the guns need money. the only money in these mountains is ok. drug trafficking, politics, some power, the era of empires on these people have no way to go. there was forced out of their neighborhoods because of the fighting going on between rival gang, what he's offering. nothing's been about special forces where to for the special forces this area used to be filled with people. but as you can see right now, it looks like a war zone. this is the largest hospital in haiti and it has been barely working for the past 5 months in missouri fit or the barbecue has created what is known as the g 9. it's a federation of dance and it's one of the most powerful here. these rules connect the communal fit to be with an other area that is not far away and were told that it was being used by against the people that had been kidnapped. the

kind of them or kyle. and though how these are the top stories on al jazeera, at least 18 people have been killed in cots, him and some of the heaviest fighting since the conflict began. reports of explosions, heavy guns and ground bottles in the capital and other cities. meanwhile, adult to the association in saddam's, west and down full region says 1000 civilians have been killed since the middle of april, all thousands of people afflicting the violence, the escaping into neighboring chad. same bus for avi has more. this is a place where 8 organizations are poised to try to deal with this enormous humanitarian catastrophe. that our, by our day by day just keeps getting worse. we've been speaking to refugees that have been pouring in from west star for we can surmise from the uptake of people that have been coming in, that there has been

a low in the fighting that is allowed for people to try to get out. ukrainian officials have given more details about games they claim, since the stalls of a counter offensive against russia gave says it is one back, 3 villages in the eastern region of done that and advance 1.5 kilometers on the southern front. you an atomic watchdog says it's concerned a discrepancy in water levels following the destruction of the car called could um, could affect the pumps. zap reach a nuclear power plant, the head of the instructional atomic energy agency. raphael grossey is planning to inspect the ukrainian palm. this week, also ortiz in northeast and philippines have put more villages on and evacuation. watch as fe is great of a major volcanic eruption now. my own began spewing gas and rocks earlier in the week. lava is now slowing down its slope, and this is an indication, of course, that there is increasing activity in the volcano,

but apart from just the lava flow, there have also been more wrongful events. so in the past 24 hours, state bulk and ologist were able to record about $260.00 rockville events. compare that to the previous 24 hour period. there were $177.00 rockville events or the you as planning to offer to new c, a $1700000000.00 in a to boost its economy and help reduce the number of migrants crossing the mediterranean sea and out to them was made during a visit by the needs of its leave, the netherlands um the european commission springs and we will support you need yet to string some economy european commission is considering macro financial assistance as soon as the necessary or agreement is found. and we are ready to mobilize up to 900000000 euros for this purpose of macro financial assistance.

as an immediate step, we could provide an additional up to $150000000.00 euros in budget support. right now, a sweden base bank tank has reported some uptake and the number of usable nuclear warheads amongst the walls, talk a comic powers, particularly china. this don't come in special piece. research institute says there are now more the 9 the half 1000 usable nuclear weapons, 90 percent of them, owned by the us and russia. they james stoke file has risen from 350 to 410 will heads. india, pakistan, and north korea also groove as it looks as if china may add more nuclear warheads about the same pace as it is now or a little bit more um for the coming year. is that uh that has been satellite evidence of quite

a considerable program of building of missile silos. so i would estimate the approximate for you that it might have a 1000 nuclear warheads. uh, by some points in the 20 searches to send and vision as the community members have held, as certainly in bulk as off of thank rescue is who's on for children alive? 40 days onto a plane crash and colombia is jungle siblings age between 12 months and 13 years, remain in the hospital. you have right now with all the headlines. i'll be back with another update of the bottom line. the hi, i'm steve clements and i have a question. can america's drug abuse epidemic which kills more than a $100000.00 people each year?

be traced. the one family of billionaires. let's get to the bottom line. the, by the time the sho, in spite of americans will have died from a drug overdose by the end of this day. and every day, the number is going to be about 300. it's one of the country's top killers, more than guns, more than car accidents, and more than suicides. and it's everywhere from past suburbs to farm country. for decades, survivors of addiction and relatives of victims have been trying to hold one company to account for do pharma. that company privately owned by a 1000000000 or family, the satler's has been in the pain killer business for decades. but when they released the powerful drug in the 19 ninety's oxycontin, drug abuse skyrocketed along with produced profits for years. government prosecutors tried to soothe the sackler to pay for the damage to communities in states across the country. just recently, a settlement was just reached, where the family will pay $6000000000.00 in return for immunity from any future

