Will Big Pharma Ever Face Justice for the Opioid Crisis?

You're listening to Comedy Central.

I want to talk about drugs. I want to rap to you about drugs.

In that they have terrible effects on millions of Americans and an epidemic almost too horrible to comprehend.

Man Michael Cha has more.

The scourge of drugs has long ravaged this nation. Santa Clara Assistant County Council Danny Chu explains the toll drugs have taken on his district.

The overdose tests are just the tip of the iceberg in Santa Clara County. It's resulted in skyrocketing medical costs and it's also resulted in rampant crime.

So what are the drugs we're talking about?

Crack?

Heroin, Miley Ping Pong, black Flag, roach spray, Crisco.

Opioids like OxyContin, vicodin, or percocet.

Back pay medicine. Who commits crime would back back.

These drugs are chemically similar to heroin, and the result has been millions of people that are now addicted to these drugs.

Okay, but street drugs are one thing. Pharmaceutical drugs are there to help.

Right.

There's no evidence that these prescription painkillers work well for chronic pain conditions. Really yes, Nonetheless, did drug companies market these drugs for those purposes? That's why we filed this saucer to hold these companies accountable.

And they have a lot to be accountable for. Study show prolonged use of these drugs reduces their effectiveness and increases the risk of overdose. But oxy requires a prescription. So how are these companies to blame? It wasn't adding up. Then I got a visit from author and medical researcher Peter Gocci.

I have a little secret for you.

I can't hear you, dude, I have a little secret to tell you.

I still can't hear what you're saying.

A secret what I'm coming out.

This deep throat insider informant told me how this epidemic got out of hand.

Put you farmer high to the doctor and told them that oxycontent is less likely to lead to substance abuse. And this is not true.

Wait, seriously, you can.

Look at the lawsuits. Preiser was found guilty by a jury of conspiracy. Wow, merk Eli Lilly Johnson, and Johnson was fined more than one billion dollars. It's all the same. What they do is actually organized crimes. Pharmaceutical companies are like drug cartels.

As a go on.

It's not a joke, it's a fact.

I have studied this.

Listen, man, I'm a comedian. I know about jokes. Yes, all right, yes that's a funny joke.

This medicine kills people. Do you still think it's a joke?

But not that part? You got to learn how to get off on high note fortune.

Five hundred companies behaving like drug cartels. It seemed hard to swallow. So I went to the heart of the oxy triangle to confront one of them face to face. I would like to speak to your don or who you're done with, the drug lord or whatever, the your top guy, like your Poblo Escobar, kind of goodbye, turn that off. Turns out nobody on the inside would talk to me. Then I got.

Lucky behind the poor Michael.

Who you?

I'm doctor John Guapan, I used to be a pharmaceutical sens rep.

Finally a whistleblower emerged to tell me how these companies are allowed to continue to operate so.

They can buy anyone.

They walk the FDA, that government, the researchers, they get payoffs.

Aren't you scared that they're gonna come after you.

Why do you think I live in Sweden?

Wait? What you live in Sweden? Probably hard for you to hide as a brown dude in Sweden.

This is one evening and they're not gonna get me.

Great, so the only people who would talk to me are hiding in Sweden. This was starting to sound like a real conspiracy. Thankfully, former FDA is so sh'd Commissioner Peter Pitt straightened everything out.

I think pharmaceutical companies are extremely straightforward and honest about the benefits and the risks of their products paid.

I'm so glad that you can calm me down, man, because I was freaking out. So why do pharmaceutical companies have such a bad rep?

Michael? Statistics are like a bikini. What they show you is interesting, but what they conceal is essential China.

They concealed with the china.

Well, I think people who make these unsubstantiated claims need to visit their doctor and perhaps have their medication changed.

And obviously no one's paying you to say that.

No, do we accept donations from pharmaceutical companies? We most certainly do.

Oh no.

So according to these guys, pharmaceutical companies market dangerous drugs, mislead doctors and pay people off, which raises the question why am I with them? These pharmaceutical companies have billions of dollars, They can get away with anything they want, and I'm with them on national TV.

And you're not worried about that at all.

I wouldn't say it doesn't bother me, but well, it bothers me. Well the pharmaceutical company is. They don't kill people directly, They kill them with pills.

I don't want to be killed with anything. I want to live till I'm eighty nine years old, like you. Oh, could Fresh Face Michael J.

Really be in danger?

