It’s the perfect companion to Pharmacology in Rehabilitation, 4th Edition!

Download or read book Intracranial Pressure and Neuromonitoring in Brain Injury written by Anthony Marmarou and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 1998-08-24 with total page 472 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains the most recent works on intracranial pressure and neuromonitoring in brain injury selected from 300 abstracts submitted to the 10th International Symposium on Intracranial Pressure. It includes state of the art monitoring of the brain injured patient in intensive care as well as the current state of knowledge in neurochemical and oxygen monitoring of the injured brain. Recent advances in molecular mechanisms of injury and the pathophysiology of ischemia and trauma are also included. "... this publication presents a comprehensive survey of the present state of art in the field and thus gives directions for further research to those engaged in ICP measurement and neuromonitoring”. Intensive Care Med