Introduction

Sam Quinones | International Award-Winning Author – The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth

Sam Quinones | International Award-Winning Author – The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth

This webinar originally occurred on October 28, 2021
Duration: 1 hour

Overview

Sam Quinones is a Los Angeles-based freelance journalist and an international award-winning author of four books of narrative nonfiction. Quinones’ latest book, The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth, will be featured in this FTCoE webinar.

In The Least of Us (to be published in November 2021), Quinones chronicles the emergence of a drug-trafficking world, producing massive supplies of dope cheaper and deadlier than ever, and marketing to the population of addicts created by the nation's opioid epidemic, as the backdrop to tales of Americans’ quiet attempts to recover community through simple acts of helping the vulnerable.

The Least of Us follows his landmark book Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic (Bloomsbury, 2015), which ignited awareness of the epidemic that has cost the United States hundreds of thousands of lives and has become the deadliest drug scourge in the nation’s history. Dreamland won the National Book Critics Circle Award for the Best Nonfiction Book of 2015 and was selected as one of the Best Books of 2015 by Amazon.com, Buzzfeed, Seattle Times, the Boston Globe, and more. Dreamland was also highlighted in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Businessweek by economics Nobel Laureate Professor Angus Deaton of Princeton University.

Sam Quinones was formerly a reporter with the L.A. Times, where he worked for 10 years (2004-2014). He is a veteran reporter on immigration, gangs, drug trafficking, the border.

The Least of Us is available to order here!

“With The Least of Us, Sam Quinones continues to be the preeminent chronicler of the national opioid epidemic. By combining rigorous research, keen insight and listening to people’s stories across the country, Sam has once again captured not only the pain and sadness but the resiliency and optimism that have come to be the hallmark of this epidemic.”

- Michael Botticelli | Former Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy

Detailed Learning Objectives

By the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:

  1. Identify the essential characteristics of life’s accounts leading up to the nation’s opioid epidemic.
  2. Explain community recovery efforts to improve overdose prevention and reversal interventions to save lives and help the vulnerable.
  3. Illustrate how the latest emerging drug threats of fentanyl and meth have heightened the drug epidemic's deleterious effects.

Presenter:

Sam Quinones Headshot

Sam Quinones is a Los Angeles-based freelance journalist, former LA Times reporter, and author of four books of narrative nonfiction. In 2015, he published his bestselling book Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic, which awakened the country to the nationwide scourge of addiction to opioids and heroin. His latest book The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth, which chronicles how the epidemic has evolved from opioids into illicit synthetic drugs, is expected to release in October.

Contact him at www.samquinones.com or samquinones7@yahoo.com.


Funding for this Forensic Technology Center of Excellence webinar has been provided by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.

The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this webinar are those of the presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Contact us at ForensicCOE@rti.org with any questions and subscribe to our newsletter for notifications.


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