Transcripts For RT Documentary 20240712

We go to work so you straight home full. Wow not walk to the store. To campaign. Wow not walk the streets. I can see. The fish. In st joseph sure expect a service 60. Years. Sure. 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 heres the accused doc to reconnect calls. A Family Doctor for of the 22 years shes now suspected of being a prescription murderer. The judge has to ascertain if theres 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. Let him serve unbox im an attorney in Oklahoma City i practice cripple defense ive got a Police Officer and ive been a prosecutor and ive been a judge ive been here all my life born and raised in oklahoma. The hardship of the Oil Production were right on the edge of were cowboys are the keys so weve got a lot of people in here that are hard working people and its a pretty peaceful city as far as that goes. In box knows these roads inside out and hes on 1st name terms with the local people all his career hes defended this community but today they can lions have changed before i was having people from or the Poverty Level people all walks of life i have lawyers i have doctors children of the addicted to the opiates 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. Thats about it really is. This Oklahoma City lawyer has never seen a case like this and you victim wants to press charges. To come. And 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 thats 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 an 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 dr nichols of course once you have that surgery its never quite the same and then they get some other treatment anyhow you know its 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 shes 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 theyre trained in thats what their job is is to make sure theyre treating you in a healthy manner and theyre doing whats best for you and not whats 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 its a its not a its not a disease that is specific it could hit anybody. How come opioids indeed given their pain has become a market and the idea of not suffering even likely as they get 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 i can tell is amongst the pain killers on prescriptions are 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. Im jason be minute and i am the chair of psychiatry at Oklahoma State universitys center for Health Sciences our oath is essentially 1st do no harm and i think that thats one of the biggest problems is that doctors dont realize that by prescribe opioids. That they could doing more harm than good and weve 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 that cancer does a lot of horrible things street your body and can cause a lot of pain nowadays its used for a lot of Different Things these pills cooled hydrocodone. Are found to know all the 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 theres a 13 percent chance that youll be taking those opioids a year later so whether its a few prescription whether its a few prescriptions or a few pills its a very small amount that it takes to get addicted. To the left a lethal dosage of heroin to the right its 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 is 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 then i said oh good evening oh midwest city doggie doctor im homeless tonight 3000000 jobs davis im just reading and listening to the dr raising this many times here and he. 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 didnt know any term that i met a man why america should certain men and manage to. A met. Or. Do you mean these are innate he has spent her 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 with addiction. Shes headed for back surgeries dr nichols was lizas doctor for 7 years she was the 1st to fall into the 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 doesnt work you know you used to take one page bill and now you have to stay 2 or 3. 00 pay bills because the pain is so bad. So it just increase and its just a vicious cycle because you know youve got to have the medicine but you know you dont want to have to take that much medicine but you cant i could work and do my job if i didnt have as. Much as lisa had her own addiction what she didnt 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. Night 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 chelseas medical but she could talk to me about chelseas diabetes that she wouldnt talk to me about. The medication that she was i did trust her maybe money feeder too or. Maybe just that the love of money maybe thats where because i know that when she chose to be a doctor i would bet on it that she chose to want to help people. Is youll be via reflection of reality. In a world transformed. What will make you feel safe. Place a nation full of nudity. Are you going the right way or are you being. Direct. What is true what is right. In the world. Corrupted you need to descend. To join us in the depths. Or im a bill or shall i say. No no crown. No shots. Actions speak. Well its true no small. Points your thirst for action. 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 shes got a really sweet heart my names tommy adler im 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 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 a lot of risk newsgroup troubled people these patients were abusing the things that they had access to. It wasnt 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 dr nichols was an irreproachable professional who was duped by drug addicts and she never had any awareness that her patients. 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. We are a country of fast food quick fixes now now i now feel bad heres a pill her heres a pill. Dysfunction heres a pill all of those things are right there at a doctors head pain is good pain or minds that were alive. He went to the center as a patient since then hes 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. Im good well cool man are you feeling. Us stay clean if. Youre ready all right ran. Your mom in here and well good will get everything started. Right after you guys. Are all. Has been to college and hes 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 shes waiting for her boy to come back. Its going to take kalb out 30 days for you to really begin to see a change. So as life and death man theres 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 youre lucky. 3rd one is. Indeed barry. I dont know how else to say it but im right and i cant do that said member of. Our own so much that i would rather not see. Them who are or at this moment i dont know i. Believe that we are. Who are who are. Who. Are all through to be here. Kyle has 90 days to learn to live without opioids. How it feels toward my body a lot of. My thought process its slow. For just about all of it and there in the down a lot. Southam oceans and me its just i cant keep my emotions in one place and you know whats up with. Her i just are of the little bit. One of our friends and its all of us for us and. After that. We in my friends kind of stuck together and were doing these pills and it was just blocking out so much pain for so stressed out i. Fighting back tears every day i think its 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 love and then. Just this last year like too many too many bad things ive lost my family and that wasnt enough that wasnt enough to that room or change in mentality in my head like ive gotten close to suicide. These pills are. A. Little. Just like tobacco addiction the dangers of opioids have been hidden it is taken 20 years for the government to take action for financial reasons. 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. Hes 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. He wanted to prove that he and his team have been investigating for more than a year. On the turn here in the city. In my mind is model murray i am my lawyer in oklahoma. You know 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. Base. And. I think were 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 im 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 is story corps hearing will take place in a few days. Today reggie which will explain his motivations to a group of students that this struggle is a personal one. Partner reiji has been involved in the opioid addiction the opioid crosses ever since the death of 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. I think he knew that we both had family members that because of the epidemic. Were going to talk to the Incoming Freshman athletes at the university of oklahoma im going to tell a. Story about my son brandon. That the power of addiction and how dangerous it is and maybe. Save somebodys life. I think i got a chance to shake almost everybodys hand when you came in i was trying to figure out what sport you are target yes 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 ill 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. And he ended up playing on the 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 its not that easy i found out its like telling a diabetic to use more willpower and stop needing insulin you cant do that and thats crazy. I never told him about addiction i never warned him. And so now i i have survivor guilt now but im 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 theyre not really interested in me theyre interested in brandon they i show pictures of him he was one of them hes just ordinary kid and if an ordinary kid like brandon can end up getting hurt they could and that is the truth these pills that big pharma sells. Theyre essentially heroin pills most people dont know that but these opioids are essentially the same this here and thats the key telling patients that theyre not addictive hoping some of the information ive shared with you today might help you in a good way. Richie son never managed to quit. There is someone responsible for his misery. Pharmaceutical. The world is driven by dreamers shaped by one person with those great. Military thinks. We dare to ask. I 1st heard about you know. From the helicopter folks in iraq. I think that there are people i mean with military who have never forgiven. This guy afraid or through a book it will take it so it was really story to happen. In the pen journalese died with you daryn. See a lot of crimes. Not on. The idea of developing an anonymous digital trombones and applying it to the media and since its that was a friends. But i didnt control him to retain it with me for a short while and in the room one of the worlds most. Unusual rumors during a thunderstorm founder the song good song knowing. There was a great group jealous of your friends heard the song youre going to why wont it be more bark off they have q. Seen all. Instantly. His mind. On. The giuliani sides in solitary confinement in the prison for terrorists await you know how its a live person. I dont see him dying. And i. Tests what hes facing. The u. K. Insists that russia is a top security priority offer its Intelligence Committee q. Says london about to be ignoring russias meddling in british politics we get reaction from people in london i just think we cant get it right so why should be to feel that hes home thats incident with them but there was a shot of russia was that just by the end there