well. no 1st to. point your thirst for action. wow not walk to the street. to campaign. wound i walked straight. back. to st joseph. st. jude.

oklahoma in the heart of america one of the most deeply afflicted states in the opioids addiction crisis oklahoma might change the course of history. for the 1st time in the united states a doctor will be sued by the state for 2nd degree murder for over prescribing opioids here's the accused that to reconnect calls. a family doctor for over 22 years she is now suspected of being a prescription murderer. the judge has to ascertain if there is enough material to go to trial. the plaintiffs in the room have lost a child a brother a friend from an opioid overdose. dr nichols was their doctor she was the one prescribing the drugs.

let him serve unbox i'm an attorney in oklahoma city i practice cripple defense i've got a police officer and i've been a prosecutor and i've been a judge i've been here all my life born and raised in oklahoma. the right the hard to the oil production we're right on the edge of we're cowboys are that and so we've got a lot of people in here that are hard working people and it's a pretty peaceful city as far as that goes. in box knows these roads inside out and he's on 1st name terms with the local people all his career he's defended this community but today the clients have changed before i was having people from more the poverty level and i have people all walks of life i have lawyers i have doctors children of the addicted to the opiates now it's every level in every area of life

is for is for the low income high and. all of what effected by the opiate use. he represents several families from this town everyone has lost a relative deceased if a cardiac arrest following a painkiller overdose drugs prescribed by dr nicholas. that's enough it really is this and. this oklahoma city lawyer has never seen a case like this and you victim wants to press charges. to come in and see you can see you. have a seat and that marshall has been raising her 2 children alone since her husband died of a painkiller overdose my math shows that's 99 per day that she would prescribe you and i passed away about my 2nd major win in 20122012. he was

a fireman she works as an education counselor a regular family all it took was back surgery to turn everything over in a few months her husband became addicted to the painkillers prescribed by dr nichols of course once you have that surgery it's never quite the same and then they get some other treatment and he had you know some other issues with just on the judge just injuries it from being to having such a physical job and i think it just snowballed you know he persisted with the pain but instead of trying to wean him off though she did. after dose after dose after dose and really became his drug dealer. more drugs than the regular drug dealers of the street would prescribe but she's doing it in the name of medicine. according to her doctor nicholas which swiftly see patients without any physical exam a few dollars for a prescription her husband would have been prescribed $100.00 pills a day $3000.00

a month the doctor should have been the response well course and they're trying to nuts with their job is is to make sure they're treating you in a healthy manner and they're doing what's best for you and not what's going to bring harm to you. it happens to just your next door neighbor to your uncle miltie firefighters here come a city police officer to your school teacher to your you know it's a it's not a it's not a disease that is specific it could hit anybody. how come opioids indeed in america pain has become a market and the idea of not suffering even likely if they get into stores that look like fast food anyone can shop for pain killers physical or psychological a painkiller exists for almost any reason. imagine facing the day with less crime.

osteoarthritis pain. imagine living your life with less chronic low back pain. imagined with less pain. amongst the pain killers on prescriptions. usually prescribed for back aches or headaches 2000000 americans are addicted to these for a reason that most ignore their opium based. i'm jason be minute and i am the chair of psychiatry at oklahoma state university's center for health sciences our oath is essentially 1st do no harm and i think that that's one of the biggest problems is that doctors don't realize that by prescribe opioids that they could doing more harm than good and we've seen that in a lot a lot of cases what would they originally prescribe for well historically the uses been for what we call cancer pain cancer does a lot of horrible things are body and can cause a lot of pain nowadays it's used for

a lot of different things these pills hydrocodone. are found to know all of the drugs that are legally sold on the market share the same component a powerful narcotic heroin and sometimes they are a 1000 times more concentrated. the opioid compound comes from a plant called the opium poppy and these plants are really grown mostly in asia and then they're imported by drug companies into the united states but what we do with the pills is we take the good parts of the flour that you would smoke and we concentrate them in a little pill. and so the pills are much more potent than smoking ever was but in the united states we outlawed the smoking of opium. in the early 1900 if you get

a 3 day per scription there's a 13 percent chance that you'll be taking those opioids a year later so whether it's a few prescriptions or a few pills it's a very small amount that it takes to get addicted. to the left a lethal dosage of heroin to the right it's a quick glimpse onto opium southfields. today you did something for your pain talk to your doctor. to be able to not feel pain has become a tacit agreement between doctor and patient that it what price these drugs a ticking bombs who is aware of that fact did dr nichols know. a wrongful death lawsuit was filed today against