It seemed like everywhere I turned there they were everywhere else. If only there was something to relieve my anxiety.

Tired of another sleepless night?

Do you feel overwhelmed?

Anxious, nervous, sadness, despondent.

Distress at work, insomnia?

Your mind is racing and you're scared.

Now there's help.

Ask your doctor about celebs, symbal tic zol off, invocana and being the bilifi.

Just talk to your doctor.

Thanks pharmaceutical companies.

Side effects include nausea, rhymeouth diarrhea, and death.

Alrightber Rabbi, let's get to the big story of the day.

If you're watching the news, this is probably all you heard this morning.

There's a big development in the opioid crisis.

A new chapter in the fight against opioid addiction.

America's opioid epidemic, the opioid epidemic, the opioid.

Crisis, the opioid crisis, our nation's opioid crisis.

Yes, the opioid drug crisis. Now, when a lot of people hear about drugs, they don't think of prescription drugs, all right. People think of weed or LSD or mushrooms, you know, fun drugs, the ones that make the music better and the dancing worse. But today the abuse of prescription opioids like oxy or percocets is devastating America. These drugs are so widespread that they're now even in the hook of rap songs Purposes Marley Purposes, Yeah, percoset, Marley, percoset.

Back in the day, it was cocaine. Now it's like prescription drugs. Prescription drugs.

And by the way, future makes opioids sound cool in that song.

But don't forget kids. In real life, opioids aren't.

Just addictive, they also cause severe constipation.

Yeah, which is the one thing Future.

Didn't put in that song A constant pake my pooh is constant pake take a dumb I cannot take a dumb pooh hard, Yeah.

Pooh hard. It's left out of the song.

But the reality is opioids are now responsible for over thirty four thousand deaths a year in America. Thirty four thousand deaths right. In fact, since the year two thousands, the number of overdose deaths involving opioids has quadrupled. And that doesn't count the people who go on to od on heroin after first getting addicted to prescription pills. So

Jim Geldoff, a forty year dea veteran ran pharmaceutical investigations from DEA's Detroit field office, they saw distributors shipping thousands of suspicious orders. One example, a pharmacy in Kermit, West Virginia, a town of just three hundred and ninety two people, ordered nine million hydrocodone pills over two years.

Oh, nine million pills for four hundred people. Even if one of those people is Charlie Sheen, that.

Still leaves.

Eight million pills on accounted fall. Now, now you would think this would be an easy problem to solve, right, you just get the DEA in to shut down the pill distributor that's flooding the market with all these drugs. The problem is, last year those bitch ass was in Congress unanimously posted the law. Yeah, I said, unanimously unanimously post the law, greatly cutting the DA's power to go

If we wanted to find out just how much the pharmaceutical industry spends lobbying members of Congress. Draughtmakers and their advocacy groups spent close to two hundred and fifty million.

Dollars last year.

That surges to nearly two and a half billion dollars over the past decade. The industry consistently ranks at the top when it comes to money spent on lobbying. Gun rights lobbying last year totaled about ten and a half million dollars. That is just about four percent of what the pharmaceutical industry spends.

That's right, The pharmaceutical industry spends so much money lobbying Congress that and this is true. They got to write the law that the DEA, which is insane two hundred and fifty million dollars.

And you can write your own law.

You don't think that we all want to write our own laws.

Huh.

You don't think I want to write my own laws. The no speed limit for people with Dimple's law, you don't.

Think I think that should be a thing. Ha ha. So the opioid.

Crisis is huge, and the pharmaceutical industry isn't really interested in helping. But fortunately, my friends, as we saw in August, there's one man who gets it.

The opioid crisis is an emergency, and I'm saying officially right now it is an emergency.

It's a national emergency.

We're going to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of money on the opioid pressI.

Now we want to laugh, but that was huge. Declaring the opioid crisis an official national emergency. That is a big step because when the president does that, the government can start using money from a multi billion dollar fund to fight the problem. Donald Trump getting it done. Yeah, we had to do or sign the paperwork, which he took care of this afternoon. Effective today, my administration is officially declaring the opioid crisis a national public health emergency

He did it.

He declared the opioid crisis a national public health emergency, which I just realized is not a thing. God damn, he got us again.

No, no, because it's subtle. But they're two different things.

There's a national emergency and there's a public health emergency. It's a small word change, but it makes a big difference. It's like saying twelve inch versus twelve inches.

You see, a.

