Painkiller (2023) s01e03 Episode Script

1
This program is based on real events.
However, certain characters,
names, incidents, locations, and dialogue
have been fictionalized
for dramatic purposes.
However, the death of my son, Patrick,
isn't fiction.
He died at age 24
after having ingested
just a single OxyContin.
And I will tell you
that time does not heal all wounds.
Grief is not a process.
It's a lifelong weight on our heart
and on our soul.
- [monitors beeping]
- [indistinct, eerie chatter]
[doctor] You overdosed.
We've got you on methadone now
but in about four hours
we'll start reducing the drip,
and you'll experience some withdrawal.
- [Lily, echoing] Withdrawal?
- [doctor] Nausea, sweats, tremors.
But we'll keep a lookout.
That's the same thing that happened to him
last night when he lost his pills.
- [doctor] OxyContin, right?
- [Tyler] Oxy, yeah.
[doctor] What's his dosage?
[Lily] Um
It's two or three, maybe more.
[doctor] That is a high dosage.
- So if he just stopped
- [man 1] Customer down here.
[man 2] Come on! Come on! Stay with us!
[doctor] We'll get the detox team in here.
[Lily] Detox? Detox?
I don't think you understand,
this is a prescription.
This stuff can really grab hold of you,
even if you're following doctor's orders.
- And he just doubled his dose.
- That was an accident, though.
He's not an addict.
- [doctor] Call it what you like
- [Lily] No, excuse me,
but Dr. Hartman said
that it's only addictive in
uh, like, one percent of people.
Well, I've got an ER
filled with the one percent.
- Could we speak to Dr. Hartman?
- [doctor] I'll find him right away.
[door closes]
[Edie]
There is a long history of government
allowing people to sell you things
that are bad for you.
There's an art
to manipulating that process.
Arthur Sackler didn't invent the practice,
but he had it down to a science.
[smoke detector beeping in distance]
You wrote a shitty story.
He doesn't like your story.
I'm aware.
You know what this means? MICE them.
- Really?
- Absolutely.
MICE the bastard.
[Richard] MICE.
MICE.
I don't see how we would benefit
from additional animal studies.
When the CIA wants to flip someone,
they target one of four things.
M-I-C-E.
M, "money."
How much do they want?
I, "ideology." What do they believe in?
C, "coercion." What scares them?
And E, "ego"
What makes them feel like a real big boy?
[Richard] Curtis Wright
is the medical review officer
who stands between OxyContin and America.
Between suffering and salvation.
Well, we are going
to target Curtis Wright.
Specifically his ego.
[Edie] I don't know what went down
[man] Curtis Wright?
but for sure there was an unusual
amount of contact between Wright
- Sign here please.
- and Purdue.
There are ethical considerations.
Of course.
They're more than considerations.
We should document
every interaction, Howard.
We make sure everything is above board.
- [Edie] An abnormal amount.
- [man] Yes, sir.
- [Edie] Like I've never seen.
- [Richard] I believe what Wright wants
most of all is to feel like he is needed.
Well, lucky for him, it's true.
[modem dialing]
[line ringing]
[modem beeping]
Dr. Wright?
Uh, yes, yes.
- Can you hear me?
- Yes, I can.
Connection okay on your end?
Yeah, you know a phone call
would've been fine
but this is kind of neat actually.
Nonsense, Dr. Wright.
We want to get everything right
on this application,
and we want you
to meet the team working on it.
Okay. All right.
Now, we have a few points that
we'd like to go over in some detail.
That okay with you, Dr. Wright?
- Sure, sure.
- Yes?
Okay, first now, I want you to say
Say good morning to Dr. Wright.
[all] Good morning, Dr. Wright!
Huh. Wow
Wow, uh
I didn't realize there would be
so many of you.
Don't underestimate yourself, Dr. Wright.
You're one of the leading experts
in the field.
There's not a person here
who couldn't learn something from you.
Now, I know that you're a busy man
so let's dive right in, shall we?
Oh, okay. Go ahead.
[Edie] Purdue needed one thing
from Curtis Wright.
