tv Documentary RT December 15, 2020 12:30pm-1:01pm EST
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oklahoma in the heart of america one of the most deeply afflicted states in the opioids addiction crisis. that 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 rican equals. a family doctor for over 22 years she's now suspected of being a prescription murderer. the judge has to ascertain if there's 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 at oklahoma city i practice crippled events 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 case 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 is on 1st name terms with the local people all his career he's defended this community but to date they can lions have changed before i was having. people from
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war 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 were 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. not for profit turning. this oklahoma city lawyer has never seen a case like this and you victim wants to press charges. we come in we 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 prescribe you
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and i passed 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 to nichols the 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 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 which swiftly see patients
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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 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 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
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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 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 a 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
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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 hydrocodone. content 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 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
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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 equivalent 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.
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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 think oh good evening the midwest city documentary i'm homeless tonight 3000000 jobs davis i'm just reading and listening to the raising as many times you can stuff and he. was very happy she got a rest question on t.v. oh. i don't know where it was said was this is from your money did she harm i didn't know any internet i met a man why america should surrender men and marriage to. a met.
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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 burdened family hiding in the secret and shame with addiction. she's headed for back surgeries dr nichols was nice this 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 stay 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
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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 as. much as 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 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 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 because she chose to want to help people.
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by the pandemic no certainly no board is just blind to nationalities. as a matter. of fact she. needs to be. judged as coming crisis with this system today. we can do better and we should. everyone is contributing it's your own way but we also know. this crisis will not go on forever the challenges create the response has been so many good people are
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saying. we met dr nichols almost a year ago 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 is 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. 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
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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 did. 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
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klein we are a country of 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 those things are right there at a doctor's pay pay is good pain or mines is 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. sub or other. i'm good well cool man are you feeling. all right ron. or did your mom in here and will did will get everything started.
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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 now. and this is the 1st treatment on right all right are you feeling very emotional. 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 is prison if you're
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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 member of. 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 if you want to. crawl through to get here. kyle has 90 days to learn to live without opioids. how it feels to warm my body is a a lot. like thought process it's slow.
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for just about anywhere in the a lot of. satam oceans and me is just i can't keep my emotions in one place. you know it's all. her i just are of the little bit. one of our friends and it's all of us for us and. after that. we in my friends kind of stuck together and we're 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 hard i'd think it was just blocking out that pain. and then we feel good it made me forget it they actually helped me out with
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a lot. 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 i've lost my family and that wasn't enough that wasn't enough to make room change and mentally in my head but i've gotten close to suicide. these pills are. a. 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 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 his country to go to battle. my counter is publicly accusing pharmaceutical companies of having caused this epidemic. to prove that he and his team have been investigating for more
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than a year. attorney here in oklahoma city . in my mind is 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 and we need this person as 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
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state money but i'm anxious to get this 1st this 1st battle started. what they did to this country. this from. 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 for this struggle is a personal one. partner a gene has been involved in the opioid addiction the opioid crossus ever since the death of his son brian and i had a nice that also related drugs and so when the attorney general talked about representing the state. in this case. i
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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's hand when you came in i was trying to figure out what sport you are too hard yes every sport from your you know your size but thank you guys for coming. so let me introduce you to my co speaker. this is
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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. he ended up playing on a national championship football team never got in any kind of trouble in the drug that brought him down. 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
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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 their essential 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 with little ways thank you guys for being
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you can defend yourself enjoying the bombs from the miscommunication. agin. the enemy as. is you'll be via reflection of reality. in a world transformed. what will make you feel safe. isolation community. are you going the right way or are you being led. to. what is truth what is faith. in the world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the death.
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or remain in the shallowness. little simple spiros manchurian youth of those of us nissho to show to disrupt it also has been. but so far we're short in the months to roll a court of even if you were court at the least in the us will do. when you ask for the belief that it's all profit and you must be in the right at the court of the. what old. daughter in your muscles would you. push for more simple milledgeville police would you want them to drop over the children what all the money. i suppose. some are would put in that would know more than the board it's.
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