Madison Buechner explores how Dopesick portrays the trickle-down of greed during the opioid crisis in America and how it affects everyone involved.
The Hulu series, Dopesick, shows us Purdue Pharma’s contribution to the opioid crisis, and the domino effect it had on addiction. The Sacklers required a miracle drug to make the money that they desperately needed. This is how OxyContin was born. From here the trickle-down manipulation started as they fed their sales reps lies to spread to doctors, to spread to patients, and to spread to communities. Without giving it any consideration, the Sacklers caused a new wave of addiction in the opioid epidemic, and ruined many people’s lives, by saying that OxyContin was non-addictive when it was the complete opposite.
Billy Cutler is a Purdue sales representative, who sold Dr. Samuel Finnix on OxyContin. Cutler and his coworkers were told to sell doctors on the fact that it was nonaddictive, and that the effects lasted the full 12 hours. When patients started complaining about the effects not lasting, Cutler and other sales reps were told to tell doctors to up the dosage, and then again, and then again. Too many people became addicts as a result of the Sacklers greed. In other countries we don’t see this often, so how come America can’t get it under control as European countries have? While Dopesick hits close to home for many American households, many neglect to recognize the depth of this tragedy when it is compared to opioid usage in other countries.
How did this happen?
Danny Strong told this story through timeline jumps, which is crucial to understanding how this tragedy came to be because the full story takes place starting in the late 80s and ending in the early 2000s. The series begins in 1986 showing Richard Sacklers piercing blue eyes staring back at you in the opening scene (episode 1). He’s proposing the idea that suffering needs to come to an end, saying we no longer need to live with pain. While this may sound good, the scene just feels slightly off. From the way he stares to the way he’s saying all of this very slowly with the tiniest hint of desperation. The irony of this is that he says by living with pain, we lose the ability to think and feel. Addicts lose the ability to think and feel the way they did without drugs, and Richard Sackler caused a new wave of addicts. He stated an issue, how to fix it, and then made the situation worse than he imagined it to be.
Purdue’s patent for MS Contin was going to expire, and this drug was responsible for 25% of their sales. OxyContin saved the company but destroyed homes and communities. Money over everything is a theme that was burned in Richard’s brain and he was careless of how his actions would affect the people he was trying to help. Towards the end of episode one, we see Purdue’s sales representatives getting the information about OxyContin to give to doctors. They are told to make the doctors feel special to make it easier to sell to them and convince them to switch from painkillers like Percocet and Vicodin to OxyContin. This is because it is a “miracle drug,” and with doctors being apprehensive about opioids, they needed to sell them on the facts that seem too good to be true. It worked, but we see where that took us. They also received psychological profiles of the doctors. Purdue took extreme measures to make sure doctors were sold on their product because they needed to. They were desperate.
When something like this happens, we need to stop and ask where else it’s happening. America is known to be corrupt, so the chances of greed like this are huge that it is happening in other companies. More importantly in medicine, because it affects our health. In the article, “The Pharmaceutical Industry, Institutional Corruption, and Public Health,” Edwin J. Safra brings awareness to why these companies are corrupt. He states, “The income of drug firms, their key executives, and drug detailers rise as drug sales increase, even if drugs are prescribed for unapproved uses and/ or used inappropriately. This incentive even encourages the illegal promotion of unapproved drug uses.” People in power need to stay in power. Companies in power need to stay in power. If they need to, they will be ruthless in making their money. Because of this, the public is affected negatively, especially in healthcare. It’s easy for healthcare companies to manipulate us because we are so trusting of them. This is a huge contribution to how the scandal of Purdue Pharma and OxyContin came to be.
Why did this happen?
There’s always more to the story than the obvious “this is why.” Yes, it spiraled because of false information about OxyContin, but would this have happened in any other country? America runs on money, and sometimes people need to be corrupt to get it. In the article, “Lessons from Abroad: How Europeans have tackled opioid addiction and what the U.S. could learn from them,” author Taylor Knopf discusses what countries in Europe have done to suppress opioid addictions. Knopf reported, “In Switzerland, France and other European countries, health officials find safe consumption facilities to help drive down rates of disease transmission, overdose and even consumption.” European countries have taken significant measures to reduce opioid overdoses and addiction. Because of this, the statistics plummeted significantly, while in America they continue to rise. According to “Opioid Crisis Statistics,” in the U.S. “more than 760,000 people have died since 1999 from a drug overdose.” This number is depressing, yet terrifying. It shows how accessible drugs are in the U.S., and how easy it is to fall into their alluring trap. Clearly, drastic measures are needed, but America can’t seem to do what is needed.
