wow not walk the streets. do you. know walk the streets. i can see. the. course in st joseph. 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 lost a child a brother a friend from an opioid overdose. dr nichols was their doctor she was the one prescribing the drugs. let him serve unbox i'm an attorney at 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. the white the hard to 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 to date 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 that 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 nichols. 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. to come in and 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. 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 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 though so after dose after dose after dose and really became his drug dealer. more drugs than regular drug dealers off the street would prescribe 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 missy firefighters here comma 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 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 in 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 b. 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 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 know 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 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 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 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 kids are prescribing a massive amount of opioids to 5 patients who later died when i heard that there was 4 other deaths that oh good evening the midwest city documentary i'm homeless

tonight 3000000 jobs davis i'm just reading and listening to the dr raising as many times you can stuff i mean. it was very happy she got a rest question on t.v. oh very happy that it went on there or it was said because 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 men 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 here also that she passed away at a painkiller overdose in 2013 their story is one of an analgesic burden family

hiding in the secret and shame of 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 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 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. night 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 that she was there i did trust her maybe money for you or. maybe just 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 and she chose to want to help people.

we are segregated. by social class. people also world poverty by 1st. if you're born into a poor family if you're born into a minority family if you're born into a family that only has a single parent that really constrains your life chances people die on average 15 years old it is your point it's a generational poverty. it's a. fight every day she. meets your needs and the needs of your family.

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 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. 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's a. 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 done. 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 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 is good pain or mindless 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. sub or other. i'm good well cool man are you feeling. this. all right ron. get your mom in here and 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. writes opiates heroin and oxycontin anything else now. and this is the 1st treatment on right all right are you feeling very emotional i actually. 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 lucky 3rd one is. indeed barry. 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 on the one. who. profited here. kyle has 90 days to learn to live without opioids. how it feels toward my body is a lot. like thought process it's slow or. just about a lot of pain or in the down

a lot of. sad i'm oceans i'm me it's just i can't keep my emotions in one place and you know it's all up with. her i just don't feel good. for our friends and for all of us friends and. after that. we in my friends kind of stuck together in 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 it's hard to hide things and it was just blocking out that pain. and it made me 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 my loathing 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 write you a change and mentally in my head i've gotten close to suicide. these pills are. a. little. just like tobacco addiction the dangers of opioids have been had and it has taken 20 years for the government to take action for financial reasons.

in my office while the lawsuit against purdue pharma. sofa 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 the 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. 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 'd country. is from. their estimates bring the cost of the epidemic to $7000000000.00 in oklahoma. this is story corps 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 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. thank you 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. 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

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 the 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 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 as here one 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. son never managed to quit. there is someone responsible for his misery. pharmaceutical. is you'll be d. a reflection of reality. in a world transformed. what will make you feel safe. isolation community. you good in the right way or are you being

that. way. what is true what is. in the world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the death. or a mate in the shallowness. of us the swarms of them so moving. who was before. much of those. heard it's a big you're going to see him with the north we go we're going to. move. move. move she didn't look beautiful the militants looked good. more muslim also

these girls were good you're going to go good girls. don't go to shows for look but look you're the same you believe it's good to see you should go. to starts to organise some to get to meet until it was the little one wished they'd say look it is it's. just testing understand just need to mount a mash told. to stop the president and please introduce more until. we have petitions to go to school to snoop to come up to new york because those are the girls who would swear his supporters to your station shouldn't for you should cook door for the one who's doing business.

was. fresh protests in europe as a covert restrictions as mixed messages from governments least people players confused and angry. we carts go over we want recounts come together we can see our loved ones anymore or we think there's this absolutely against our fundamental human rights the u.s. state of the month defense plan our ties ignoring. residence for the cove it job moved as some have condemned as racist. amid a surgeon anti asian hate crimes in the u.s. marshal and sons in california the state by far the worst affected open self-defense classes for the most vulnerable.