opioid lawsuits. but will it help or is america beyond fixing when it comes to this deep decline into drug addiction? today we're speaking with barry meyer, a former journalist with the new york times, who was among the 1st to cover the open weight academic, his book, pain killer, an empire of the seat. and the origin of america's epidemic is being turned into a netflix drama that comes out this august. very, thank you so much for joining us. i have been reading you and your chronicle of this horrible story for decades. i think you began writing about what was going on almost 25 years ago if i'm right. and i'm just interested in how you were turned on so quickly to the impact of what is become just a national, horrible epidemic. well, 1st of all, steve, us, thanks very much for having me on. and uh yes, uh you make me feel like an old man, which i am because it was almost uh 22 years ago 23

years ago that i got a tip from an editor to the times who, who came up to me one day and said that a pharmacy regulator in the midwest and called him and told him that there was this hot new drug on the street. and, and what was remarkable about, it was that the sales representatives of people promoting the drug to doctors and pharmacists were going around and telling them that this pain killer, which was called oxycontin, was designed in a way where it wouldn't be abused. it was much less prone to abuse that an existing pain killers. and that started the trail. i mean, initially a colleague and i started making phone calls to druggist and law enforcement officials. and basically, i think it was in early 2001 we published at the times, our 1st story about this new drug that was being promoted as a wonder drug,

but was in fact becoming the hottest drug of abuse on the street. and from there, uh, it just became a trail that i followed and followed and followed. i'm wondering what went wrong was what was the government fail industries? we're all talking about. the sac was getting immunity for $6000000000.00. and by the way, folks are going to remain very rich still wanted the government allowed to happen as well. you know, it's david, this is sort of uh, an example where there is not one simple answer because it was a failure on so many different levels by so many different people of both oversight and regulation and an honest mistakes also. i mean i, i think it's important to realize that, you know, oxycontin is a drug that has very useful purpose, is, you know, it was you, it's can be used for cancer treatment for treatment of end of life,

pain or terrible chronic existing pain. so it's a valuable drug, but what the, if the a did and what was a unique and and mind blowing mistake was approved a, uh, authorized a recommendation or a suggestion that oxycontin because it had the special time release formulation to it could be used to treat basically any kinds of pain and this became likely golden ticket for purdue to start marketing. doing this for all kinds of pain back pain, dental pain, sports injuries, you name it. and so this drugs see didn't to serve the bread basket of american medicine and was prescribed and prescribed in over prescribed and quickly made its way out onto the street. the other issue that was going on at the same time

was that there was this philosophical idea in the united states that was being promoted to promote at, excuse me, by purdue. and others, that pain was being under treatment that people were, were being allowed to suffer needlessly. and while that was true in a limited number of cases, and this became part of the drumbeat, if you will, for purdue, to convince doctors that they should be prescribing this drug more aggressively. what is the, the eco system of, of drug prescriptions and i'm not going to mention the doctor, but i remember 20 years ago when i would visit the doctor and have you know, and nasal infection have something as the doctor would reach into a bag of some stuff, the pharmacy you know, or the drug companies have given them and literally drop in my hands a bunch of like samples and just say take these home. and i,

if that time had not read about purdue and how it, it basically innovated a very new drug distribution or at least drug test out system to, to a pharmacist and doctors around the country. but can you share with our, our viewers what the innovations were that purdue brought to the distribution of this drug as well? you know, it sort of traces back to one of those things like that. almost fascinating. when i was researching the book and, and researching the story, and that was there were 3 sackler brothers and, and the sort of the c on of the family if you will, was arthur sackler. and in the late 19 fifties, early sixties arthur sackler created something that hadn't existed before, which was basically the advertising of prescription drugs to pharmacists and the use of sales representatives to go out and basically market drugs to pharmacists.

and then the recruiting of dr. it's who were then being paid to market drugs to market the same drugs, to their colleagues. so he essentially created this eco system that we live in today, where there is ever, you know, account for every ill and were confronted by these advertisements. everywhere we look, magazines, television, you name it, and prior to the advent of oxycontin, these kind of uh, massive advertising campaigns were reserved for, you know, kind of common place medicines, you know, like you were a fever medicine or a heart medicine or something like that. but oxycontin became the 1st case where the techniques that were used to promote kind of every day drugs were used to promote was what was arguably the most pre potentially addictive