Numbers speak for themselves in situations like this one. In the article “Is Europe facing an opioid crisis like the United States?” Mimi Pierce provided statistics comparing opioid use and its effects in America and 19 other European countries. After OxyContin was released to the public, opioid-related deaths in America from 2000-2018 increased “from 3 to almost 15 per 100,000 population per year.” This then led to an increase in heroin and fentanyl-related deaths. Americans are fed opioids, and then people wonder why there is so much addiction in the U.S. It is simply faulty regulation. Meanwhile, in Europe, Pierce states “the number of opioid-related overdose deaths was stable in Europe between 2007 and 2017 at approximately 1·two opioid-related deaths per 100,000 population per year.” The difference is significant, and Europe’s numbers will continue to decline. They’ve taken the steps in the right direction to get this huge issue in control. In America, we can’t seem to figure out how to make our numbers in this category decrease. As an American myself, I wondered why the people with power are not taking notes and acting on them. To answer the question of why did this happen, and specifically in America: difference in morals. We can see the effect this has on people in Dopesick.
How people were affected
In Dopesick, Strong uses different storylines to show how different people are affected. In one storyline, Betsy Mallum is a young, lesbian miner from a Christian household trying to make money to move out with her secret girlfriend. This dream comes to a halt when she suffers a back injury from the mines. Dr. Finnix prescribed her OxyContin in episode one, and from here her life spiraled. She became addicted to painkillers, her girlfriend left her, she would steal from her parents and had began prostituting. Despite her and her parents' efforts to get her clean, she goes looking for Oxy. In episode six, Betsy goes to a church support group and begins to restore her faith in God to help herself get clean. Later in the episode, we see her begging God to relieve her of temptation. Then when her ex-girlfriend said she would only want to remain friends even when she got clean, she got her hands on heroin and the rabbit hole got even deeper. When one drug gets too hard to get, people turn to the more accessible, cheaper, and more life-threatening drugs. This was Betsy’s case and by the end of episode seven, Betsy overdosed on heroin. This is the risk that pharmaceutical companies take when providing opioids to the public. The people in power in pharmaceutical companies have the power to ruin and take peoples’ lives just by taking one big, or small risk. The Sacklers and Purdue Pharma took this chance and did too much damage as they knocked the dominoes over.
Another example in episode seven is when Betsy is trying to get her hands on more OxyContin. She goes to a run area full of addicts that had their lives ruined by drugs living in tents to find an acquaintance that she knew could give her some. Fortunately, he didn't have any, unfortunately, he gave her heroin. By showing a community of people that lost themselves in drugs, Dopesick shows us how deep this problem is rooted. These communities are too prevalent in America because there is an abundance of people who have suffered to the point of no return. Proving that we have lost our morals as a country. We are aware of this, we see it on tv and in person, yet we have not solved it yet, while other countries make significant strides in the right direction.
While Dopesick does an excellent job at portraying the trickle-down manipulation that resulted in the opioid crisis in America, some may question if we could solve this issue without eliminating opioid prescriptions like in some European countries. Some people genuinely need opioids to treat the pain they are caused. If we cut opioids out, people that can’t afford to miss work will have more time off from an injury. Chronic pain will haunt many people. The issue with this is people who become hooked on painkillers can exaggerate their pain. This is how a lot of people can stay addicted. We’ve made it too easy in America. This is why comparing our situation and our action plans to European countries is crucial. They have it figured out, and we do not. We need to put an end to selfish thinking and think about the bigger picture. Dopesick accurately displays exactly where selfish thinking leads to. Selfishly, America continuously chooses to stay on the selfish path.
In conclusion, Dopesick tells the tragic, true story of Purdue Pharma and the opioid crisis, which is even more heartbreaking when we compare it to how other countries handle an issue like this. It shows the darkness that lurks around Richard Sackler as he manipulated the world with false marketing of a dangerous drug, causing a new wave of addiction in the U.S. While Dopesick only tells the story of Purdue Pharma, it allows us to take a step back and see where else this is going on. One decision from a company with control can ruin a lot of people. So how do we fix this? If other countries can get this same issue under control, why is America not cleaning up the dominoes that big companies knock over with the bat of an eye?
Author Bio: My name is Madison Buechner and I am from the suburbs of Philadelphia. I study biology at Bloomfield College, while also participating on the softball team. While I am a biology major now, I am switching to psychology, potentially with a minor in English.
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