tv Documentary RT July 26, 2020 5:30pm-6:01pm EDT
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pilate's addiction crisis comment 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 hears the accused not to reconnect calls. a family doctor for over 22 years he's now suspected of being a prescription matter. the judge has to ascertain if there's 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 trucks.
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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 i'm born and raised in oklahoma. provided the hardship of 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. in box knows these roads inside out and who's on 1st name terms with the local people all his career he's descended this community but to date the canadians 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 that become addicted to the opiates every level in every area of life is for is for the low income high end. of all of what affected by the open . yes. he represents several families from this town
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everyone has lost a relative deceased of a cardiac arrest following a painkiller overdose drugs prescribed by dr nichols. this oklahoma city lawyer has never seen a case like this and you think tim wants to press charges. 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 $99.00 per day that she would prescribe me and my 2nd. one in 20122012. he was a fireman she works in education counselor a regular family all it took was back surgery to turn everything over in
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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 you know it's a matter issues with just on the judge just injuries it from being 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 just goes 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 dr nichols 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
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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 not a it's not a disease that is specific it could hit anybody. how come opioids indeed get in there 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
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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 streeter body and can cause a lot of pain nowadays it's used for a lot of different things these pills. are
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found to no other 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 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
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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 on 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 this is 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 kids are prescribing a massive amount of opioids to 5 patients who later died when i heard that there
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was 4 other deaths that i sort of thing oh good evening oh midwest city doggie doctor i'm homeless tonight 3000000 jobs dave was 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. yeah i don't know where it was said because this is from 3 doctors i mean did she harm i didn't know any internet i met a man why america should search for a man and marriage 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 hear also that she passed away as a painkiller overdose in 2013 their story is one of an analgesic burdened family
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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 page bill and now you have to say 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'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. lisa had her own addiction what she didn't know is that her daughter was doing the same thing for 3
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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 giving 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 too or. maybe just to the love of money maybe give 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.
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was abundant make no certainly no borders just blind to nationalities. so much. we don't look like she. needs to be. judged as coming crisis with this decision until. we can do better we should. everyone is contributing a general way but we also know. this crisis will not go on forever the challenges created the response has been so many good people are helping us. it makes us feel very proud that we are in it together.
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i 1st heard about we do know. from the helicopter for troops in iraq. i think that down actually people are going to be going to its military who have never forgiven or forgotten freighters the truth of the book and every little thing you believe you saw it was really starting to happen. in the pentagon journalese and that is good or. serious a lot of crimes to outnumber the audience. the idea of developing an anonymous digital trombones and applying it to the media and since. that was a friends. in the torrent you write it with beatrice or wall. in the room one of the world's most powerful newsroom is very serious anderson
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anderson over founder to the song good song knowing. there was a great deal of jealousy demands for the song the fit why won't it be more like all they have hugh seems all. since me. since my. records. for. me have giuliani sides in solitary confinement in the prison for terrorists await you know how it's a live person. i don't see him dying. and i. know what he's saying. we met dr nichols almost a year ago i think she has
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a very good heart she wants to help people maybe a little awkward but she's got a really sweet heart my name is 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 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's a. that exposes doctors to a lot of risk and these were 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.
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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 klein we are a ton trio if that is a fast food quick fix is now now i now feel that. 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 pad but wayne is a good painter minds that were alive. he went to the center as
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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. i'm good cool cool man i feel and. i got. you a stay clean. are you ready all right ran. your mom in here and then 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.
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writes opiates heroin and oxycontin anything else and now ok and this is the 1st treatment on right all right are you feeling very emotional. he motioned for everybody she's waiting for her boy to come back. it's going to take cal bout 30 days for you to really begin to see a change. so is life and death man there's only 3 ways out of this which is get sober which is what i pray for you the 2nd one is his prison if you're lucky 3rd one is. de berry. i don't know how else to say it but i'm right and i can't do that said humor as. our own so much that i would rather not see. them who are or at this moment i don't know
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i. really will be on the one who will. probably take a good care. kyle has 90 days to learn to live without opioids. how it feels toward my body a sense a lot of. my thought process it's slow. i just about a lot of pain are in the. south of motions and me it's just i can't keep my emotions in one place and you know it's hard with. her i just aren't so good.
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for our friends and for all of us for us and. after that. we in my friends kind of stuck together in. we're doing these pills and it was just blocking out so much pain we were so stressed out for fighting back tears every day i think that's how i wanted things that 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 weight room change and
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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 his country to go to battle. my counter is likely accusing pharmaceutical companies of having caused this epidemic . in order to prove that he and his team have been investigating for more than a year. on the turn here in oklahoma city. in my mind is model burrage i am my lawyer in oklahoma.
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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. 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 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
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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 a gene has been involved in the opioid addiction the opioid crosses ever since the death his brain 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
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i'm going to tell on. a 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 speakers and 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. brown was a cute little kid brand his plan was to go to college and play football which he
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did. he ended up playing on a national championship football team never got in any kind of trouble and a 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
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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 here 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've shared with you today. might help you in a good way. reggie
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syria has been engulfed in civil war for will most 10 years it cost hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced millions more no one foresaw the peaceful protests of 20 of them is collating into a complex conflict between various ami's geopolitical interests rebel groups just. they are needed in the book on this. but if you tell us if you say you hate because i. was a genius i'll fill you in the. message look cool and. let you know deep comedic. about the money. and ordinary as south and i. never start
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i suppose some of my ex from the future will crack up once kaiser. carnage on american streets blocked moderate protesters thora teens face off we hear from a reporter who was caught up in a police truck in seattle taken over to get i'm saying a peaceful backing up and then you see a police officer to. show back where i started filming him. directly. among the other stories not shaped the week of the u.k.'s opposition labor party pushes for artie's broadcast license to be revoked but after a report on alleged russian influence.
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