In this book, Ben Westhoff conducts a four-year investigation into the world of synthetic drugs, from black market drug factories in China to users and dealers on the streets of the U.S. and harm reduction activists in Europe. The book reveals the origins and spread of Fentanyl, including its initial development by Belgian chemist Paul Janssen in 1959, and how it has evolved into a lethal synthetic opioid. Westhoff's research involves undercover infiltration of Chinese drug operations, analysis of darknet marketplaces, and interviews with various stakeholders, including police officers, politicians, and drug users. The book highlights the global drug addiction crisis, the challenges of harm-reduction initiatives, and the ongoing efforts to combat the Fentanyl trafficking network.
In this landmark work of literary nonfiction, Barbara Demick follows the lives of six North Korean citizens over fifteen years, a period marked by significant events such as the death of Kim Il-sung, the rise of Kim Jong-il, and a devastating famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Demick's meticulous reporting brings to life the Orwellian world of North Korea, where displays of affection are punished, informants are rewarded, and an offhand remark can lead to severe punishment. The book humanizes the North Korean people, showing how they fall in love, raise families, nurture ambitions, and struggle for survival, ultimately leading to their profound disillusionment with the government.
In 2023, 107,543 Americans died from an overdose—over 75 thousand of those overdosed from fentanyl. This is almost double the number of people who died in car accidents or from gun homicides that year.
Fentanyl has been cut into heroin for years, but now is often mixed into meth and cocaine, fueling rising death counts for those drugs, a troubling development, considering that Americans are much more likely to try meth and cocaine than heroin.
In Canada, the numbers are similarly astronomical, and fentanyl deaths have marched upward in Australia and many European countries as well. Ten years ago, fentanyl and its analogues overtook heroin to become the deadliest drug in Sweden.
“Fentanyl is the game changer,” Special Agent in Charge James Hunt of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) told Vice News. “It’s the most dangerous substance in the history of drug tracking. Heroin and cocaine pale in comparison to how dangerous fentanyl is.”
Ben Westhoff is a best-selling investigative journalist focused on drugs, culture, and poverty. His book Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Created the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic is the bombshell first book about fentanyl. Since its publication, Westhoff has advised top government officials on the fentanyl crisis, including from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, the U.S. embassy in Beijing, and the U.S. State Department.
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