Overdose cover art

Overdose

Heartbreak and Hope in Canada's Opioid Crisis

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 Months Free

$8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.
Get this deal
Offer ends on July 15, 2026 at 11:59 PT.
More purchase options

Overdose

Written by: Benjamin Perrin
Narrated by: John Cleland
Get this deal

$8.99/mo. after 3 months. Cancel anytime. Offer ends July 15, 2026 at 11:59pm PT.

Buy Now for $30.57

Buy Now for $30.57

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

SHORTLISTED for the 2021 BC Book Awards' George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature

SHORTLISTED for the BC and Yukon Book Prizes, for both the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize and Jim Deva Prize for Writing That Provokes

SHORTLISTED for the 2021 J. W. Dafoe Book Prize

SHORTLISTED for the 2020 Lane Anderson Award

“Overdose is a necessary and searching investigation into a devastating epidemic that should never have happened. Benjamin Perrin painstakingly shows that it need not continue if we, as a society, heed the evidence.”
—Gabor Maté M.D., author of In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction

An astonishing and powerful look at the ongoing opioid crisis

North America is in the middle of a health emergency. Life expectancies are declining. Someone is dying every two hours in Canada from illicit drug overdose. Fentanyl has become a looming presence—an opioid more powerful, pervasive, and deadly than any previous street drug.

The victims are many—and often not whom we might expect. They include the poor and forgotten but also our neighbours: professionals, students, and parents. Despite the thousands of deaths, these victims have remained largely invisible.

But not anymore. Benjamin Perrin, a law and policy expert, shines a light in this darkest of corners—and his findings challenge many assumptions about the crisis. Why do people use drugs despite the risk of overdosing? Can we crack down on the fentanyl supply? Do supervised consumption sites and providing “safe drugs” enable the problem? Which treatments work? Would decriminalizing all drugs help or do further harm?

In this urgent and humane look at a devastating epidemic, Perrin draws on behind-the-scenes interviews with those on the frontlines, including undercover police officers, intelligence analysts, border agents, prosecutors, healthcare professionals, Indigenous organizations, activists, and people who use drugs. Not only does he unveil the many complexities of this situation, but he also offers a new way forward—one that may save thousands of lives. Mental Health Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Social Sciences Health Substance Abuse
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
All stars
Most Relevant
This book has answers for people who have loved ones in trouble with addictions. It is difficult to know what to do when faced with this kind of crisis. This helps to understand. Thank you Benjamin Perrin.

Great book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Definitely as a society we need to look at how the war on drugs had fail and turn to the research that shows how best to deal with addiction.

Everyone should read this book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
As someone who works in the field of harm reduction and social justice, fighting the war on drugs because our community is being poisoned to death by toxic drugs and failed policies and no one seems to care..... thank you so much! 💜 I wish everyone could take the time to read this, educate themselves on the drug poisoning crisis, build compassion and fight with us! #supportnotstigma

Thank You

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
loved it. written very well and narrated very well. worth every penny. lot of knowledge.

Very Informative, Research in depth

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The author doesn’t address some of the very real concerns around safe supply. He is biased, for sure. He does a good job at presenting the pro-safe supply literature and the logic of Decriminalization. He could have spent a lot more time on the stunningly fast and universal support for harm reduction- one leg in the four pillar evidence based approach to problematic substance use. (The others are enforcement, which he fairly covers), treatment (short shrift),and prevention- (not discussed at all. See Iceland’s incredible work to prevent or delay substance use in youth) now being piloted in many parts of the world. Also dismisses abstinence, even though that remains the goal most often stated by those addicted. Yep. AA/NA often fail. Comparing it to programs that supply drugs, though, isn’t a fair comparison.

Engaging but biased

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews