there's things. we dare to ask. why not walk the streets. to campaign. wow not walk the streets. i can see. the street jobs. 66th street.

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 regan equals. 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 row have all lost a child a brother a friend from an opioid overdose. dr nichols was their doctor she was the one. scribing the trucks.

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. provided the hard the oil production we're right on the edge of we're cowboys are the 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 who's on 1st name terms with the local people all his career he's defended this community but today the confines 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 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 nichols. 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 you can 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 have prescribed 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 dr 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 another 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 go so 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 in 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 can 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 pain killer 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 is amongst the pain killers on prescriptions or 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 where 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. are found to know all 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 lived to opium samples. to date you know 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 a 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 that i sort of thing oh good evening the midwest city doc you doctor you know i'm homeless to 3000000 jobs davis i'm just reading and listening to the doctor raising as many times you can stuff and he. was very happy she got a rest question on t.v. oh very happy that that went on there for him said this this is from 3 doctors only did she harm i didn't know any term that i met a man why america should certain men and marriage to my daughter. a met. you. mean these are innate he has spent her 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 a back surgery dr nichols was liza's doctor for 7 years she was the 1st to fall into the 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 page bill and now you have to stay 2 or 3 pain pills because the pain is so bad . so it just increase it's just a vicious cycle because you know you 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. 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 time to consult with dr nichols. and i asked her about the quantity of medicine she was under 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 issues i did trust her maybe money feeder too or. maybe just to the love of money maybe give it 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.

multis khaled a hot tip international memorial awards are now open for entries. media professionals are eligible whether you're freelance journalist work for all terms of media or part of a global news platform to participate published works in video all written for much go to award dot altie dot com and then to now. the world is driven by shaped by phone percinet.

the day there's things. we dare to ask. is the united states hell bent on self-destruction. a dramatic economic turndown and massive civil unrest all point could this have been avoided also targeting watching a little more species indeed. 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 say. 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 nicholls was an irreproachable professional who was duped by drug addicts and she never had any awareness that her patients. but 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 to climb we are a country of fast food quick fixes now now i now feel bad here's a pill her here's a pill. dysfunction here's a pill all of those things are right there at a doctor's pen in his 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 or other you know.

i'm good cool cool man are you feeling. us take. this you're ready alright ran. or did your mom in here and then we'll good we'll get everything started. right after you guys. are really. 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 terror one and oxycontin anything else now ok and this is the 1st treatment on right all right are you feeling very much so i actually. the motion of everybody she's waiting

for her boy to come back. is going to take kalb out 30 days for you to really begin to see a change. says 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 berry. i don't know how else to say it but a memory and i can't do that said norm or as. our own so much that i would rather not see. them who are more at this moment i don't know. the earlier we are the one who. are all good here. kyle has 90 days to learn to live without opioids.

how it feels more like love my body is a us law. my thought process it's slow or. just about a lot of anger and then there are a lot of sad emotions in the assist a kid my lotions in one place. you know it's. her i just love the little bit. one of our friends and it's all of us friends and. after that we in my friends kind of stuck together and were doing these pills and it was just

blocking out so much pain or so stressed out i. 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 if they would 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 that wasn't enough the right room changer and mentally in my head by now it's gotten close to suicide. well these pills are. i don't think that they should be legal. 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 filed a lawsuit against purdue pharma. 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 epidemic 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 rigi when the attorney here in oklahoma city . in my mind this model burrage 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's 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 free. 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 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 speakers and this is brandon. and rand 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. and 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 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 is 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 that 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 thank you guys for being a good audience and i'm hoping some of the information i shared with you today might help you in a good way. never managed to quit. in someone responsible for his misery. pharmaceutical.

54 jets and more than 1300 military personnel are headed to heal some 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 at rush up. what is it suddenly about the south china sea that makes it so that it is 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 this 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.

has changed many american lives but pharmaceutical companies have a miraculous solution. based drugs the people who are chronic pain patients believe that their prescription is working for them and the remedy be sent to the price that they pay closer dependency and addiction to opiates to long term use that really isn't scientifically justified and i'll study actually suggest that. the long term effects my not just being the absence of benefit but actually that they might be causing long term. certainly in a we are entering a completely new stage in hard to assess. not just the progress but

needs all of the humankind i think we. all are a bit past the peak of this willingness to be most global and most. progress in terms of developing development of technology is they can do that album of communication i don't think it can be stopped so. this control going to say this is going to addiction between the safe live and over us will share plans but it will not disappear. i know to no credit. no shots no. action just felt. well stress.

your thirst for action. time after time if you were going underground is old etonian boris johnson tries to reopen state schools while his alma mater remains closed this after corona virus kills tens of thousands in a country with one of the worst 1000 death rates on earth coming up on the show ever wonder why the usa strumpet the u.k.'s johnson always talk about war when it comes to covert 19 we talk to you professor frank snowden who is investigating how epidemics politically transformed the world from the haitian revolution to the age of 12 french invasion of russia and how the capitalist ruling classes.