American Pain
How a Young Felon and His Ring of Doctors Unleashed America's Deadliest Drug Epidemic
by John Temple
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Pub Date Sep 29 2015 | Archive Date Oct 06 2015
Rowman & Littlefield | Lyons Press
Description
* Finalist for the Edgar® Award in Best Fact Crime
* New York Post, “The Post’s Favorite Books of 2015”
* Suspense Magazine’s “Best True Crime Books of 2015”
* Foreword Reviews’ INDIEFAB Book of the Year in True Crime
* Publishers Weekly, Big Indie Book of Fall 2015
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 Pain’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 clinic’s security. Former strippers operated the pharmacy, counting out pills and stashing cash in garbage bags. Under their lab coats, the doctors carried guns—and it was all legal… 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 country’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 Pain’s drugs, and the federal agents and grieving mothers who labored for years to bring the clinic’s crew to justice.
* New York Post, “The Post’s Favorite Books of 2015”
* Suspense Magazine’s “Best True Crime Books of 2015”
* Foreword Reviews’ INDIEFAB Book of the Year in True Crime
* Publishers Weekly, Big Indie Book of Fall 2015
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 Pain’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 clinic’s security. Former strippers operated the pharmacy, counting out pills and stashing cash in garbage bags. Under their lab coats, the doctors carried guns—and it was all legal… 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 country’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 Pain’s drugs, and the federal agents and grieving mothers who labored for years to bring the clinic’s crew to justice.
A Note From the Publisher
This is a set of uncorrected page proofs. It is not a finished book and is not expected to look like one. Errors in spelling, page length, format and so forth will all be corrected by the time the book is published several months from now. Photos and diagrams, which may be included in the finished book, may not be included in this format. Uncorrected proofs are primarily useful so that you, the reader, might know months before actual publication what the author and publisher are offering. If you plan to quote the text in your review, you must check it with the publicist or against the final version. Please contact publicity@rowman.com with any questions. Thank you!
This is a set of uncorrected page proofs. It is not a finished book and is not expected to look like one. Errors in spelling, page length, format and so forth will all be corrected by the time the book is published several months from now. Photos and diagrams, which may be included in the finished book, may not be included in this format. Uncorrected proofs are primarily useful so that you, the reader, might know months before actual publication what the author and publisher are offering. If you plan to quote the text in your review, you must check it with the publicist or against the final version. Please contact publicity@rowman.com with any questions. Thank you!
Advance Praise
“John Temple’s American Pain
takes you on a hysterically funny, yet equally tragic, tour of
Florida’s pill mill industry as the painkiller epidemic was reaching a
fever pitch. He adeptly navigates the personal, political, and
historical impacts of oxycodone, illustrating how the prescription
opioid broke through all socioeconomic barriers to become the drug of
choice for the super-rich and the super-poor. American Pain is a must-read for anyone trying to understand this government-sanctioned drug and the destructive power of Big Pharma.”
—Melisa Wallack, Oscar-nominated co-writer of Dallas Buyers Club
—
“American Pain made me angrier with every page. Why? Because John Temple has so adeptly reported this story of how a handful of criminals and shady doctors in Florida profited from the poverty and addiction of the Appalachian South. Right from the riveting opening chapter, American Pain is rife with tension, conflict, and good journalism. Temple sets up a collision course between the George twins and their buddy Derik against a lone FBI agent, who suddenly realizes she doesn’t exactly have the law on her side. Every chapter is worth it.”
—James Higdon, national bestselling author of The Cornbread Mafia: A Homegrown Syndicate’s Code of Silence and the Biggest Marijuana Bust in American History
—
[Deadhouse is] fascinating … Temple invests his subjects with a warm humanity, providing insight into lives that are not nearly as glamorous as they appear in television dramas, but far more interesting.
— Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
[Deadhouse gives] an insider’s view of one of the country’s most misunderstood professions.
— Charleston Gazette
Writing evenly and efficiently, [in Deadhouse] Temple will enlighten fans of the CSI television shows. Teens, especially fans of CSI and Mary Roach’s Stiff, will find the perspectives from two college-age interns particularly involving.
— Booklist
—Melisa Wallack, Oscar-nominated co-writer of Dallas Buyers Club
—
“American Pain made me angrier with every page. Why? Because John Temple has so adeptly reported this story of how a handful of criminals and shady doctors in Florida profited from the poverty and addiction of the Appalachian South. Right from the riveting opening chapter, American Pain is rife with tension, conflict, and good journalism. Temple sets up a collision course between the George twins and their buddy Derik against a lone FBI agent, who suddenly realizes she doesn’t exactly have the law on her side. Every chapter is worth it.”
—James Higdon, national bestselling author of The Cornbread Mafia: A Homegrown Syndicate’s Code of Silence and the Biggest Marijuana Bust in American History
—
[Deadhouse is] fascinating … Temple invests his subjects with a warm humanity, providing insight into lives that are not nearly as glamorous as they appear in television dramas, but far more interesting.
— Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
[Deadhouse gives] an insider’s view of one of the country’s most misunderstood professions.
— Charleston Gazette
Writing evenly and efficiently, [in Deadhouse] Temple will enlighten fans of the CSI television shows. Teens, especially fans of CSI and Mary Roach’s Stiff, will find the perspectives from two college-age interns particularly involving.
— Booklist
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781493007387 |
| PRICE | $26.95 (USD) |
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