medication sold in the marketplace. i just want to show you a chart, barry for a minute to our audience of national drug involved overdosed depths between 1999 and this is to 2021. so i imagine the numbers may have increased, particularly during the code period. now into 2023, so you have more than a 5 fold increase in the depth related that's how i mean i, i get and it's a steady, steady, steady rise. i'm just interested because you cover this so well. and i remember reading your new york times pieces and did america wake up at any certain point and say, wow, something really bad is going on, or did we just sorta take it on? i mean i, i'm just interested when did the alarms and you know, folks with hair on fire begin to understand that this was a serious issue. tragically, it didn't happen for very, very, very long time. uh, you know, i can remember back in the beginning when there were yeah,

tens of thousands of overdose deaths being shocked by this and expecting that you know, lawmakers and regulators and, and the government itself would crack down and try to do something about this problem in fact they didn't uh were no, the great travesties took place in 2007 when the justice department has brought a criminal case against produce the farmer and 3 of its top executives. but rather than a sending them to prison, which the local prosecutors actually wanted to do. so they got their legs cut off from underneath them by the justice department, higher ups of political appointees who insisted that while you couldn't, you couldn't send the white color executive to prison. and as a result of that, it became a green light for every other drug company selling opioids to flood rural america.

middle america, with tens of thousands of these pain pills. and then later on in that chart that you were alluding to, while the overdose test from prescription medications, legal medications began to plateau. you had the introduction of a listed forms of fentanyl and other powerful o b words that were even more deadly. and that has accounted for this continuing rise over the past decade, nearly an overdose debt. so, i mean, i think the, the, the mix of dis, between overdose deaths, from prescription drugs and overdose desk from elicit drugs has changed to where now the majority are coming from a elicit forms of, of fence and on other types of counterfeit drugs. you mentioned fentanyl, barry,

what was the oxy conser with the pathway to fentanyl? which is i guess different because that's not something is being distributed as far as i know by major drug companies. but, you know, do you see a logical link between them and just love your insights and how do you unplug it as well? i mean, you know, the, it's, i think it is fair to say, you know, i'm not the one, the only one who has said that, you know, the government has sort of set an end reports that, that the overall marketing of the legal marketing of oxy contents planned to the see that sort of became the spring board to this growing up your crisis within the united states. at a certain point, however, the mixture changes the, the, the people change the, the people seeking these drugs start seeking other drugs. when there are restrictions placed on the availability of prescription drugs. a they can

migrate to illegal drugs and back and forth, depending on, on what the prevailing legal essex are and what the supply of these drugs are. so it's a complicated situation. i mean, you can't take 2 days, drugs situation and say, well, purdue, you're responsible for all these depths because i think we have to realize that tend to know legal. fentanyl is killing americans in a way that is horrifying. and, and we have to take steps beyond the simple political back and forth about what is happening on the southern border. right. tell us a little bit about the family, the sackler family behind this, you know, reading your book kind of intel ard it's, i'm not surprised at all that netflix is making a,

a doc you drama out of out of your book. it reads a little bit like succession, the show succession. that's hbo. but you've got the sense of this powerful family differences in disputes within the family. they were a power family. uh, funding some major charities around around the nation. i just love to kind of here where this presence and they are billions of dollars when over the lines of what i would call insidiousness. it's just that you're right, steve is the family is fascinating. and one of the pleasures, although one might say it was a perverse pleasure, was learning about his family learning about how this family evolved into the powers they became. and also the extraordinary secretive nature of this family. how they never stepped out from the shadows, unlike the family in succession,

who seemed to know phrase the limelight. the sacrilege were very different. they hid, they hid behind failing, ses lawyers and public relations officials. and what they wanted to be known for was not making money off of drugs or potentially addicting drugs, but for using their wells to in dow museums, medical schools and put the sackler name up in bright lights. you know, i grew up in, in new york, i'm a new york kid and i can remember going to the metropolitan museum of art many, many times to the secular ring because i, i loved archaeology and i, i went there to see the exhibits of the temple of den door, and when i was reaching a researching, asked, you know, pain killer. i came across the fact that arthur sackler had financed all

all of this. and then his memorial service was held in at that facility by the temple of den door. and to me, that spoke volumes of, you know, how the powerful, how the rich can hold public perceptions of their personalities by uh, by throwing money around by buying their, you know, putting their names on different places. and, and what was extraordinary as well is again in watching the archives the story play out was how this all came apart. and it didn't really come a part because of my work or the work of other journalist. it came a part for the sac lawyers in terms of their public reputation. when

a photographer named golden launched a campaign against it and began to hold demonstrations at all. the major museums were, the sackler name appeared and basically said, i will not exhibit in this museum if you continue to accept money from the satler's and she hit them in the place where they lived. and the results for the families name were devastating as a result. well, there has been this lawsuit by attorneys general of 9 states suing the sackler family doing the interest behind oxycontin in this opi would epidemic. and now we have a settlement $6000000000.00 a significant amount of money. do you think justice has been served? what's accomplished in this lawsuit, which now gives the family immunity for many for the lawsuits?

