. >> reporter: she says she was prescribed oxycontin after having a procedure to remove cysts from her ovaries and had never heard of the drug before but became addicted to prescription pills for three and a half years. overdosing twice before beginning her road to recovery. >> i hated what i was. and i was embarrassed and ashamed and was content that my family would be better off without me. >> reporter: that new report funded by pacira called united states for newspaper-dependence, finds patients undergoing seven common surgeries are often being prescribed far more pills than they need. >> what's startling and really bothersome in the study is the well after the surgery's been concluded. >> reporter: concluding 3 million patients continued taking them three months or longer after surgery, and christina is not alone. 11.7 billion opioid painkillers like oxycontin and vicodin were prescribed in 2016. if you laid them end to end, they would crisscross the country 50 times. >> more people die from opioid prescription overdose than from heroin overdose per year. >> robin thank you. appare

charge is uniquely qualified — he used to run the firm behind america's best known opioid medicine, oxycontinw huge the market is. somewhere between 10% and 15% of the population experiences chronic pain at some point in their lives. to the extent that cannabinoids go on to be recognised in more effective dosage forms, they could compete, if you like, fora forms, they could compete, if you like, for a significant share of that market. and that, in the united states, is a multi— billion—dollar market. the purity and the potency of cannabis varies. so how difficult is it to get the dosage right? when somebody inhales a cigarette or a vaporiser, the amount they take could easily vary tenfold depending on how deeply they inhale, how long they hold their breath, and other factors as well. and that is certainly very, very inconsistent with the way we look at medications for the treatment of virtually all other conditions, where we are pretty precise in our initial dosage recommendations. what are the risks associated with medicinal cannabis? some more serious potential side—effects are that in cert

needed to very aggressively attack pain and that they had the tools, these narcotic pain killers, oxycontin the latest tool that they came up with. and the result was an enormous new supply was unleashed on the from coast-to-coast. unprecedented amounts of this because millions and millions of americans were getting these pills after surgery, for chronic pain, for a variety of things. and it was happening all across the country. and that went on for 20-plus years and is still going on. soledad: what is the fix to move america back from this epidemic? sam: we tried the sexy "one solution for all" -- the pills for all manner of pain and all manner of individuals from coast-to-coast. look where it got us. it requires doctors to understand their role. it requires medical schools to reassess, really deeply change their own curricula. it requires insurance companies to begin to reimburse for all manner of pain strategies, not just a few, and increasingly reimburse for medically-assisted treatment for drug rehabilitation. that is very important as well. i would say we need a robust response from l

. >> christina was prescribed oxycontin and never heard of the drug before and was adidn'ted for three and a half years and overdosing twice before beginning the road to recovery. >> i hated what i was and was embarrassed and ashamed. and that this report conducted by ims, called united states for non-dependants. finds patients undergoing seven common surgeries are prescribed far more pulls than they need. >> what is startling and bother some are the number of patients that are on opioids well after the surgery is completed. >> the study concluded that patients continue taking them three months or longer after surgery. and christina is not alone. 3 -- 11 billion were prescribed. they would crisscross the country 11 time. >> and doctors say more people die from opioid overdoses than heroin overdoses. >>> and a new campaign to cut infant mortality in the city to get parents to follow safety practices like making sure babies are in their own beds. like safe practices like toys and bumpers and cribs, and sleeping on adult beds and sofas, and showing the right way for babies to sleep. >> it

he used to run the firm behind america's best—known opioid medicine, oxycontin.iew with him in 20 minutes' time. it isa it is a really interesting conversation. and we will have the other business stories as well, there is a lock to squeeze in today. —— a lot. facebook says it has discovered that a russian—funded campaign promoted divisive messages on the website during last year's american presidential election campaign. it says adverts were posted that directed users towards nearly 500 bogus accounts spreading false information, covering issues including immigration, gay rights and race. the company said it was co—operating with a us investigation into the affair. 0ur silicon valley reporter dave lee says this facebook announcement wasn't totally surprising. that is the view of many people, especially after the us election. we have seen fake news, the famous phrase, flying around facebook. what we have discovered now after facebook‘s own investigation is apparently there was a co—ordinated effort by a group known as the internet research agency based in petersb