a midwest city dr ragan nichols is already kids are prescribing a massive amount of opioids to 5 patients who later died when i heard that there was 4 other deaths that's a. good thing the midwest city duckie dr paul astronaut 3000000 jobs davis i'm just really not a clinician. raising this middle age and stuff. i was very happy she got to rest in our washington studios that i don't know where it was said because this is from your. heart i didn't know any sort of net i met a man why america should certainly met a marriage to. a met. you. mean these are innate he has spent her entire life in this house this is where the . to chelsea was born 21 years ago hear also that she passed away as

a painkiller overdose in 2013 their story is one of an analgesic burden family hiding in the secret and shame with addiction. she said for back surgeries dr nichols was liza's doctor for 7 years she was the 1st to fall into the opioids trap when i 1st started seeing her i thought she was going to be ok and she was giving me pain medicine to help my back but as the years go by course your body gets used to that medicine so that it doesn't work you know you used to could take one pain pill and now you're having to take 2 or 3 pain pills because the pain is so bad so it just increased and it's just a vicious cycle because you know you've got to have the medicine but you know you don't want to have to take that much medicine. but you can't i could work and do my job to fight didn't have

a mess. lisa had her own addiction what she didn't know is that her daughter was doing the same thing for 3 years chelsea had diabetes which causes muscular pains it was her turn to consult with dr nichols. and i asked her about the quantity of medicine she was given her and her response to me was chelsea was an adult that she could talk to me about chelsea's medical but she could talk to me about chelsea's diabetes but she wouldn't talk to me about. the medication that she was i did trust her maybe money feeder to do it. maybe just that the love of money maybe that's where because i know that when she chose to be a doctor i had on it and she chose to want to help people. is

you'll be a reflection of reality. in the world transformed. what will make you feel safe. tyson nation focused need to change. are you going the right way or are you being led. direct. what is true what is faith. in the world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the depths. or remain in the shallowness of.

the world is driven by shaped by the curse of those great. dares thinks. we. dare to ask. so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy for indication let it be an arms race is often very dramatic development only really i'm going to resist i don't see how that strategy will be successful very high time

to sit down and talk. and we met dr nichols almost a year ago i think she has a very good heart she wants to help people maybe a little awkward but she's got a really sweet heart my name's tommy adler i'm in a criminal defense attorney here in oklahoma city we represent dr ragan nichols or really like her very much. doctors lose patients all the time. to accuse a doctor of. acting in reckless disregard for her patients when we believe that she was genuinely attempting to care for them. is a big step for the government that's a. that exposes doctors to a lot of risk newsgroup troubled people these patients were abusing the things that they had access to. it wasn't the amounts that dr nichols prescribed these people

that killed them it was the amounts that they decided to take. her line of defense is set to shift away the shadow of responsibilities dr nichols was an irreproachable professional who was duped by drug addicts and she never had any awareness that her patients were facing any danger whatsoever nowadays in oklahoma city addiction can be seen at every corner. i think america got here because we are the most medicated country in the world got a new client we are a country out of that it's a fast food quick fix is now now i now feel bad here's a pill her here's a pill tell disfunction here's a pill all of those things are right there at

a doctor's pay but we pay is good painter minds us that we're alive. he went to the center as a patient since then he's become the head of the facility in order to save others like himself everyone here has to learn to live without pain killers this private ranches 30 places a year it receives 40 requests a day at 21 years old kyle is in rehab for the 1st time to. sub brother. i'm good cool cool man i feel and. i gotcha. you stay clean. you're ready alright ron. put your mom in here and we'll good will get everything started. right after you guys. are all. has been to college and he's the father of

a little boy. but 4 years ago he became addicted to opioids and then heroin. writes opiates heroin and oxycontin. anything else and now ok and this is the 1st treatment on right it's all right are you feeling very emotional i actually. he motioned for everybody she's waiting for her boy to come back. it's going to take kalb out 30 days for you to really begin to see a change. this is life and death man there's only 3 ways out of this which is get sober which is what i pray for you on the 2nd one is is prison if you're lucky 3rd one is the buried. i don't know how else to say it but

a memory and i can't do the same or as. our own so much that i would rather not see. them who are more at this moment i don't know. really would be out of you who are. who. are all good here. kyle has 90 days to learn to live without opioids. how it feels to war like my body is a a lot of. my thought process it's slow. and just about a lot of anger and not a lot of saturn notions in the is just

a kid keep my lotions in one place. you know on top of. her i just are of the little bit. one of our friends and it's for all of us for us and. after that. we in our friends kind of stuck together and. we're doing these pills it was just blocking out so much pain or so stressed out. fighting back tears every day i think that's hard i'm thinking it was just blocking out that pain. and we feel good it they forget it. actually helps me out with a lot of things depend on it. i was that was my girl you know that as

well and then. just this last year like too many tell me about things of loss for family and that wasn't enough that wasn't enough to write or change. mentally in my head i've gotten close to suicide and. you know these pills are creating monsters and i don't think that they should be legal. just like tobacco addiction the dangers of opioids have been hidden it is taken 20 years for the government to take action for financial reasons.

