A deeply human story, Fentanyl, Inc. is the first deep-dive investigation of an illicit industry that has created a worldwide epidemic, ravaging communities and over-whelming and confounding government agencies that are challenged to combat it. "A whole new generation 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 ecstasy, LSD, and marijuana, as well as heroin. They are synthetic, made in a laboratory... and they are much more potent than traditional drugs" and, tragically, all-too-often lethal.Drugs like fentanyl, K2, and Spice-and those with arcane acronyms like 251-NBOMe-were all originally conceived in legitimate lab-oratories 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 one step ahead of the law, often 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 is the first journalist ever to infiltrate a Chinese fentanyl lab. Working undercover, he gains entry to a pair of synthetic drug operations from which fentanyls and other NPS emanate, providing startling and original reporting on how China's vast chemical industry operates, and how the Chinese government subsidizes it. He poignantly chronicles the lives of addicted users and dealers, families of victims, law enforcement officers, and under-ground drug awareness organizers in the U.S. 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.
Specification
| Titel: | Fentanyl, Inc. |
|---|---|
| Author | Ben Westhoff |
| Publication: | Atlantic Monthley Press |
| ISBN: | 978-0-8021-2743-3 |
| Edition: | 2019 |
| Number of Pages: | 344 |
| Country: | India |
| Language: | English |
