The opioid crisis is bad, and it's getting worse. Since 2014, opioid-related overdoses have steadily risen, along with ODs involving multiple drugs and meth. Last year, fentanyl-involved deaths doubled their 2017 total in King County, according to the University of Washington's Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute. In her new book, Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America, Beth Macy, who's been reporting on this stuff for the Roanoke Times for a while, chronicles the complex of circumstances that led to this crisis with pathos and precision. She begins in the mid-1990s, describing Purdue Pharma's concerted effort to market OxyContin as a supposedly risk-free pain killer. She then shines a light on all the cracks in the local, national, and global health care systems that allowed the crisis to proliferate. If you've checked out of this story, check back in with Dopesick and get caught up. by Rich Smith