Well, you've just confirmed my darkest suspicions about that book.

I didn't read it and had to quote Ross Barkan on it because I'd sensed (from the reviews and more) that what you said was true. And there's been so much great writing on the opioid crisis! Why listen to a lecture when Patrick Radden Keefe won a £50,000 prize for EMPIRE OF PAIN that even I, a confirmed skeptic of awards, had to admit was totally deserved?