Read Online AMERICAN PAIN by John Temple - Free Book Online

prescribe heavy-duty narcotics in the United States?
    On a balmy Sunday in early May 2008, Golbom left his home in Clearwater, Florida, and drove over the long Courtney Campbell Causeway. The skies were blue and cloudless, and Old Tampa Bay glittered in the sun, but Golbom’s stomach was in knots. He was always nervous before going on the air, and this had been an especially discouraging week at the major-chain drugstore where he worked. In the past few days, he’d refused to fill huge narcotic prescriptions from three doctors he’d never heard of. One customer was nineteen years old and could barely speak. He had a prescription for 240 oxycodone 30s from a pain clinic in Tampa. Another was in his twenties, and looked fit enough to run in a track meet. He wanted oxycodone and muscle relaxant. Golbom had reported the doctors to the state board of pharmacy, but he wasn’t holding his breath for a response.
    After reaching Tampa, Golbom pulled into a nondescript office park just off Tampa International Airport, long tresses of Spanish moss trailing from the pin oaks that surrounded it. The building was the home of WGUL-AM, a local talk-radio station owned by Salem Broadcasting. Once a week, Golbom paid Salem $125 so he could talk about legal narcotics on the air. He’d been doing the one-hour show—called Prescription Addiction Radio—for a year and a half, since the fall of 2006. Golbom had no idea how many people were listening.
    Inside, Golbom entered a beige studio, just four walls and a desk, a few computer monitors and microphones. No personal items adorned the studio, no workspace toys or ornaments. The studio was nobody’s permanent home, just space rented by the hour.
    Tonight, Golbom pulled on bulky headphones and kicked off the show by playing a few lines of a 2002 rap song that described the pleasures of OxyContin, Lortabs, and Percocets. Then the sound engineer faded the song away, and Golbom spoke close into the microphone, his insistent nasal drone in distinct contrast with the Memphis rapper’s drawl.
    “Again, folks, in case you missed it, that’s the lyrics of the song, ‘Oxy-Cotton’ by Lil Wyte. That song’s actually been around for a little while. There’s no question that since the introduction of OxyContin, our country’s been experiencing what I refer to as the new opium epidemic of the twenty-first century. The active ingredient of oxycodone is interchangeable with heroin, and I think more and more people are beginning to understand that we have a huge medical hoax going on.”
    Golbom believed he’d been an unwitting part of the hoax until the day, five years earlier, when he’d discovered that his teenage son had bought oxycodone pills from a local woman. Golbom had reported the woman’s doctor to the Florida Board of Medicine. The subsequent investigation revealed that the patient was a textbook drug seeker. She’d altered prescriptions. She’d been charged with possession of a controlled substance. She’d claimed more than once that her medications had been stolen. She’d claimed to need drugs early so she could go on trips. Despite all these red flags, the doctor had continued to prescribe the woman high doses of opioids.
    In 2006, the doctor settled his case. He was fined $12,500, plus administrative costs, and was ordered to do seventy-five hours of community service and complete two courses. He retained his medical license, continued practicing.
    To Golbom, it felt like nothing had been accomplished.
    But in the meantime, he’d educated himself about opioids. In fact, the drugs had become his obsession. He’d founded the radio show and talked on-air to hundreds of people about the resurgence of opium in America—public officials, experts, addicts and their relatives. He’d read medical texts and histories of past temperance movements. He’d delved deep into obscure corners of the Federal Register to find statistics about oxycodone production. He’d searched newspaper