They needed him to approve language
that would allow them to say,
with the full approval
of the U.S. government,
that OxyContin was the safest opioid
on the market.
And if they could get that,
then it was game over.
But Curtis wouldn't fold easily
because Curtis is a scientist
and the science wasn't there.
I'll say it again.
They found the one guy
who gave a shit, so
they had to keep trying
to appeal to his ego.
I didn't have any friends outside of
[Edie] Purdue arranged for Wright
to publish a paper with Dr. Robert Kaiko,
Richard Sackler's head of R&D
and clinical research.
like a Marine
[Edie]
Must have made Curtis feel real special.
It was a whole other thing.
He was holding an Uzi
Sneeze out of your butt diarrhea, like
Poof!
You're spitting like you're a ball player.
[Curtis] It's just sweet spit, right?
Good stuff. "A molecule
is the smallest invisible portion
of a pure chemical substance that
has its unique set of chemical properties.
That is, its potential."
Unch, are you listening?
Curtis Wright didn't fold
even after they published the article.
Ego.
- Fucking
- Please.
- Stop, just breathe!
- He says!
- Let's just breathe.
- [Mortimer] He says!
He says it's gonna work, okay?
Ego wasn't working,
so they had to go with Plan B.
[Howard] Boo! [laughing]
- Howard?
- Hey, Curtis.
- How'd you get there?
- What's for lunch? Looks good.
We were wondering thinking,
that it might be more efficient,
more productive,
if we were able to all meet in person.
You know, just hash it out,
be done with it.
- Hash it out?
- Yeah, you know.
Hash it out. [grunting]
[chuckles]
Yeah, yeah. I guess.
We'd like to have
a more informal relationship with you.
Would that be all right, buddy?
[Edie] Curtis agreed
to a more informal relationship.
The Purdue team booked a room
for three days at a hotel
somewhere between Washington D.C.
and Norwalk, Connecticut.
[Brianna]
What do you think happened in that room?
[Edie] Nobody knows.
But sometime after that meeting,
Curtis Wright approved the language
Purdue needed.
Their marketing plan for OxyContin
hinged on a handful of words
from the drug application
signed and sealed by the FDA.
I memorized it, pay attention.
"Delayed absorption,
as provided by OxyContin tablets,
is believed to reduce
the abuse liability of the drug."
What that means
is that the FDA officially said
that OxyContin is believed to be safer
than anything else like it.
It all comes down to those two words:
"is believed."
Is believed.
Let's take a moment to unpack that.
Is believed by who?
The one and only time those words
appeared in a drug application.
Homicidal absurdity.
[neck cracking]
["Hustlin'" playing]
No one can prove
that anything illegal happened,
but I know two things.
Curtis Wright left the FDA
a year after OxyContin was approved.
And eventually,
he went to go work for Purdue.
- You gotta be fucking kidding me.
- Nope.
Who the fuck you think you fuckin' with?
I'm the fuckin' boss
Seven forty-five, white on white
That's fuckin' Ross ♪
I cut 'em wide, I cut 'em long ♪
- I cut 'em fat ♪
- What? ♪
- I keep 'em comin' back ♪
- What? ♪
We keep 'em comin' back ♪
Every day I'm hustlin'
Every day I'm hustlin' ♪
Every day I'm hustlin'
Every day I'm hustlin' ♪
Tell 'em that
Mo' cars, mo' hoes ♪
Mo' clothes, mo blows ♪
Every day I'm hustlin'
Every day I'm hustlin' ♪
Every day I'm hustlin'
Every day ♪
[gunshot]
[Edie]
Richard Sackler was now unstoppable.
So he did
what any rational person would do.
He threw himself a party.
[Richard] A few weeks ago,
the entire East Coast
was blanketed in snow.
The Blizzard of the Century,
they called it.
Thank you for coming. Look at this.
I was late tonight
because I was high in the Himalayas.
Deep in Tibet,
high on the flank of Annapurna,
one of the most remote mountains
in the Himalayas,
inside a monastery inhabited by
the Wise One.
[Raymond] Very impressive turnout.
- Thank you.
- You're very welcome.
Did we have to have the tuba?
[band playing "Tusk"]
[Richard] "O Wise One," I incanted.
