Transcripts For RT Documentary 20240712 : vimarsana.com

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 that to regan equals. 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 row have lost a child a brother a friend from an opioid overdose. Dr nichols was there 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. All right the hard to the Oil Production were right on the edge of were cowboys are the and 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. Box knows these roads inside out and whos on 1st name terms with the local people all his career hes defended this community but today 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 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 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 thats 99 per day that she would prescribe him and he passed away about. My 2nd. One in 20122012. He was a fireman she works in education counselor a regular family. 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 its never quite the same and then they get some other treatment anyhow and you know its another 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. 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 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 theyre trained in thats what their job is it 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 can 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 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 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. M j somebody 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 per scribing 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 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. 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 theyre 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 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 theres a 13 percent chance that youll be taking those opioids a year later so 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 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 was price. These drugs a ticking bombs whos aware of that fact did dr nichols know. 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 that. Good leaving the midwest city ducky dr im homeless tonight 3000000 jobs davis im just reading and listening to the raising of the middle aged stuff and he. Was very happy she got a rest question on t. V. Oh very happy that that went on there or it was sad because this is for 3 daughters i mean did she harm i didnt know any internet i met a man why america should surrender our men and marriage to. A met. You. Mean these are innate he has spent her entire life in this house this is where the 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. Shes headed for back surgeries dr nichols was lizas 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 doesnt work you know you used to take one pain. Bill and now you happen to take 2 or 3 pain pills 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 that 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. 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 chelseas medical but she could talk to me about chelseas diabetes that she wouldnt talk to me about. The medication that she was there i did trust her maybe money for you to do it maybe just that the love the money maybe give that 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. Go to work so you. Stay home. Join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and ill be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business im showbusiness ill see that. The world is driven by dream shaped by. The day or thinks. We dare to ask. 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 and 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 exposing these 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 announcer 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 klein we are a country of fast food quick fix is now now i now feel bad heres a pill her heres a pill tell disfunction heres a pill all those things are right there at a doctors pay pay is good pain or mines is 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 take. This. All right. Or did your mom in here and well good well get everything started. Right after you guys. 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 ok and this is the 1st treatment on right is all right are you feeling very emotional i actually. 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 the bury. I dont know how else to say it but im right and i cant do this anymore as. Our own so much that i would rather not see. Them who are or at this moment i dont know. Really will be on the one who. Are all good care about. Kyle has 90 days to learn to live without opioids. How it feels horrible i love my body is a a lot. Like a thought process its slow. And just about a lot of an area around a lot of sad emotions and they is just a kid my lotions in one place. You know its. Her i just love the little bit. Of our friends and its all of us for ins 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 or so stressed out and. Fighting back tears every day i think thats how i wanted things that was just blocking out that pain. And it made me feel good it they forget it they 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 of loss for family and that wasnt enough that wasnt enough the weight room changes and mentally in my head by now its gotten close to suicide. Well these pills are. A. Little. Just like tobacco addiction the dangers of opioids have been hidden it has taken 20 years for the government to take action for financial these. 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 publicly 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. Yes my name is Regina Whitman the attorney here in Oklahoma City. In my mind this 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. 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 over feel because of the 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 d country. Its pretty amazing. Their estimates bring the cost of the epidemic to 7000000000. 00 in oklahoma. City 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 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 to us 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 on. A story about my son brandon and 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 its 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 ran 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. Ran i 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 its not that easy i found out its like telling a diabetic to use more willpower and stop needing insulin you cant do that 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 to 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. Then theyre not really interested in me theyre interested in brandon i show pictures of him he was one of the hes 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 theyre essentially heroin pills most people dont know that but these opioids are essentially the same this heroin thats the key telling patients that theyre not addictive thats the killer literally we thank you guys for being a good audience and im hoping some of the information i shared with you today. Might help you in a good. Son never managed to quit. Is someone responsible for his misery. Pharmaceutical. You cannot be both with the yeah you want. To know whats a clip of she will be more used to you spoke up. But the way its always with a k. It was about a story will more of the late. But not so. Immediate. Today they call. It the cliff put up by the Smithsonian Bush in the capital. City they say yes. Yes. So what weve got to do is identify the threats that we have its crazy. Let it be an arms race is often very dramatic to follow because the only really im going to resist i dont see how that strategy will be successful very critical time to sit down and talk. And in 1996 something happened different a Company Called Purdue Pharmaceuticals came out with a drug called oxycontin and they started a miss and falsely promoted that opioids were rarely addict maybe only one percent of the time could you get it addicted to no. That was not true. And it is not true and never was true that was a false statement and the other companies jumped on the bandwagon of making money and the false lies spread and the false marketing spread that they are guilty of was about these tricks they cause the step i believe that with every fiber of mud being. Back in 1906 the 1st promotional at campaign for an opioid was broadcast and we found it. We doctors were wrong in thinking that opioids cant be used long term they can be and they should be we used to think theyd stop working all the patients would become addicts or theyd be sent to. These 6 cases show how wrong those fears were. In this little film the public was assured with certification that. Would show no risk of addiction despite its high concentration in opium to make it believable a real doctor and real patients with this they all confirmed that this treatment usually reserved for patients in the terminal phase of cancer can be used without any danger for common pain. And enjoy every workday