In celebration of the 2-year anniversary of the publication of Addiction Nation: What the Opioid Crisis Reveals About Us (Herald, 2019), I’m diving into a series of things that I got wrong. Or, in some cases, things I would have written about differently if I knew what I know now. …

On the afternoon of November 19th, 2006, Michael Smith was shot and killed by a police officer in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago. I sat with his mother, Enobia, a few days later, in her living room. She told us how much Michael loved to cook and that the family…