tv Documentary RT September 11, 2020 6:30pm-7:01pm EDT
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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 hears 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 all lost a child a brother a friend from an opioid overdose. dr nichols
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was their doctor she was the one prescribing the trucks. let him serve unbox i'm an attorney in oklahoma city i practice cripple defense i've got a police officer that 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 wind the hardship of the oil production we're right on the edge of we're cowboys are that is 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 is on 1st name terms with the local people all his career he's descended this community but today. the clients have changed before i was having people from war
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the poverty level people all walks of life i have lawyers i have doctors children that become addicted to the opiates now it's every level in every area of life is for is for the low income high in. 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. brooks about. 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 not
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a 9 per day that she would have prescribed and he passed away in 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 a few months her husband became addicted to the painkillers prescribed by got 2 nickels 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 dose after dose after dose after dose and really became his drug dealer. and more drugs than regular dry. it was up the street would prescribe she's doing it in the
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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 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 if you get in drug stores that
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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 health 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 of law. case is what they originally prescribed for well
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historically the uses been for what we call cancer pain cancer does a lot of horrible things street your body and can cause a lot of pain nowadays it's used for a lot of different things these pills. are 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
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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 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 a ticking bombs who's aware of that fact did dr nichols know.
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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 then i think oh good evening the midwest city doc you got 3 i'm homeless tonight 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 to rest in our washington studio very happy for that that went on there for him said this 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 manage to. a met. you.
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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 burdened 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 page bill and now you have instate 2 or 3 pain pills because the pain is so bad. so it just increase and it's just
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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 those. liza hid 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 under and her response to me was chelsea was an adult that she couldn't 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 there i did trust her maybe money for you or. maybe just that the love of money maybe gets worse because i know that when she chose to be
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in this presidential election cycle both democrats and republicans claim to be tough on china but does that actually meet in fact what does the american public really know about the china day on this edition of the program the attempt to separate this reality. i refuse to be on the side of people who want to take guns and kill each other i want to stand up intellectuals are always i think they're all wrong no to violence no to bloodshed yes to think. less. more like. but we've been talking about tesla for you know a number of weeks few months because it is a phenomenon and the point i've been making from day one is that it's. mean that has
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a market valuation at one point over $400000000000.00 and it taps into people who trade means and these are generations and the millennia old on the robert of apps and other forms and. no fundamental value there's nothing there it's just it's a murmur ation like starlings in the sky they conjure day and then they disperse. to if you. have to be acceptable to the point to ration before they will go down to no you know society because. there is a real risk undermining faith in the vaccination system. and i think governments are under such pressure to introduce a back she that is really. good the willingness to consult to ensure
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acceptability somehow to new growth. 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. i mean 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 say. that exposes doctors to a lot of risk newsgroup troubled people these patients were abusing the things that
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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. speak to. 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 kline we are a country of fast food quick fixes now now i now feel bad here's
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a pill her here's a pill tell this function here's a pill all of those things are right there at the doctor's head his 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 rather. i'm good paul cool man are you feeling. you a stately. pull to this are you ready all right ron. put your mom in here in the mill good will get everything started. on after you guys.
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now. 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 now. and this is the 1st treatment on right is alright are you feeling very emotional i adjure. the motion of 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. so as 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 his prison if you're lucky 3rd one is near bury. i
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don't know how else to say it but on that mike and i can't do that said norma as. our own so much that i would rather not see him. them who are more at this moment i don't know. really will be on the one who will. probably be here. kyle has 90 days to learn to live without opioids. how it feels to war like my body is a lot of. my thought process it's slow. just about
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a lot of pain or in the. south of motions in the surest i can't keep my emotions in one place and you know on top of. her i just are of the ok. so. one of our friends died for all of us for us and. after that. we in our friends kind of stuck together in. were doing these pills and it was just blocking out so much pain or so stressed out i was. fighting back tears every day i think that's how i got him thinking it was just blocking out that pain. and we feel good it made me forget it. actually helped me out with a lot of things depend on it. i was that was my girl you know that was
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my love 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 have gotten close to suicide and. you know these pills are created long stars and 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.
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in my office while the lawsuit against produce 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. even 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
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city and my mind is model burrage i am my lawyer in oklahoma. general 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 as a. 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 in our prisons are over feel because of the loss of productivity of taxpaying citizens costs the state money but i'm anxious to get this 1st this 1st battle started. what
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they did to this country. is for. 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 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.
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we're going to talk to incoming freshman athletes at the university of oklahoma 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 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 rand is not here today and i'll tell you why later this is me
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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 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
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a foundation called fighting addiction through education because i think education is the key to this problem and 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 the big pharma sells. they're essentially heroin pills most people don't know that but these opioids are essentially the same the cerebellum 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
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might help you in a good way. richie son never managed to quit. there is someone responsible for his misery. pharmaceutical. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics sports business i'm showbusiness i'll see if that. is your media a reflection of reality. in
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a world transformed. what will make you feel safe. isolation community. are you going the right way or are you being that. way. what is true what's his face. in the world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the death. or a mate in the shallows. i refuse to be on the side of people who want to take up guns and kill each other i want to stand intellectual should always and i think are the shits they're all well no to violence no to bloodshed yes to think. less.
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more like. i don't think it's. you just have to fly between 2 things and as fast as you can sleep much because i was watching the producers on which the british or the press are as quebec. nature person rather. than. the original stories impersonal so the experience of course was the russians in racing is competition in the extreme to have a follows the specified route between the ones with the fastest time just a beautiful little boy who is reasonably good you're going to church every church community really should be there really for you over.
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again. to make your computer. make his class over the country's response to the alleged poisoning of opposition activist alex a no ball knee with some pointing the finger at moscow at a fiery debate in the foot in the stock. why does novell need such a level of protection from the security services political mud is part of the putin system why would the russian government be so stupid that and even let nobody fly out to germany instead of hiding him in russia and france look towards almost $10000.00 coronavirus cases in a single day that's the highest take us so far as testing 7 to struggle to cope with to log. on microsoft accuses russia china and iran of trying to battle in the us election through.
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