American Pain: How a Young Felon and His Ring of Doctors

American Pain: How a Young Felon and His Ring of Doctors Unleashed America’s Deadliest Drug Epidemic

The king of the Florida pill mills was American Pain, a mega-clinic expressly created to serve addicts posing as patients. From a fortress-like former bank building, American Painâ€™s doctors distributed massive quantities of oxycodone to hundreds of customers a day, mostly traffickers and addicts who came by the vanload. Inked muscle-heads ran the clinicâ€™s security. Former strippers operated the pharmacy, counting out pills and stashing cash in garbage bags. Under their lab coats, the doctors carried gunsâ€”and it was all legalâ€¦ sort of.

American Pain was the brainchild of Chris George, a 27-year-old convicted drug felon. The son of a South Florida home builder, Chris George grew up in ultra-rich Wellington, where Bill Gates, Springsteen, and Madonna kept houses. Thick-necked from weightlifting, he and his twin brother hung out with mobsters, invested in strip clubs, brawled with cops, and grinned for their mug shots. After the housing market stalled, a local doctor clued in the brothers to the burgeoning underground market for lightly regulated prescription painkillers. In Florida, pain clinics could dispense the meds, and no one tracked the patients. Seizing the opportunity, Chris George teamed up with the doctor, and word got out. Just two years later Chris had raked in $40 million, and 90 percent of the pills his doctors prescribed flowed north to feed the rest of the countryâ€™s insatiable narcotics addiction. Meanwhile, hundreds more pain clinics in the mold of American Pain had popped up in the Sunshine State, creating a gigantic new drug industry.

American Pain chronicles the rise and fall of this game-changing pill mill, and how it helped tip the nation into its current opioid crisis, the deadliest drug epidemic in American history. The narrative swings back and forth between Florida and Kentucky, and is populated by a gaudy and diverse cast of characters. This includes the incongruous band of wealthy bad boys, thugs and esteemed physicians who built American Pain, as well as penniless Kentucky clans who transformed themselves into painkiller trafficking rings. It includes addicts whose lives were devastated by American Painâ€™s drugs, and the federal agents and grieving mothers who labored for years to bring the clinicâ€™s crew to justice.
Country USA
Brand Lyons Press
Manufacturer Lyons Press
Binding Hardcover
ItemPartNumber 7 black & white halftones
ReleaseDate 2015-09-29
UnitCount 1
Format Illustrated
EANs 9781493007387

Country	USA
Brand	Lyons Press
Manufacturer	Lyons Press
Binding	Hardcover
ItemPartNumber	7 black & white halftones
ReleaseDate	2015-09-29
UnitCount	1
Format	Illustrated
EANs	9781493007387

American Pain: How a Young Felon and His Ring of Doctors Unleashed America’s Deadliest Drug Epidemic