num_pages: 364
description: The United States of Opioids explains both how the opioid crisis evolved as a slow-motion mass casualty event and why it continues to break through every worst-case analysis, becoming the leading killer of people under fifty.  Harry Nelson offers a comprehensive perspective of the unaddressed points of health system failure, including a firsthand account of the impossible position facing doctors and the social conditions and deficits of our health system that provided fertile soil for the opioid crisis to grow. He shares how the untold history of America’s original opioid crisis in the early twentieth century set the stage for our broken approach to pain and addiction medicine.  His book is a must-read for anyone who cares about the most fundamental challenges facing this country.
title: The United States of Opioids: A Prescription For Liberating A Nation In Pain
publisher: ForbesBooks