National emergency means the government would have had access to twenty three billion dollars to help fight the opioid epidemic.

That's what Trump promised.

What Trump actually signed was a public health emergency, which gives the government access to a fund that currently has fifty seven thousand dollars in it. That's a huge difference. Yeah, put it this way, if you had to go to rehab, who would you want funding it? The CEO of Verizon or Craig who works at Verizon. Now, now you know what, this isn't even one of those days where I'm angry at Trump. I'm just I'm disappointed because what he delivered

Big, beautiful wall greens.

No Mexicans allowed, and guess who paid for it? Mexico's neighbor, America.

The words change everything. So once again President Trump did not fail to disappoint. But you know what, there's really nothing to worry about because we've already seen that Donald Trump can't handle the drug crisis all by himself.

Traise your hands, kids. I promise Donald J. Trump, Donald J.

Troft, that I will never take drugs.

Trump.

I don't want to say no alcohol, but take it easy on the alcohol, right.

And you know what else, no cigarettes.

He's the best American Trump presidents ever.

We'll be right back the opioid crisis.

Over the course of two decades, millions of Americans have become addicted to these painkillers, and after years of people demanding that someone be held accountable, the drug companies are finally starting to pay a price.

There is word tonight of a settlement involving thousands of lawsuits tied to the opioid crisis. Cotton maker Purdue Pharma has reached an agreement with twenty two states at about two thousand local governments over its role in the deadly epidemic. The company will pay up to twelve billion dollars over time, with three billion coming from the Sackler family. They own Purdue Pharma, and will also give up control of the company.

You know I'll be honest with you, I'm torn about the story.

You know, yes, I'm happy that the opioid companies will have to pay. But at the same time, they misled sick people about how addictive their drugs were. Right they also lobbied to lift limits on how many opioids doctors could prescribe. And then now that they've made billions of dollars off an epidemic that caused countless debts, they just get to be like, ah, how about we give you some of that money back and we call it even I think it's bullshit.

I'll be honest.

I imagine someone broke into your house stole a bunch of their stuff, and then when you busted them, they're.

Like, all right, all right, you got me. How about I break you off one hundred and we call it even yeah. Yeah, And you're like, that's my wallet.

It's like, okay, one twenty one, twenty, but I got to keep the library card.

Okay.

And even though even though this opioid crisis has been in the news for the past few years, the family who profited most from a lot of this devastation has managed to remain fairly anonymous. But now we're finally meeting the men behind the curtain.

For the first time.

We're now seeing and hearing from doctor Richard Sackler, the former chairman and president of Purdue Pharma, respond to questions under oath.

Do you know how much the Sackler family has made off the sale of oxycon?

I don't know.

Do you know if it's over ten billion dollars?

I don't think so.

You know, if it's about five billion dollars, I don't know. That's fair to say it's over a billion dollars.

It would be fair to say.

That, yes, really, really, this guy's gonna act like he doesn't know if he made a billion dollars.

Cut the fuck out of here.

Man.

You see him acting like he's thinking about it. Did I guess you could say he's acting like he has to.

Count up all his change. Well, I did get that ten dollars from Grandma. I made one fifty from the odd sale.

Oh yeah, there's a billion dollars from killing thousands of Americans by lying to them about they painingcares.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot that part. Oh and I got the library card. Yeah, the library card.

And the cycle is they aren't the only ones facing consequences for their role in fueling the opioid epidemic. Right, everyone's favorite baby shampoo company has also been told it's time to pay up.

Yesterday, in Oklahoma, judge ruled that opioids ravaged the state and order Johnson and Johnson at paid five hundred and seventy two million dollars. The judge said that the company intentionally misled the public about the dangers of its drugs.

Johnson and Johnson stock was up as much as five percent since.

The company was ordered to pay far less than many investors expected.

Yeah, you heard that right.

Johnson and Johnson's stock actually went up after they were fined five hundred and seventy two million dollars because they expected the punishment.

To be much worse. They expected the punishment to be worse.

Yeah, and that.

Tells you something.

It's like a guy coming out of the shower and his girlfriend is like, uh, you've got some explaining to do.

I was looking through your phone and who is this puppy you met? It is adorable? You know, I love puppies. Why didn't you tell me? And the guys are like, oh yeah, oh.

The puppy that I'm totally not having sex with yeah, the puppy. So as it stands, these drug companies are going to pay a bunch of fines, not even admit responsibility, and no one seems to be going to jail, which is insane when you think about it, right, Like, just think about the levels here. Prosecutors want Felicity Huffman to go to jail for cheating in a college admission scandal.