addictive drugs include heroin synthetic opioids like fenton all and prescription painkillers like oxycontin coding and bike in all the united states is home to only five percent of the world's population it consumes nearly eighty percent of the global opioid supply a bipartisan panel has now called on the president to declare a state of emergency stating quote with approximately one hundred forty two americans dying every day america is enduring a death toll equal to september eleventh every three weeks governor i know that your marijuana advocates recent studies show that marijuana can curb opioid related deaths and addiction and yet unlike prescription opioids marijuana still is not legal nationwide it why not what gives will widen out and what gives is going to take us a few moments here because why not and what gives is a multiple choice same answer first of all you've got big pharma you've got the liquor industry the tobacco industry and the status quo that even though we live in a capitalist society they don't want the competition so you deal with that first and foremost second and mo

addictive drugs include heroin synthetic opioids like fenton all and prescription painkillers like oxycontin coding and bike in all the united states is home to only five percent of the world's population it consumes nearly eighty percent of the global opioid supply a bipartisan panel has now called on the president to declare a state of emergency stating quote with approximately one hundred forty two americans dying every day america is enduring a death toll equal to september eleventh every three weeks governor i know that your marijuana advocates recent studies show that marijuana can curb opioid related deaths and addiction and yet unlike prescription opioids marijuana still is not legal nationwide it why not what gives will want to know it and what gives.

i was addicted to prescription medication, heroin, oxycontin, anything like that. i have also been on medically assisted treatment which did not work for me. cannot say that it doesn't work for anyone but it did not work for me. my addiction brought me to homelessness and incarceration. i lost everything. as everyone knows in his room, it brought me to incomprehensible demoralization. i was unable to make decisions and i couldn't put two thoughts together. my first seven months of recovery, or i would say sobriety, i spent in jail. when i got out of jail i was very fortunate to move into an oxford house. one of the things i have learned over the last ten years is to be open-minded to different forms of recovery. that is where a lot of the changes coming in. there is all types of different 12 step recovery is not the only recovery out there. there's all type of recovery out there. one of the things i want to focus on today is for us, as individuals and as a whole, to focus on other ways in the path to recovery. they have this new thing called refuge recovery. has an

oxycontin, oxycodone and other hydrocodone and heroin. percentage of people reported they used opioids to get high the past 30 days. if you go to the far left it is about 10% of people surveyed that yeah, i used heroin to get high in the last 30 days. then it gets to be 50% of those folks or more reporting that they're using prescription drugs. you see there are changes when you go from the left to the right. we're talking about trends of drug use. dr. volkow says, in her interpretation of the data, and i quote, the emergence of chemical tolerance toward prescribed opioids prescribed in smaller number of cases with difficulty of obtaining many of these medications legally may explain transition of use of heroin, which is cheaper and some communities easier to obtain than prescription drugs. that is the concern of a lot of researchers. they're getting ahold of prescription drugs. they're hard to come by because they're expensive. go into the communities to get the dope because it is cheaper. when i read this, something stuck out it me. fir

and christina is not alone. 11.7 billion opioid painkillers like oxycontin and vicodin were prescribed0 times. >> more people die from opioid prescription overdose than from heroin overdose per year. >> boy, that is startling. our senior medical contributor dr. jennifer ashton is here. i know you're a surgeon. you can be in pain after post-surgery. are there any other options though? do people -- should we ask questions as a patient? >> 100% because an informed patient is always the most ideal patient. but it's a catch-22 here, because pain delays surgical healing and recovery. so there's that fine balance about giving other options. if you are facing surgery, you want to ask a couple of questions. could you take nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories or use ice therapy. sometimes that's an option. you should always request the lowest dose if you need an opioid narcotic for the shortest period of time. it's basic pharmacology, and our awareness needs to be ratcheted up when we're talking about this class of medications. >> i think this number is going to startle some people. according to the

