“independent, associated companies”: Corporate Crime Reporter, “Corporate Drug Pushers,” Counterpunch, May 16, 2007, http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/05/16/corporate-drug-pushers/.
a decision they repeatedly appealed: Barry Meier, “Restrictions Are Upheld for Executives in OxyContin Case,” New York Times, Jan. 23, 2009.
“Plaintiffs appear to misunderstand”: Federal judge Segal Huvelle wrote in rejecting the executives’ arguments that their disbarment from doing business with taxpayer-financed health care programs should be overturned; the executives did get their initial disbarment reduced from twenty to twelve years, Meier, “Ruling Is Upheld Against Executives Tied to OxyContin,” New York Times, Dec. 15, 2010. Ramseyer said they were ultimately excluded for eight years.
But the Abingdon federal judge’s hands were tied: U.S. District Judge James Jones testimony, from the transcript of The Purdue Frederick Company, Inc., et al., 110–21.
“Opioid addiction continues to be”: Author interview, Judge James Jones, Feb. 3, 2017.
Udell went on to found the Connecticut Veterans Legal Center: Anne M. Hamilton, “Helping Veterans with Legal Problems,” Hartford Courant, Sept. 1, 2013.
the government presented zero proof: Author interview, Jeffrey Udell, April 5, 2017.
she brandished the tiny brass urn: Lee Nuss testimony, from the transcript of The Purdue Frederick Company, Inc., et al., 21–22, and author interview, Nuss, Jan. 31, 2017. Laurence Hammack is the reporter who told me he thought Nuss was going to throw the urn.
CHAPTER FIVE. SUBURBAN SPRAWL
Interviews: Chief Chris Perkins, Dr. Steve Huff, Sgt. Chad Seeberg, Dr. Jennifer Wells, Don Wolthuis, Warren Bickel, Robin Roth, Kristi Fernandez, Lt. Chuck Mason, Spencer Mumpower, Ginger Mumpower, Tony Anderson, Vinnie Dabney
the Cincinnati Enquirer became the first newspaper: Kristen Hare, “The Cincinnati Enquirer Now Has a Heroin Beat,” Poynter Institute, Feb. 15, 2016.
Viewers loved watching them: Lindsey Nair and Marques G. Harper, “Another WSLS Weatherman Admits Struggle with Heroin,” Roanoke Times, Feb. 18, 2006. Gilbert Dennis Hadden, a twenty-one-year-old dealer from Detroit, was sentenced to two years in prison later that year.
“The weathermen were skin popping”: Author interview, Chief Chris Perkins, Dec. 29, 2015 (since retired). Some users skin pop when their veins are too scarred to inject, according to Dr. Steve Huff, author interview, Oct. 2, 2017.
an unconscious man on the floor: Author interview, Sgt. Chad Seeberg of Marysville, Ohio, Aug. 8, 2016.
“Train City to Brain City”: Colin Woodard, “Trains Built Roanoke. Science Saved It,” Politico Magazine, Sept. 15, 2016. The quote was from Chris Morrill, Roanoke’s city manager from 2010 to 2017.
“Roanoke is just big enough where all the stories meet”: Author interview, Dr. Jennifer Wells, May 1, 2017.
“maybe a few dozen people were doing heroin here”: Author interview, Don Wolthuis, Jan. 7, 2016.
an addicted user’s idea of the future: Author interview, Warren Bickel, July 25, 2016.
The first bags sold in Roanoke: Mike Gangloff and Mike Allen, “Rise in Heroin Use Among Youth Alarms Officials,” Roanoke Times, Feb. 24, 2009.
“They’re skipping over pot and going straight to heroin”: Julia Dudley, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, quoted in Gangloff and Allen, “Rise in Heroin Use.”
“You think of heroin as seedy street slums”: Author interviews, Robin Roth, 2012–2017. Interviews in 2012 and 2013 were research for my Roanoke Times series “The Damage Done,” Aug. 20–22, 2012, and follow-up articles.
Kristi defended her son: Author interview, Kristi Fernandez, May 23, 2016.
Brandon Perullo had become so desperate: Preston Knight, “Robber to Serve 3½ Years in Heist,” Northern Virginia Daily, Feb. 9, 2011.
Brandon’s mother, Laura Hadden, begged: Author interview, Laura Hadden, May 18, 2017.
At Spencer Mumpower’s 2012 federal court sentencing: Transcript of sentencing hearing, United States v. Spencer Cruise Mumpower, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, Roanoke, March 1, 2012.
But Robin declined, saying she wasn’t ready: Beth Macy, “The Damage Done.”
oversimplification that police only partially confirmed: Author interview, Chuck Mason (then Roanoke County police lieutenant), May 5, 2012: “Catch-and-release implies we’re not going to charge them, but we are. They’re to be out on the road so they can work for us, but they are going to be charged at some point so they can face what they’ve done.…If we take the guy dealing fifty bags and put him in jail, then we don’t have a shot at the guy dealing five hundred bags.”
His lawyer, Tony Anderson, recalled: Ibid.
Vinnie Dabney remembered it: Ibid.
Spencer was alternately immature and wise: Ibid.
stamped with names like Blue Magic or Gucci: Author interviews, Roanoke County native Ashlyn Kessler, conducted via CorrLinks, federal prison monitored email, multiple times beginning May 26, 2016.
CHAPTER SIX. “LIKE SHOOTING JESUS”
Interviews: Sgt. Joe Crowder, Dr. Anna Lembke, Cheri Hartman, Tony Lawson, Judge Bob Bushnell, Andrew Nester, Shannon Monnat, Nikki King, Spencer Mumpower, Dr. William Massello, Dr. Martha Wunsch, Vinnie Dabney, Nancy Hans, Dr. Hughes Melton, Andrew Bassford, Dr. John Burton, Ron Salzbach, Jamie Waldrop, Drenna Banks, Christopher Waldrop
ill-designed training for displaced Americans: Trade Adjustment Assistance is outdated, with poor participation and efficacy, according to Beth Macy, “The Reality of Retraining,” Roanoke Times, April 22, 2012.
“not a social experiment”: Bassett Furniture CEO Rob Spilman, as relayed in Macy, Factory Man (New York: Little, Brown, 2014), 300.
soaring crime, food insecurity, and disability claims: America’s overall work rate for Americans age twenty and older dropped 5 percentage points between early 2000 and late 2016, as analyzed in Nicholas N. Eberstadt, “Our Miserable 21st Century,” Commentary, Feb. 15, 2017.
unemployment rates rose to above 20 percent: Food stamp increase courtesy of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program data from Martinsville and Henry County social services; disability hike factored from statistics, compiled here: http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/oasdi_sc/2008/va.html.
mental health and substance use disorders: Anna Lembke, Drug Dealer, MD: How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016), 92, based on the work of economists David Autor and Mark Duggan, “The Growth in the Social Security Disability Rolls: A Fiscal Crisis Unfolding,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 12436, August 2006. Mental illness is the reason cited in 25 percent of disability awards, and chronic pain is cited in 26 percent.
“Ritalin is a pipeline to disability here”: Author interview, Tony Lawson, Jan. 30, 2017.
“a draw-er”: Author interview, Nikki King, July 20, 2017.
Well over half of Lee County’s working-age men: U.S. Census data collated by Syracuse University sociologist Shannon Monnat.