Opioid manufacturers sold oxycontin as a way to sell whiteness itself because addiction was associated with racialized communities. The federal government had the tools to protect consumers from dangerous, unregulated access to opioids. In the 1990s, a company finally broke through with claims to sell oxycontin in a certain way that made white patients seem less vulnerable. However, they didn't invent new techniques, they just found a reason to sell patients a whole lot of opioids.
Featuring Helena Hansen, Jules Netherland, and David Herzberg on how American capitalism and its illusions of whiteness both created the opioid crisis and shaped the response to it. We are discussing their book Whiteout: How Racial Capitalism Changed the Color of Opioids in America.
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