"What is the meaning of all this snow?"
"All this snow"?
"Where little or no snow should go."
The incense smoke was dense,
the torrid atmosphere was electric
as the Wise One closed his eyes
and, in a trance, asked, "Are you a poet
or are you the leader
of the greatest sales force on Earth?"
- [crowd cheering]
- Yeah!
The application for OxyContin
was the most demanding
for a painkiller ever submitted.
And it was approved by the FDA
in 11 months and 14 days.
This didn't just happen.
It was the unparalleled teamwork
of the product team
and the FDA approval team.
[crowd cheering]
The significance
of the Blizzard of the Century
is that the launch of OxyContin
will be followed by a blizzard
of prescriptions
that will bury the competition.
[crowd cheering]
This prescription blizzard
will be so deep and dense, and so white,
that you will never be able
to see the white flag of their surrender.
[crowd cheering]
Now, now!
Now get out there and sell!
[crowd cheering]
- Yeah!
- Sell, huh?
Sell!
Tusk ♪
[whooping]
[crowd chanting]
OxyContin! OxyContin! OxyContin!
OxyContin! OxyContin! OxyContin!
OxyContin is one of America's
new prescription wonder drugs.
[reporter]
It's the fastest-growing drug in America.
[reporter 2] OxyContin or Oxy,
as it's called, is suddenly the rage.
[reporter 3] Doctors say OxyContin
provides unprecedented relief
for acute pain for seriously ill patients.
[reporter 4] Hailed as a breakthrough drug
for people in pain,
it is now the most heavily prescribed
narcotic in the country.
[reporter 5] Its time-release properties
deliver the drug
in controlled amounts
over a period of hours.
[reporter 6] It has a special coating
that works on a special time release.
- So over a 12-hour period
- [reporter 7] OxyContin has taken
a little-known drug company,
Purdue Pharma,
- to the top of the industry.
- I hate you, Mortimer.
[heavy metal music playing]
[crowd applauding]
[man 1] Congratulations, sir.
[woman] Well done, sir.
[man 2] Great job, sir!
[door locks]
[Glen] Okay.
Sweet.
Oh. Oh.
[door closes]
Home.
Do you wanna go lie down?
I'll make you something to eat?
[Glen] Mm
[somber music playing]
- Ty, will you help me with this later?
- [Glen] One second.
- You need to stop
- Can you stop?
- [Lily] What the fuck?
- [Glen] Move!
You guys want to follow me for a second?
Please.
- [Lily] Need the light? I got it.
- Yeah, thanks.
Ty, would you take this
and take the top off, please?
This is done.
Nothing's getting between this family.
It's over.
[Kaylee] Are you putting those
in the toilet?
- [Glen] Yeah.
- [toilet flushing]
All gone.
Come here.
[Lily] The doctor said
you're supposed to taper off.
The doctor doesn't know me, does he?
Come here.
Hug. It's over, guys.
But Purdue was just getting started.
Any physician
who is not prescribing OxyContin
is practicing inhumane,
backwards, antiquated malpractice.
[Edie] They started filling
every shitty conference room
in every Holiday Inn
in an eight-state area.
[Lorraine]
OxyContin benefits your patients.
When, and only when they are doing well,
can you do well.
[sucking teeth]
- Five steps.
- She's incredible.
- Step 1, you admit you have a problem.
- How much does she make for this?
- 5,500 on this speech.
- Your problem?
- "I'm not selling enough."
- [Britt] They keep her very busy.
[Lorraine] Straight forward enough, right?
- That's a lot of money.
- [Lorraine] Step 2, apologize to patients
- who you did not prescribe OxyContin.
- But it's worth it.
- Last quarter, half my bonus was from her.
- Step 3, acknowledge a higher power
I fucking love her.
that can lead you
to success and wisdom.
Do you know what that power is? Me.
- [all laughing]
- Do you have a pen?
Britt. Can I ask?
Mm-hm.
- How much?
- Hey, Britt.
["I Want Candy" playing over speakers]
- How much did you make?
- My bonus was 42,000.
Is that possible?
- I made 6,500.
- I know.
What about?
