How ‘Dopesick’ Author Beth Macy Shaped the Hulu Series on the Opioid Crisis

“I really found myself as sort of the defender/protector of Appalachia,” Macy says of her outsize role in project based on her nonfiction bestseller

dopesick writer
(inset) Beth Macy; Michael Keaton in "Dopesick" (Getty Images; Hulu)

As a journalist at Virginia’s Roanoke Times, Beth Macy saw the devastation of America’s opioid overdose epidemic — and reported on it — long before it hit the national news. As a writer and producer on Hulu’s new show, “Dopesick,” based on her 2018 book of the same name, she hopes the adaptation will carry a message to Americans about opioid use disorder.

“We still stigmatize the wrong people. We stigmatize the people who are addicted to opioids, rather than the companies and the regulators that let it happen,” Macy told TheWrap, noting that Fox21 series developer Warren Littlefield promised her they would “shine the klieg light” on the issue.

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