"While Walter provides history and plenty of politics and policy detail, she does it through individual stories: a doctor who bends the rules as he tries to fight the system, a White middle-class young man who gets treatment in lieu of jail time but then learns that the facility which forces him into hard labor may be even worse, and a Black woman who gets no such option and is sent to jail."
"The fourth story centers on a California woman, Wendy McEntyre, who lost her son to an overdose and finds purpose in helping others. Throughout the book, she goes to battle with the Above It All Treatment Center in San Bernardino County after learning of the death of a 21-year-old addict in their care. As she seeks justice, Walter catalogs the many obstacles McEntyre faces in every aspect of California's system."
Systemic failures and misguided policies have hampered effective responses to widespread drug addiction in the United States. Laws historically limited medical treatment access, preventing doctors from adequately helping people with addiction. Treatment industry actors sometimes profit from patient suffering and operate facilities that exploit or harm residents. Individual cases illustrate disparities: a doctor bending rules to help, a White middle-class young man subjected to exploitative labor at a treatment facility instead of jail, and a Black woman who receives incarceration rather than treatment. Family members who lose loved ones confront bureaucratic obstacles when seeking accountability from treatment centers. These failures contribute to preventable deaths and persistent inequities in care.
Read at www.ocregister.com
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