[Britt] Who, Jen?
- 27,000. And, Phil?
- Hey.
- How much did you make in your bonus?
- [whispering] 32.
[mouthing] Thousand?
- [woman] Hi, Britt.
- Am I?
Am I terrible at this job?
No, it's a process and you're growing.
You're building. It takes time.
Um, do you work here
or are you just standing there?
- I work here, what do you need? Okay.
- I need you to clean this shit up.
Oh, my gosh, you were amazing up there.
I loved your speech.
- You're cute, how old are you?
- Coffee?
- Hey, how are you? How's it going?
- Hey.
I don't understand what I'm doing wrong.
I have every doctor
on my circuit prescribing.
They all should be prescribing.
But your bonus
is not determined by prescriptions.
It's based on the number of milligrams.
Hey. I fucking love you.
See you in Pittsburgh.
- Dr. T! It's been so long.
- How nice to see you again. I missed you.
Meet Shannon Shaeffer, our newest recruit.
- Shannon Shaeffer.
- Nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you too.
I look forward to doing
a lot of business with you.
- You're so sweet. Have a good day.
- Thank you so much. Have a nice day.
- You too.
- [Britt] Why is this a fucking mess?
Get your doctors to titrate up.
If you wanna make some money,
you gotta get your doctors
to prescribe a higher dosage.
- Why would they do that?
- [Britt] Got you a hat.
Why don't you cuddle up with this guy,
get your numbers up.
Seems like we should get paid more
the more pills we sell.
It's all about the margins.
Oxycodone is generic and they already have
the time-release capsules from MS Contin,
so they had to pay, like, nothing
to make OxyContin.
But they charge insurance
by the milligrams,
- so twice as much for a 40 as a 20
- Those are beauties.
and twice as much for an 80.
The higher the dosage, the more they make.
The more they make, the more we make.
You want to make some money?
- Ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching.
- [doctor] Hey, Britt.
Kansas City!
[Britt & doctor] Kansas City! [laughing]
- Shannon Shaeffer, our newest recruit.
- Hi. Shannon Shaeffer.
- Nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you too!
This drug is the one to start with
and the one to stay with,
and you're gonna sell and sell and sell
and fucking sell!
[inaudible dialogue]
You have three motorbikes in Kansas City?
Why are you not there right now?
- What stays in Kansas City
- Yeah.
- Sorry.
- [Britt] Don't worry about it.
Isn't it the doctor's job to set the dose?
Yes, it is.
Who are the doctors listening to?
Me.
- Terrific.
- You wanna fucking sell?
You wanna make money?
Why don't you stop following me
and go get some doctors to listen to you.
Fucking make some money!
Sell! Sell! Sell! Win! Win!
You've heard the success stories.
Wouldn't you like to be
the one responsible for them?
OxyContin is the one to start with
and the one to stay with.
Did you write that?
No, Richard Sackler wrote that.
- Oh.
- Staying with it means titrating up.
See, you're here
and I'm trying to get you
here.
The more you prescribe
the more you'll help, Tim.
- Oh, we're on a first name basis?
- I think so.
- Let me think about it.
- Do you wanna think about it over lunch?
- Lunch when?
- Now.
Do you think
you're the best doctor you can be?
What does that mean?
Are you the best drug rep you can be?
Try to do my best.
Okay.
- Thank you.
- There you go. Thank you.
I just mean I'm literally showing you
a way to be better at your job and
you don't seem all that receptive to it.
- Better by prescribing more opioids?
- Yes.
You and I
have different definitions of "better."
A lot of what you do is pretty antiquated.
Ouch. Now you're calling me old?
No. But
old-fashioned maybe.
So, the more you prescribe,
the more you help, that right?
- Yes.
- Well, that is not always the case
and only one of us
went to medical school.
[Shannon] Right, you got me there.
At the end of the day, you run a business
and there is a lot more money to be made.
- Yeah, for you.
- No.
For both of us.
It was a very good time
for Richard Sackler.
Sales were rolling, cash was flowing,
and from a law enforcement perspective,
they were off the radar.
But I finally had a new boss.
He was a U.S. attorney from Virginia
named John Brownlee.