well, i think when we think about justice as a concept was how i think about it is that people who commit crimes go to jail or face um repercussions for their crimes. and i'm not saying the faculties committed crimes, but well, i will say is that no one associated with purdue pharma. being an executive, a sales rep, never, an owner has spent a day in jail. so this settlement is not about justice. it's about a transfer of wealth and there is some virtues to be had through that transfer over the world, which include the payment for drug, a drug addiction treatment services,

and other steps that hopefully will ameliorate the drug abuse problem as it exists now in the united states, but the entire concept i find establishing because essentially what the courts have said and, and now a firm recently is that if you are so well, see that you can essentially pay for protection against future lawsuits by contributing to a bankruptcy proceeding. that's fine. as far as the courts are concerned, but i think what it kind of, shockingly does, is establish a 2 tiered system of justice,

fairness of equity, that most people will never be able to take advantage of it because they're not going to have $6000000000.00 lying around to exchange for protection, you spoke to so many people who slipped from pain killers to addiction, to abuse to overdose, the real people. and i guess i just want to hear from you what we should know about the people that are on the other end of this that suffer. they see this settlement that has happened. but as we look at these problems, we look forward what we, what should we be thinking about these, these victims of this terrible situation? you know, there are two's quite 2 sets of people to patients if you will. and that are in the story one or the people who suffer from pain, who need to be treated one or the other group or the people to become addicted to

these drugs either through being prescribed them for addiction to pain or through recreational use. and we need to recognize that this is not a group of good guys or bad guys. these are people who are both suffering from illnesses. there are different types of illnesses that need to be treated as illnesses. and we need to see them all with compassion. and come up with solutions that one provide treatment for patients and pains without risking addiction and provide treatment for people become addicted. so they don't so their lives don't spiral down further and their lives can be reclaimed in a productive way. very just real quick,

tell us about the netflix doc. you drama. that's the next step for your storytelling of, you know, one of the rate horrible errors in american history will tell us what it's like, who's, you know, who's, who's getting the, the roles and, and, and are you happy with the direction is going, what will we learn and uh, so the, the stars are matthew broderick, who plays richard sackler, who was kind of the head of purdue pharma. when oxycontin was being marketed. and whose old buddha, who plays a composite in an imaginary character who becomes sort of the investigator who own covers the crimes and that she's working for the government. and it's about her relationships with other people in the government. i have had an opportunity to see the final cut to the series. it's a 6 part episode 6,

part series. each episode is about an hour or so and i liked it. and more importantly, my wife is perfectly for enough about the story and doesn't want to hear me talk about it any more. i was engrossed by it. it's different. it's different from what i expected to be. it sort of takes the story to another level. and i'm going to be very interested to see how people react to it . thank you so much for your candor, for your work, for your many decades of focus on this on this terrible plight. so very meyer author of pain killers, soon to be a netflix doc, you drama on america's opioid epidemic. thank you so much for being with us. thank you steve. i really appreciate it. so, what's the bottom line? drug and alcohol abuse is not just an american problem, but the sheer scale of america's drug addiction story is just huge. besides,

the millions of lives lost in families ruined the cost of the us economy is now in the hundreds of billions of dollars every year. but the problem is not just the sackler is or purdue pharma, despite the disgraceful place they now hold in modern us history. as we saw on the trial, the whole chain is broken. drug company, executives, doctors, pharmacist, lawmakers, the police and pain patients, drug abusers and kids. just looking for a thrill. there's no way to fix all of that easily add to the mix, america's health care system, where some insurance companies would rather just pay for a pill to ease your pain, then go through the time and expense of actually fixing you. and you have a truly toxic cocktail. that's why there are no science. america is putting a lid on its own. you would have to demick any time soon. and that sadly is the bottom line, the

african narrative from african perspectives. teachers check to keep pushing because no one else can see the visions, kids youtube, to short documentary, find african filmmakers from ivory coast and the sea turtle god. and adam may in zambia, new series of africa, direct on algae 0. we don't simply focus on the politics of the conflict. it's the consequence of war, the human suffering definitely the 4th time. it is one of the most serious spouts of violence. in recent years, we brave bullets involved because we give voice to those demanding freedom. the rule of law and we always include the views from all sides. the .