. >> you were using oxycontin for five years. you've used false names to get drugs?e defense indicated because of her addiction to drugs, her memory was not to be trusted. >> when detectives talked to you, you told them that your memory is not very good, didn't you? >> i don't recall saying that. >> do you remember telling them, i don't remember verbatim the conversation between you and ryan? >> i do not remember the conversation verbatim. >> the defense hammered on what day the phone call came through, even the day it was placed. >> you told investigators the call was in the middle of the night. >> i was asleep and i thought that the call came in later than it did. >> everything critical in terms of time, duration, any memory about the call, was all different once she got to testify, but only after she saw her phone records. >> after jennifer crew stepped down, the prosecution called the woman's fiance to try to undo any damage to her testimony caused by the defense. he confirmed that she related the alleged confessional phone call to him immediately after hanging u

when that didn't work anymore, he was prescribed oxycontin, and he was addicted to it. >> reporter: he called the matrix institute here in the san fernando valley. >> he clearly stopped using. he was feeling healthier than he had felt in years. >> reporter: but when detectives john o'brien and ty labbe learned about gavin's addiction, they had to consider a raft of new possibilities. >> he disappeared. maybe he overdosed. we didn't exactly have any of those answers. >> driving all over the valley, we would have moments in the car of where we looked at each other and said, "i think this is a suicide." and then an hour later, we'd interview somebody or something would happen, and we'd go, "i think this is a murder." and our feelings and our gut instincts were going different ways very early on very fast. >> yeah. it's got to be pretty unusual though? >> it was very confusing. >> reporter: confusing for lisa too, because here was another secret, the smiths were underwater on their mortgage. on the verge of losing their home. >> we were in a horrible position financially. >> reporter: lisa

the pharmaceutical industry-- which was eager to boost sales of its new class of painkillers like oxycontinld doctors that these new drugs could be used without fear of their patients becoming addicted. the industry put out testimonial videos, like this one from purdue pharma in 2000. >> we doctors were wrong in thinking that opioids can't be used long-term. they can be and they should be. >> brangham: the industry-- and even some doctors-- also cited this one-paragraph letter, posted in the "new england journal of medicine" back in 1980. its authors had looked at the use of opioid painkillers at one burn unit in massachusetts and wrote: "the development of addiction is rare in medical patients with no history of addiction." while the authors and the "new england journal" have both said that this letter was misinterpreted, it was cited hundreds of times as an endorsement for the widespread use of opioids for pain. and, in fact, starting in the late '90s and early 2000s, the rate of opioid prescriptions began to snowball. by 2015, according to the c.d.c., enough pills were being prescribed f

so you want to take the expired oxycontin out of the medicine cabinet, and if you're going to leave your lingerie and stuff in the nightstand, and i recommend that you have plastic snakes are loaded mousetraps and that will impress the movers which is always a good idea. get some respect right off the bat. >> you talk in the book about so many different specific jobs that you have. what are the most challenging ones you said from a technical point of view or the ones that were most interesting to me were both technically challenging and challenging in terms of the diplomacy? there's one of forgetting the details now, but where you got, i think the truck got stuck a little ways down, it was a steep grade, talked about that story. >> this was one of my first jobs and i was told that a customer that he needed to get the trailer down into his driveway, and i didn't really think i could do it but but i was 21 ae time. basically i got my truck drivers license a couple days after my 21st birthday, which was when i was allowed to do that. just going to digress for a minute but that says a lot ab

. >> the first opioid abuse was prescription pain pills, including oxycontin.ccess to pills was restricted. in their place came heroin made from mexican popies, cheaper and more powerful. a couple years ago, traffickers began mixing fentanyl into the heroin. >> yep, that's him. i'm getting in the car. >> and fentanyl is by far the most fatal drug of abuse america has ever seen. so fatal that relatives of users are calling the police to try to keep them from overdosing. >> i saw him right here. through the thing right here. he scooted right this way. >> this is just a warrant. >> one guy. >> the complainant told us he was using heroin at the time and would like us to come and arrest him on the open warrants to keep him from overdosing. >> they thought he got away. as we were leaving we saw him run throughout backyard again and now everybody's on the hunt. all of this for a guy they suspect of having needles on him. >> the problem is, he could be in any of these vacant houses. >> that's the thing, this is a neighborhood filled with abandoned homes. >> yes. >> you

