The Least of Us; True Tales of America and Hope in a Time of Fentanyl and Meth with Sam Quinones

This episode of the Amazing Cities and Towns Podcast, sponsored by Bearing Advisors, Jim Hunt interviews NY Best Selling Author, Sam Quinones, author of Dreamland and The Least of Us.

• A candid conversation about drug use and homelessness in US cities.
• The reason the drug world has changed with the Mexican Cartels focusing on synthetic drugs
• The connection between Meth, Fentanyl and mental health issues and homelessness
• Rethinking homelessness, drug addiction, rehab and jail time
• New forms of jail for homeless and drug charges
• How Walmart's shoplifting issues are interconnected to drug problems in US towns and cities
• How the drug abuse problem has evolved into a poisoning 
• The interconnection between drug trafficking, gun smuggling, immigration and the US/Mexican trade policies
• How Clarksburg WV and other communities have been impacted by the drug issues
• The power of the community and churches in addressing some of the drug and homeless issues for a short-term solution

 

·       And, much more

 

7 Steps to an Amazing City:

 

1.     Attitude

2.     Motivation

3.     Attention to Detail

4.     Zing

5.     Inclusiveness

6.     Neighborhood Empowerment

7.     Green Awareness

Thanks for listening and look forward to having you join us for the next episode.

 

Links Mentions During Show:

 www.samquinones.com

·       www.AmazingCities.org

·       www.AmazingCities.org/podcast to be a guest on the podcast

 

About  Sam Quinones

Sam Quinones (pronounced Kin-YOH-Ness) is a Los Angeles-based freelance journalist, a
reporter for 35 years, and author of four acclaimed books of narrative nonfiction. He is a veteran reporter on immigration, gangs, drug trafficking, the border.

He is formerly a reporter with the L.A. Times, where he worked for 10 years. Before that, he made a living as a freelance writer residing in Mexico for a decade (1994-2004).
His latest book, released in November, 2021, is The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth. (The book is released in paperback in November, 2022.)

In The Least of Us, Quinones chronicles the emergence of a drug-trafficking world producing
massive supplies of synthetic drugs (fentanyl and meth) cheaper and deadlier than ever, marketing to the population of addicts created by the nation's opioid epidemic, as the backdrop to tales of Americans’ quiet attempts to recover community through simple acts of helping the vulnerable.

With The Least of Us, Quinones broke the story of how the methamphetamine now produced in Mexico has covered the U.S. and is creating widespread and rapid-onset symptoms of schizophrenia, becoming in the process a major driver in the country’s the homeless problem.
In January 2022, The Least of Us was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) award for Best Nonfiction Book of 2021.

The Least of Us follows his landmark Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate
Epidemic (Bloomsbury, 2015), which ignited awareness of the epidemic that has cost the United States hundreds of thousands of lives and become deadliest drug scourge in the nation’s history.

Dreamland won a National Book Critics Circle award for the Best Nonfiction Book of 2015. It was also selected as one of the Best Books of 2015 by Amazon.com, the Daily Beast, Buzzfeed, Seattle Times, Boston Globe, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Entertainment Weekly, Audible, and in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Business by Nobel economics laureate, Prof. Angus Deaton, of Princeton University.

In 2021, GQ Magazine selected Dreamland as one of the “50 Best Books of Literary Journalism of the 21 st Century”

Dreamland was selected as one the Best 10 True-Crime Books of all time based on lists, surveys, and ratings of more than 90 million Goodread.com readers. In 2019, Slate.com selected Dreamland as one of the 50 best nonfiction books of the last 25 years.
For Dreamland, Quinones has testified before the U.S. Senate’s Health Committee, numerous
professional conferences of judges, doctors, librarians, hospital administrators and at more than two-dozen town hall meetings in small towns across the country.

A Young Adult version of Dreamland – for 7 th through 12 th graders -- was released in July of 2019.

His first two books grew from his 10 years living and working as a freelance writer in Mexico (1994-2004).
 

True Tales From Another Mexico: The Lynch Mob, the Popsicle Kings, Chalino and the
Bronx was released in 2001. It is a cult classic of a book from Mexico’s vital margins – stories of
drag queens and Oaxacan Indian basketball players, popsicle makers and telenovela stars, migrants, farm workers, a narcosaint, a slain drug balladeer, a slum boss, and a doomed tough guy.
 
In 2007, he came out with Antonio's Gun and Delfino's Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration. In it, Quinones narrates the saga of the Henry Ford of Velvet Painting, and of how an opera scene emerged in Tijuana, and how a Zacatecan taco empire formed in Chicago. He tells the tale of the Tomato King, of a high-school soccer season in Kansas, and of Mexican corruption in a small L.A. County town. Threading through the book are three tales of Delfino Juarez, a modern Mexican Huck Finn. Quinones ends the collection in a chapter called "Leaving Mexico" with his harrowing tangle with the Narco-Mennonites of Chihuahua. 

Dagoberto Gilb, reviewing Antonio’s Gun in the San Francisco Chronicle, called him “the most
original writer on Mexico and the border.”
 
Contact him at www.samquinones.com or [email protected].

 

About Your Host, Jim Hunt:

Welcome to the “Building Amazing Cities and Towns Podcast” … The podcast for Mayors, Council Members, Managers, Staff and anyone who is interested in building an Amazing City.

 

Your host is Jim Hunt, the author of “Bottom Line Green, How American Cities are Saving the Planet and Money Too” and his latest book, “The Amazing City - 7 Steps to Creating an Amazing City”

 

Jim is also the former President of the National League of Cities, 27 year Mayor, Council Member and 2006 Municipal Leader of the Year by American City and County Magazine.

 

Today, Jim speaks to 1000’s of local government officials each year in the US and abroad.

 

Jim also consults with businesses that are bringing technology and innovation to local government.

 

Amazing City Resources:

 

Buy Jim’s Popular Books:

·       The Amazing City: 7 Steps to Creating an Amazing City:   https://www.amazingcities.org/product-page/the-amazing-city-7-steps-to-creating-an-amazing-city

 

·       Bottom Line Green: How America’s Cities and Saving the Planet (And Money Too)  https://www.amazingcities.org/product-page/bottom-line-green-how-america-s-cities-are-saving-the-planet-and-money-too

 

FREE White Paper:

·       “10 Steps to Revitalize Your Downtown”  www.AmazingCities.org/10-Steps

 

Hire Jim to Speak at Your Next Event:

·       Tell us about your event and see if dates are available at www.AmazingCities.org/Speaking

 

Hire Jim to Consult with Your City or Town:

·       Discover more details at https://www.amazingcities.org/consulting

 

Discuss Your Business Opportunity/Product to Help Amazing Cities:

·       Complete the form at https://www.amazingcities.org/business-development

 

A Special Thanks to Bearing Advisors for the support of this podcast:  www.BearingAdvisors.Net