Dreamland Discussion One Dreamland by Sam Quinones is a compelling novel about the opioid crises in the United States and how it all started. The preface of this book took me aback somewhat when I read it. This was due to the fact that it started out talking about a community pool and how much people loved it. I was surprised to read that the wealthy people that attended the pool donated money so that the less fortunate families could still attend the pool. When I read this I felt a strong sense of community that the people of Portsmouth had. As the book shifted gears, Quinones starts by telling the history of the opioid epidemic in this country. It is extremely scary for me that people get hooked on heroin from prescription pills. I was …show more content…
I was surprised that they avoided violence. I think a large part of why they were able to achieve this was due to the fact that they were civil with the other drug cells in the area. I always thought that nearly every drug operation involved some type of violence and that it could not be avoided. They also started delivering heroin to their customers which surprised me. I was also shocked that the dealers did not do the drugs. I think this was another crucial part to their success in the heroin business. I was also fascinated with their obsession with Levis jeans. When they went back to their village, these jeans were a status symbol, and they even traded drugs for the jeans. They also targeted people that were using methadone, which were people trying to recover from opioid addiction; I found this extremely sad. Heroin is one of the hardest drugs to shake, and the people at these methadone clinics are desperately trying to beat their addiction. I was sickened to read that often times these methadone clinics were ruined by becoming for-profit. In our class, we have read about Scott in Evicted who was successful in beating his addiction by attending the methadone clinics. I think that if these clinics were non-profit, they can really help people. Reading about Alan, the man who had lost both of his legs, really showed how dangerous the Xalisco Boys delivery system was. The Xalisco Boys enabled