Whiteout: How Racial Capitalism Changed the Color of Opioids in America

The first critical analysis of how Whiteness drove the opioid crisis.

In the past two decades, media images of the surprisingly white ＂new face＂ of the US opioid crisis abounded. But why was the crisis so white? Some argued that skyrocketing overdoses were ＂deaths of despair＂ signaling deeper socioeconomic anguish in white communities. Whiteout makes the counterintuitive case that the opioid crisis was the product of white racial privilege as well as despair.

Anchored by interviews, data, and riveting firsthand narratives from three leading experts--an addiction psychiatrist, a policy advocate, and a drug historian--Whiteout reveals how a century of structural racism in drug policy, and in profit-oriented medical industries led to mass white overdose deaths. The authors implicate racially segregated health care systems, the racial assumptions of addiction scientists, and relaxed regulation of pharmaceutical marketing to white consumers. Whiteout is an unflinching account of how racial capitalism is toxic for all Americans.

Helena Hansen is an addiction psychiatrist and anthropologist and Professor of Psychiatry and Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Jules Netherland is a sociologist and policy advocate and Managing Director of the Department of Research and Academic Engagement at the Drug Policy Alliance.

David Herzberg is a historian and Professor of History at the State University of New York at Buffalo.