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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. describing the trucks.

in box 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. provide the hard to the oil production we're right on the edge of we're cowboys are there 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. 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 people all walks of life i have lawyers i have doctors children

who have become 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 affected by the opiate use. he represents several families from this town everyone has lost a relative deceased of a cardiac arrest following a painkiller overdose drugs prescribed by dr nicholas. tough enough it really is this and. this oklahoma city lawyer has never seen a case like this and you victim wants to press charges. come in you can see i'm going to 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 him and he passed away and got my 2nd. well in 20122012. he was

a fireman she works 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 got to nichols of course once you have that surgery it's never quite the same and then they get some other treatment anyhow and you know it's a matter 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 those 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 would 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 trained and that's what 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 call 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 invaded america pain has become a market and the idea of not suffering even likely is a good thing in drug 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 chronic

osteoarthritis pain. imagine living your life with less chronic low back pain. imagine with less pain and amongst the pain killers on prescriptions are the opioids usually prescribed for back aches or headaches 2000000 americans are addicted to these pills 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 were they originally prescribed for well historically the uses been for what we call cancer pain cancer does

a lot of horrible things to your body and can cause a lot of pain nowadays it's used for a lot of different things these pills a cool hydrocodone. the content. 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 there are 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 a 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 script 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 to opium samples. to date you know 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 are ticking bombs. who's aware of that fact did dr nichols know.

a wrongful death lawsuit was filed today against midwest city dr ragan nichols is already accused are prescribing a massive amount of opioids to 5 patients who later died when i heard that there was 4 other deaths then i said oh goody being a midwest city documentary i'm homeless tonight 3000000 joes davis i'm just reading and listening to the raising as many times and stuff and he. was very happy she got a rest question on t.v. oh very happy that it went on there or it was said was this is from 3 doctors i mean did she harm i didn't know any term that i met a man why america should surrender our men and manage to. a met. you. mean these are navy have spent their entire life in this house this is where

their daughter chelsea was born 21 years ago here 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's headed 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 take one pain you know and now you're having to say 2 or 3 pain pills because the pain is so bad. so it just increase 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 if i didn't have medicine. liza 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 that she wouldn't talk to me about. the medication that she was there i did trust her maybe money feeder to do it. maybe just to the love of money maybe get that to her because i know that when she chose to be a doctor i would bet on it that she chose to want to help people.

go to work some straight home. so wall. got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy. let it be an arms race is on all sides very dramatic development is only going to disease i

don't see how that strategy will be successful very critical time 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 i really like her very much. doctors lose patients all the time. to accuse a doctor of overacting and 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 say. that exposes doctors to a lot of risk 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 over that it's a fast food quick fix is now now and now you feel bad here's a pill her here's a pill tell this function here's a pill all of those things are right there at a doctor's pad but wayne is a good painter minds that were 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 to dora. i'm good cool cool man i feel and. i gotcha. us stay clean. you're ready alright ran. or did

your moment here and then we'll good will get everything started. right after you guys. carl. 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 time right all right are you feeling very emotional i actually. he motioned for everybody she's waiting for her boy. come back. it's going to take cal ballard 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 near bury. i don't know how else to say it but i'm right and i can't do the same room or as. our own so much that i would rather not see. them who are or at this moment i don't know i. really would be out of the view. are all good care about. kyle has 90 days to learn to live without opioids. and how it feels a war like love my body is

a us law. my thought process it's slow. i just about a lot of anger and down a lot of sad emotions in the face just i can't keep my lotions in one place and you know on top of. her i just are of the battle. for our friends and for all of us for and. after that. we are friends kind of stuck together. we're doing these pills and it was just blocking out so much pain we were so stressed out and. fighting back tears every day i think that's how i wanted things it was just blocking out that pain.

and it made me feel good it they forget it they actually helped me out with a lot of things depend on it. i was. that was my girl you know that was my love and then. just this last year like too many too many bad things of loss for family and that wasn't enough wasn't enough to write room or change and mentally in my head by have gotten close to suicide. these pills are. a. little. just like tobacco addiction the dangers of opioids have been hidden it has taken 20 years for the government to take action for financial reasons.

in my office a lawsuit against purdue pharma. so long 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 epidemic in our state. he's the oklahoma attorney general and the 1st one in this country to go to battle. my counter is publicly accusing pharmaceutical companies of having caused this

epidemic. you don't have to prove it he and his team have been investigating for more than a year. on the turn here in oklahoma city. in my mind is model murray i am my lawyer in oklahoma. carol hunter hired my law firm whitman verged 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 is a. case. 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

overfilled 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 from. their estimates bring the cost of the epidemic to $7000000000.00 in oklahoma. this is story cool hearing will take place in a few days. today reggie which will explain his motivations to a group of students for this struggle is a personal one. partner has been involved in the opioid addiction the opioid crusts ever since the death of 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 that because of the epidemic. we're going to talk to the incoming freshman athletes at the university of oklahoma i'm going to tell on. a story about my son brandon and that's 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 saying 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 ran 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. ran i was a cute little kid brand his plan was to go to college and play football which he did. he ended up playing on a 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 and

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 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 hurt 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 heroin that's the key telling patients that they're not addictive that's the killer literally we

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 way. never manage to quit. is someone responsible for his misery. pharmaceutical.

you can't be both with the yeah you like. the world is driven by a dream shaped the past and present it especially. the bears thinks. we are here to ask.

54 jets and more than 1300 military personnel are headed to air force base in alaska where is that to say come on i'll show you what's the reason for any type of enhanced u.s. military presence in this area russia. what is it suddenly about the south china sea that makes it so that it 11000000000 barrels of oil. take a look at this map who really owns what kind of says no it belongs to us india says no we claim that that belongs to us both of these countries have nuclear weapons capabilities there is reason for concern so that's why we're going to drill down on the story for you today right here on the news with rick sanchez where you know as we always like to say we do believe. by golly it's time to do news again.

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 it ok. that was not true. and it is not true now and never was true that was a false statement and the other companies jumped on the bandwagon of making money in the false lies spread in the false marketing spread that they are guilty of while about these tricks they cause the step i believe that with every

fiber of my being. back in 1906 the 1st promotional campaign for an opioid was broadcasted we found that. we doctors were wrong in thinking that opioids can't be used long time 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 fears were. in this little film the public was assured with certification that oxycontin would show no risk of addiction despite its high concentration in opium to make it believable a real doctor and real patients' bill witness they all confirmed that this treatment usually reserved for patients in the terminal phase of cancer can be used without any danger for common pain.