The book Dreamland[1] touches on this as well. There was this interview[2] (which I probably heard about on HN) with the author a couple years ago which was really interesting.

[1]https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22529381-dreamland

[2]http://www.econtalk.org/sam-quinones-on-heroin-the-opioid-ep...