Fentanyl, Inc.. Ben Westhoff
FENTANYL,
INC.
Also by Ben Westhoff
Original Gangstas: Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, and the Birth of West Coast Rap
Dirty South: OutKast, Lil Wayne, Soulja Boy, and the Southern Rappers Who Reinvented Hip-Hop
BEN WESTHOFF
FENTANYL,
INC.
How Rogue Chemists Created the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic
Grove Press
New York
Copyright © 2019 by Ben Westhoff
Cover design by David Drummond
Cover photograph © Alamy/David R. Frazier Photolibrary, Inc.
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Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America
First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: September 2019
First Grove Atlantic paperback edition: September 2020
Designed by Norman E. Tuttle of Alpha Design & Composition
This book was set in 12-point Adobe Caslon Pro by Alpha Design & Composition of Pittsfield, NH.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.
ISBN 978-0-8021-5737-9
eISBN 978-0-8021-4795-0
Grove Press
an imprint of Grove Atlantic
154 West 14th Street
New York, NY 10011
Distributed by Publishers Group West
In memory of
Michael “Helias” Schafermeyer,
inspired artist, generous soul
Contents
For Christmas vacation in 2014, Bailey Henke went on a road trip, driving west across the snowy plains of North Dakota. The recent high school graduate departed his apartment in Grand Forks with his roommate, Kain Schwandt. They passed the University of North Dakota, the lumber store, and the town landfill, before the city gave way to farmland.