I wrote this novel as an exploration of the way that substance abuse is woven into our society. Since med school I had a research interest in this problem, starting with a NIMH research grant in the summer of 1967. I used the money to tour California and visit the facilities that dealt with drug addicts. Amazingly, it put me in Haight-Ashbury during the Summer of Love, volunteering at David Smith’s Free Clinic and interviewing faculty at UCSF that were doing research on drugs and drug abuse.

My travels gave me a glimpse of a future in which law enforcement blocked legitimate research and imposed the criminal justice system on the disease of addiction. It was a colossal error and only added sixty more years to the century-long failure of the War on Drugs, which remains a war on people. Drugs are the medium of a purely capitalistic system of supply and demand. Draconian laws only raise the risk premium, i.e., the profits for the international drug trade.

The driver of all this is America’s insatiable appetite for drugs. I have observed many different substances come and go—and return. As an intern the mode overdose was Secobarbital. Cheap, convenient, most commonly a rack of Reds and a can of Colt 45. I cared for the first methaqualone overdose at LA County hospital (he did just fine). At one point I ran the overdose service. I received a heroin OD misdiagnose as a diabetic coma (He was breathing six times a minute—not how ketoacidosis works). He revived with Nalline.

Playing poker in Hollywood, I was solicited for Dilaudid and methaqualone. No thank you, sir. As an oncologist I was an early adopter of hospice care and became proficient in symptom control. I NEVER had a cancer patient become addicted to the generous quantities of opioids I prescribed. In fact, I was a pioneer in the use of liquid morphine for symptom control (and I saw no need whatsoever to preform euthanasia to relieve suffering—but that’s a subject for another post).

Ironically, I relocated to Ohio and eventually found out that my employer was using his son to sell oxycontin and Xanax to local high school students. This demolished his practice and cost him his life. It liberated me to spend the rest of my career doing locum tenens assignments in interesting parts of the country like the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and New Hampshire.

Looking back, I have had a wonderful career. I think back to the dumb eighteen-year-old version of me, who casually decided to become a physician (see my earlier novels, especially The Bookmen), I and can’t believe my good fortune. Check out The Drug Dealer. As a bonus I have incorporated real vignettes from oncology and palliative care.

Rex

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The Drug Dealer

Eaton Fire II