At first, his prosecutorial lethalness
wasn't readily apparent to me.
I'm working on a medical supply scam
out of Blacksburg. Wheelchairs.
Very exciting. And your fun fact?
Oh, gosh.
Um, I'm double-jointed in my left elbow.
[John] Wow. Just the left?
Uh-huh.
How about that.
Uh, seemed like a nice enough guy,
but he also seemed like
a big goofy loaf of Wonder Bread.
And you are?
- [man] Ed Bukowski.
- Hi, Ed.
I'm currently working on a chemotherapy
malpractice case out of Roanoke.
- Great. Fun fact?
- I can sing underwater.
That's a good one.
And what is your name?
Edie Flowers.
Fun fact?
It was a big moment for me.
- I don't have a fun fact.
- Everybody has a fun fact, Ms. Flowers.
I don't.
[John] Okay.
And I wanted to make an impression on him
and tell him exactly
what I was working on.
- And what are you working on?
- OxyContin.
- Oxy what?
- [Edie] A Schedule 2 narcotic.
It's being massively over-prescribed.
I'm not sure to what extent yet,
but it is highly popular.
I witnessed a robbery attempt
at a local pharmacy.
You witnessed a robbery.
Did you take it to law enforcement?
No, sir. I'm gonna stay the course.
I want to play this one through
With a robbery, you have to refer it
back to law enforcement, right?
We gotta use proper channels.
What he was saying was
"The FDA doesn't have a problem with it,
but you do."
And that's when I realized
I had to approach this another way.
I mean,
how can something legally prescribed
be killing so many people?
There must be a crime.
I just couldn't figure it out.
[pharmacist]
These are the doctors and patients
for prescription for OxyContin.
- Oxy what?
- [Edie] A Schedule 2 narcotic.
It's being massively over-prescribed.
[pharmacist]
If they go in for pain, they get it.
[coroner] He was DOA this morning
at Johnson Memorial.
27 years old.
- It's a shame. All these kids.
- Do you know how this feels?
[coroner] This is not the first time
you saw a body, is it?
Okay. There we are.
[coroner groans]
We're seeing it for all kinds of stuff
like back pain,
hip pain, knee pain, anything.
[coroner]
Here's something I bet you haven't seen.
There.
[Edie] What am I looking at?
[coroner] One, two, three, four, five
Oh, six. That's nothing.
Guy yesterday had 11.
- Oxy what?
- [coroner] Frost Funeral Home,
they have the record, like 18,
something scary like that.
Everybody has a fun fact, Ms. Flowers.
May I?
Mm-hm.
May I take this?
- Sure thing.
- Thanks.
That's a 60 milligram.
[coroner] Yeah.
Oxy what?
[door opens]
Two more for you, Tina.
What is this? Is this more of the same?
[coroner] Yeah.
This is this, is this, is this.
My God.
- OxyContin.
- Oxy what?
- Excuse me, sheriff?
- Ma'am.
[Edie] I'm Edie Flowers,
I'm an investigator with
the U.S. attorney's office in Roanoke.
- Do you have a second?
- Yeah. How can I help?
Could you tell me
everything you know about OxyContin?
You You like horror movies?
[hip-hop music playing faintly
over stereo]
- [car turns off]
- [music stops]
- I will.
- [doctor] Thank you!
You're really pretty, by the way.
[snorting]
[Shannon] Hey.
Hey! You all right?
Hey! You okay?
- Is your friend okay? Hey, it's okay.
- Drive, drive!
- Are you okay? Don't drive.
- Oh, shit.
- Shit.
- Hey! Hey!
- [car starting]
- Tell your friend Hey, excuse me!
What are you doing? Stop!
[tires screeching]
[car horn honking]
["Kickstart My Heart"
playing over headphones]
Top fuel funny car's a drug for me
My heart, my heart ♪
Kick start my heart ♪
I need to talk to you.
Hey, hey.
- Britt.
- What's up?
I saw one of Dr. Cooper's patients,
a teenager, in the parking lot.
She walks into the office,
hobbling on crutches,
then comes out sprinting,
waving her crutches.
Bitch is totally faking it.