They want to go to jail for that, but.

The people responsible for thousands of American deaths get to walk away with a slap on the wrist. These people are basically very formal drug dealers who are now protected just because they're a corporation. But if you look at someone like El Chapo, what's the major difference, right, be like, oh, it's more violent, yes, but fundamentally he's a drug dealer.

They were drug dealers. The Feds took his money, and he's spending the rest of his life in prison.

So if you think about it, El Chapel really only made one big mistake. He shouldn't have been a drug lord. He should have been the CEO of L. Chapel Inc.

We'll be right back.

My first guest is the Emmy and Oscar winning filmmaker Alex Gibney. He's here to talk about his powerful new HBO documentary about the opioid crisis. Alex Gibney, Welcome to the Daily Social Distancing Show.

Thanks Trevor.

The last time you were on our show was in twenty eighteen and you were on with it was your documentary Dirty Money. Now you are back with another documentary about a topic that I can't even explain to you how infuriating it makes me as a person because a of what was done to people, b of what the ramifications have been, and see why it feels like almost nothing is going to happen in the way of justice. And that is all about the opioid epidet tell me

Doc four hours called the Crime of the Century. And the reason I call it the Crime of the Century and the reason I was interested in doing it was it seemed like the opioid crisis was being presented to us almost like a natural disaster, like a hurricane or

And what's really interesting in this story I didn't know some of these parts, was how these drug companies Perdue in particular, said you know what, we're going to make sure we get these drugs to the people. We're going to trick everybody from the government through to the consumer and make sure that they take as much of these pills as possible. The question I have for you is, how on earth do they trick the FDA.

We got our hands on a document it seems to indicate that actually they got to a person inside the FDA who's actually the medical officer examining the application, and they turn him and in fact, he cooperates with them in terms of reviewing their own application.

It's like, wow.

And then a year after leaving the FDA, Low and behold, he gets a job with Purdue for about close to four hundred thousand dollars.

Wow.

Coincidence, I think not.

This is one of the saddest crime stories for me, because it does not end with a sense of justice. It does not end with the sense of the world is in a better place because the company itself doesn't suffer, and neither does the family who's made all of the money.

That's right, and now you're referring to Purdue. Now, in a few rare occasions, some executives have been committed and have gone to prison in the case of Insists, for example. But we see more often it's the mid level dealers who get nabbed, the Walter Whites who get nabbed, and the people at the tippy top, the Sackler family for example, or the key executives at Purdue didn't do any time, and it's worse than just them getting off scott free.

When I saw that part of the documentary, one of the things I found myself thinking was, it's amazing how if you kill a person in America, you can go away for the rest of your life, but if you kill hundreds of thousands of people, somehow, it's just a statistic. And the ultimate irony on top of it is they are now paying the fines that they've been required to pay, not from their personal wealth, but rather by selling more opioids.

Yes, you're referring to a recent decision by the Department of Justice, another criminal admission of guilt by the Purdue company. And Purdue agrees to pay an eight billion dollar fine. You think, wow, that's great, eight billion dollars, What a tremendous punishment. Then you discovered, oh, wait a minute, Purdue Pharma is bankrupt. The sacklers have taken all their money out of the company, and how are they going to

That up.

When you are when you're a film maker, you're trying to tell us a story. You know, That's what you do in all of your documentaries, and oftentimes those stories make people want to do something.

In this case, I felt helpless.

I was like, well, I mean the justice you know, the Justice Department did its thing, the justice had run its course, and yet there is no justice out there.

As a storyteller, you're.

Shining a light on this. But what would you hope that A people can do and B people can change in what we're experiencing in the world today.

Okay, so that's a really good question. And the last thing I want to inculcate in people is a sense of hopelessness, because one of the things that I got out of this was that as big as the opioid crime is five hundred thousand people dead, you know, many millions of people addicted, it pales in comparison to the larger problem, which is the unholy mixture of this turbosarage

Well, I will say this hopefully, I genuinely hope that as many people as possible watch this and that could be the Cantilus will change that so many people desperately need in this country. Alex Gidney, thank you again for your time, Thank you again for your work. I'll see you again on the show.

Great thanks Trevor.

Alex Gibney's two pot HBO documentary, The Crime of the Century, debuts May tenth on HBO and HBO Max.

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