but from the 2,922,011 they showed a trend of drug use across four opiates, think one categories oxycontin, and then heroine, now, this refers to the percentage of people who reported they use these opiates to get high in the past 30 days. about 10% of people that were surveyed said they used her want to get high and the just about 50% or more reporting there using prescription drugs there changes going from the left to the right, talk about trends of drug use. doctor says in her interpretation of the data and i quote, the emergence of chemical tolerance perhaps combined in a smaller number of cases with increasing difficulty of obtaining them illegally may explain the transition to the abuse of heroin which is cheaper and easier to attain the drugs. they're getting a hold of the drugs, it's hard to come by so let's go to the communities and get the don't because it's cheaper. but when i read it, something stuck out, first, chemical tolerance to prescribed opiates, have you ever once heard anybody talked about the chemical tolerance toward heroine? other things that speak out, things like

things that really stand to mark the dispensing doctor didn't see it and gave it and they gave her 30 oxycontin. she was dead by 1:00 in the morning. we're having a problem getting through the hipaa because of patient privacy. common sense has to prevail. within the professional ranks that you can better serve them, you need to speak out on that one. thank you. >> thank you, senator manchin. senator montana is back. we're going to let you do your opening statement and questions at the same time. >> well, first i want to thank senator tester because we've worked together the past year or two getting the with department. we had a good meeting with dr. shulkin in our office. i appreciate your continued very valuable contribution to us keeping track of the transformation efforts within the va. i'm sorry as i was not here earlier to hear the testimony. we'll start back on the medical record. back in knock knock, i stat on the electronic health record board when we were trying to integrate health records among medical providers within the state. and since i'm here and i'm on the senate armed services

. >> something like oxy cotton, oxycontin 30 milligram tablets. 90 milligrams of morphine a day. the cap that the cdc has allowed sort of in routine practice. >> why these particular drugs. >> well, okay, so let's do the statistics will talk for themselves. in 2015, almost half of all open owed ov opioid overdoses were from prescription drugs. they have more than quadrupled. >> they're not talking about banning all opiates. >> absolutely. there's two really important points here. opioids will be available and, certainly, appropriate for a subset of patients who have life limiting or terminal illness, palliative care such as cancer. another thing to think about too is what feeds addiction is not just the dose. a statement from the american academy of pain medicine says okay to reduce the dose, there are other things such as depression and anxiety and other things that feed into addiction. so just reducing the dose alone is not going to eliminate the problem. >> do you get the sense this is going to be a successful effort. >> i think so. i'm going t

>> oxycontin, 80 milligram tab lets, 30 milligram tab lets.90 milligrams of morphine a day, kind of a cap that the cdc has allowed sort of in practice. >> why these particular drugs? >> so, well, okay. so let's do -- i think the statistics will talk for themselves. in 2015, almost half of all opioid overdoses were from prescription drugs. and we know that from 1999 to now that the overdoses have quadrupled an that was commiserate with the prescriptions written by physicians. >> but they're not talking about banning all ownership oids and some used correctly. >> absolutely. there's two important points here. opioids will be available and appropriate for patients with life limiting or cancer. another thing to think about, too, that what feeds addiction is not just the dose. so if an example of a statement of the american academy of pain medicine says, yes, okay to reduce the dose, but there are other things such as depression and anxiety and other things that feed into addiction so that, you know, just reducing the dose alone is not certainly go

according to zo cortizone, and the health care provider didn't see it and he prescribed her 30 oxycontins and she was dead by 3:00 in the morning. you might be the ones that will help us transition this thing and get this piece of legislation and gives you the chance to share that patient's, within the professional rights that you can better serve them, and you need to speak out on that. >> thank you senator manchin, senator montana is back. are you ready for your questions now, senator tillis? >> first i want to thank senator tester because we have worked together over the past year or two getting in the department, we had a quick meeting or two with the doctor in our office and i appreciate your continued very valuable contribution to us keeping track of the transformation efforts within the va and i'm sorry that i was not here earlier to hear the testimony. we'll start back on the medical record. back in north carolina, i sat on the electronic health record board when we were trying to integrate medical health care providers within the state and since i'm here and i'm on the senate arm