Gets a prescription, gets back in the car
where her 15-year-old friend is,
and they crush it and snort it,
and pass out.
I'm watching the whole thing.
I'm thinking they're dead,
then I walk over and see them,
and they were just
They were so high, and then they leave,
but they shouldn't be driving.
They go, two cars are coming
and they smash,
- and I saw it right in front of me.
- Wow!
You saw two drug addicts doing drugs,
that's exciting.
It was fucking wild.
And they got it from Cooper.
Who cares? They're drug addicts.
They existed long before OxyContin
and they'll exist long after.
- His waiting room was packed.
- Good.
- You're doing your job. Congratulations.
- Yeah.
Some of them really looked
like they didn't need OxyContin.
- So, I put that in my notes.
- What?
You put it in your notes?
- Yeah.
- Did you send them in yet?
No. Why?
You did the right thing telling me.
Just give me your notes.
- Are you sure?
- Yeah, I'll handle it.
- It's not a big deal.
- Okay.
Here. Thanks. I got you.
Your job is to sell
and there are always gonna be addicts.
- That was wild.
- I'm proud of you, Shan!
You're doing great!
The genius of "is believed"
is that you don't have to prove anything.
The fact was
most people don't kick an Oxy habit
by flushing it down the toilet.
[ominous music playing]
- [Glen] Ty, what'd you just say?
- I didn't say anything.
- Can you stop?
- Can you stop for
Here we go.
[screams]
What?
All right, so,
I'll be home in like four or five hours.
- [Lily] Okay.
- Bye.
[Lily] Uh, give me a kiss.
Jesus, I gotta beg for it?
- Bye.
- Okay. See you. Love you.
- Glen. I need you to be more careful.
- [Glen] Mm-hm.
Everyone is overreacting
just a little, Doc.
I understand what happened.
What happened was, I woke up,
took the pill like it tells you.
We had a late breakfast,
the kids wouldn't get in the truck,
so there was time there, then it hit me.
- Blindsided me while I was eating
- I gotcha.
- Where are you at with the pain?
- [Glen] I mean, uh
It's gotta be like a 9, 9 and a half.
It's shooting up, not going anywhere.
I can't sit and drive the truck
more than a minute without just moving.
- I always have to shift
- I hear you.
- The pain is through my back.
- I hear you.
But you gotta be smart.
They say that people are starting
to chop this stuff up and snort it.
- You can get tangled up in this.
- I know.
- I'm fine.
- Okay.
But we don't want any more accidents now.
Do we?
[Glen] Only get 40?
- Forty.
- Thank you.
- Say hi to Lily.
- Will do.
[phone ringing]
- Hello?
- [Deborah] Hello, Ms. Shaeffer?
Deborah Marlowe
from Howard Udell's office.
Yes, he'd like to fly you to Connecticut
to meet with him.
I'm sorry. Mr. Udell wants to see me?
Yes, we'll take care of the flight,
arrange a car to pick you up.
- Everything will be taken care of.
- Okay.
- Is everything?
- [dial tone humming]
Motherfuckers.
[clears throat]
Hello?
Fuck.
[video game gunshots]
[gunshots continue on TV]
[sighs]
[Shawn] What do you wanna say?
You changed his mind.
That's my job.
[Edie] How much did you get paid for that?
- None of your business.
- Sorry.
[Edie] When you were dealing,
when someone would
come up to you on the street to buy
[Shawn] I don't wanna talk about that.
You knew. You knew what you were selling
was gonna kill someone.
Who do you think you are?
How much do I make? How much do you make?
I didn't think about it.
- Why not?
- I don't know, I was a kid.
- I just wanted money.
- Money? Sure.
But how did you make peace
with what you were doing?
Are you serious now?
Shit.
On some level, you knew
that when you handed them that bag,
someone was gonna be killed.
- This is crack cocaine.
- [woman] Crack abuse.
- A national epidemic.
- I didn't kill anyone.
[Edie] You sold to Mom.
Mom was a crackhead
before I knew what that was.
[Bush]
It's as innocent looking as candy
but it's turning our cities
into battle zones.
You think that kid is who I am now?