in my office while the lawsuit against purdue pharma. knowledge and so full on and janssen pharmaceuticals. in putting this lawsuit together. we believe these companies are culpable for the tragic heartbreaking number of oklahomans who have become addicted or who have died as a result of the opioid up in. amec in our state. he's the oklahoma attorney general and the 1st one in his country to go to battle. my counter is publicly accusing pharmaceutical companies of having caused this epidemic. he wanted to prove that he and his team have been investigating for more than a year. yes my name is regina whitten i'm an attorney here in oklahoma city

and my time is model burrage i am my lawyer in oklahoma. carol hunter hired my law firm whitman burrage to represent the state of oklahoma and try to recoup all of the costs that the state has incurred because of the opioid epidemic we need this person this is a. case. and. i think we're going to be able to prove that 80 percent of all the crime in the state of oklahoma is directly caused by this opioid epidemic and our prisons are over feel because of that loss of productivity of taxpaying citizens costs the state money but i'm anxious to get this 1st this 1st battle started.

what they did to this country. is for. their estimates bring the cost of the epidemic to $7000000000.00 in oklahoma. this is storm cool hearing will take place in a few days. today reggie which will explain his motivations to a group of students that this struggle is a personal one. partner a gene has been involved in the opioid addiction the opioid crosses ever since the death his son brian and i had a nice that also related to drugs and so when the attorney general talked about representing the state. in this case. i think he knew that we both had family members and because of the epidemic.

we're going to talk to incoming freshman athletes at the university of oklahoma i'm going to tell on. the story about my son brandon and that the power of addiction and how dangerous it is and maybe. save somebody's life. i think i got a chance to shake almost everybody's hand when you came in i was trying to figure out what sport you are it's hard to guess every sport from your you know your size but thank you guys for coming. so let me introduce you to my co speaker tonight this is brandon. and moran is not here today and i'll tell you why later this is me when i was at o. u.

and i had this young son and also when i had more hair. brown was a cute little kid brand his plan was to go to college and play football which he did. he ended up playing on the national championship football team never got in any kind of trouble in the drug that brought him down as an opioid and it did not come from the streets it came from a pharmacy i just told him stop using those pills and i found out it's not that easy i found out it's like telling a diabetic to use more willpower and stop needing insulin you can't do that that's crazy. i never told him about addiction i never warned him. and so now i i have survivor guilt now but i'm living with it so i started a foundation called fighting addiction through education because i think education

is the key to this problem when i tell this story at schools it gets so quiet you could hear a pin drop. and they're not really interested in me they're interested in brandon they i show pictures of him he was one of them he's just ordinary kid and if an ordinary kid like brandon can end up getting hooked they could and that is the truth these pills the big pharma sells. they're essentially heroin pills most people don't know that but these opioids are essentially the same this here that's the key telling patients that they're not addictive that's the killer literally please thank you guys for being a good audience and i'm hoping some of the information i've shared with you today. might help you in a good. son

never managed to quit. there is someone responsible for his misery. pharmaceutical. international memorial awards i'm now open for entries. media professionals are eligible whether you are a freelance journalist work for alternative media or part of a global news platform to participate in the show published works in video or written for much go to award dot altie dot com and then to now.

know what's a clip of she will no use to you. but the way it's always at the k. it was a. moment. but not something you didn't see immediately . they can put us in the mood at the connected up by the smithsonian brushing teeth if they look at france which can do that at the day i. see they have a catholic yes lot. if yes fuck. ya. you cannot be vulgar with yeah you know what.

and in 1996 something happened different a company called purdue pharmaceuticals came out with a drug called oxycontin and they started a mere and falsely promoted that opioids were rarely addict maybe only one percent of the time could you get addicted to no. that was not true. and it is not true and never was true that was a false statement and the other companies jumped on the bandwagon of making money and the false lies spread and the false marketing spread that they are guilty of why about these tricks they cause this step i believe with every fiber of mud being. back in 1906 the 1st promotional at campaign for and it was broadcasted we found it.

we doctors were wrong in thinking that opioids can't be used long term they can be and they should be we used to think they'd stop working all the patients would become addicts or they'd be sedated interconnectivity these 6 cases show how wrong those views were. in this little film the public was assured with certification that content would show no risk of addiction despite its high concentration in opium to make it believable a real doctor and real patients bear witness they all confirm that this treatment usually reserved for patients in the terminal phase of cancer can be used without any danger for common pain. thank you.