That's not me.
[Edie] That is you.
And until you take responsibility
- [Shawn] What you think I'm doing in here?
- No idea.
- [Shawn] I write you letters.
- [Edie] Goodbye.
[Shawn] One day, you have to look past
my mistakes. You really gonna blame me?
[man] We have to look comprehensively
at what's happening in our nation
and our cities as it relates to crime,
violence, and drugs.
Who put the rocks in my hand?
Who gave it to them? Who made the money?
Police knew, nobody tried to stop it.
The mayor knew, everybody knew.
- You blame a teenager?
- [Edie] Doesn't make you an innocent.
- It makes you stupid.
- Fuck you.
[reporter 1 on TV] There are some
16,000 known drug addicts in Washington,
250 of them dying each year from overdose.
A friend of mine works at the morgue,
and it's a veritable conveyor belt.
[reporter 2] Because of crack cocaine,
Blacks are being killed
and losing their families and property
in a way that,
were it done by any other
than Black people themselves,
could be called genocide.
The police can't cope,
the jails are overflowing.
It's fair to say many of the ordinary,
decent people of the inner-city
are now living in terror
- Fuck!
- and don't know where to turn.
This is gassed up, Richard.
- Okay.
- Okay?
Okay, because this is not lithium
or Valium or Percocet or Xanax.
This is This is another level.
Okay? This
This OxyContin,
this is some real big boy shit.
[smoke detector beeps]
And I could see it, and I could see it,
and I could see it.
And as I recognized patterns
in all that data,
in all those graphs and numbers,
I realized I had seen this before.
- [John] What is it?
- We need to talk.
If you want to fire me,
you can after 45 seconds.
- But you need to see this.
- Jesus, hell.
- This is a crime rate of 32 percent.
- [reporter 1] 156 arrests this year.
Unemployment.
[reporter 2]
plans to lay off 14,000 employees
at plants throughout the country.
[reporter 3] OxyContin, or Oxy
as it's called, is suddenly the rage.
[Edie] Overdoses.
[reporter 4] More and more patients
overdosing on OxyContin.
[Edie] Home break-ins.
[reporter 5] With a string of robberies
in the past few weeks.
[reporter 6]
It's the fastest growing drug in America.
- Grand theft auto.
- [reporter 7] 212 cars were recovered.
[reporter 8] OxyContin has become
one of America's top pain prescriptions.
Disability, insurance claims,
all on the same escalating arc.
Are you follow? Don't touch that.
- [John] Okay.
- [Edie] You following me?
- I think so.
- Now, you see this?
OxyContin sales.
[reporter 9] OxyContin has been
a multi-billion dollar product for Purdue.
[Edie] All in the state of Virginia,
and I am sure it's happening
all over the other 49.
This
is Compton, Los Angeles, 1985,
the rise of crack cocaine.
Newark, the neighborhood I grew up in,
in Washington, D.C.
It is identical to where we are today.
I had lived it, we had lived it.
This was crack cocaine all over again,
maybe even worse.
[Arthur] I don't like it.
- It's okay.
- I don't like it.
It's okay.
[sniffling]
This is where we are.
Okay?
This is where we are going.
We are on the verge of an epidemic.
Yes. Yeah.
Yeah.
["I Put a Spell On You" playing]
[tires screeching]
[dog whimpering]
Stop the things you do ♪
Watch out, I ain't lyin' ♪
Edie, I'm an attorney.
I can't prosecute an epidemic.
So who am I supposed to go after?
I can't stand no runnin' around ♪
I can't stand no puttin' me down ♪
Let's go!
[car horn honking]
I put a spell on you ♪
[squeaks]
Because you're mine ♪
What the hell is this?
[Fitzgibbons] Jess!
Jess.
Hey! Jess!
Jess, you're cold, baby. Jess!
Jess!
Purdue fucking Pharma.
I love you ♪
I love you ♪
I love you, yeah ♪
[Fitzgibbons] I just Jesus. Oh, my God.
[exclaims]
Call 911, Mary!
Purdue fucking Pharma?
You're goddamn right.
[sighs]
Because you're mine ♪
[tense music playing]