Wesley Robinson examines the opioid crisis in the Hulu TV show. The show gives understanding of the seriousness of addiction.
Dopesick, Hulu’s very own, goes through just how impactful the opioid crisis was in the U.S. This show exemplifies the ways that Oxycontin can become a pathway into wanting to try other drugs through one of the main characters which is Betsy. She was one of the people that took Oxycontin and fell into the rabbit hole of addiction. Her mother decided that it would be best for her to go to a support group sponsored by a church and sadly while she was there, she was given even more drugs. The more drugs Betsy received, the worse her addiction got; she would eventually get hooked onto heroin in which things went downhill from there. Betsy then went on to die from a heroin overdose.
Another individual who became extremely addicted to drugs was someone who viewers would never expect, Dr. Samuel Finnix. He sadly got into a horrific car accident which then led him to the Oxycontin drug, which made him become an addict. This addiction led to methadone and then to Suboxone which they would later find out is just as bad as Oxycontin and heroin. Although Oxycontin and other drugs are not an automatic gateway to other drugs, there is a high possibility that if you are addicted to a drug, it may lead to trying other drugs and becoming addicted to those. Purdue Pharma, which is shown through Dopesick, exemplifies how falsely advertising their products can be extremely dangerous for patients and can lead to long-term effects on a person and their families.
One of the major ways that Dopesick hits home the idea that falsely advertising can be a murderous money making scheme is by exemplifying the affects of addiction throughout the show. Addiction can alter someone’s life and ultimately make them become a totally different person. According to the article titled, “Dopesick Recap: Betsy Hits Rock Bottom… and Then Keeps Digging” it talks about the extremes that Betsy went through throughout the show. She started out on Oxycontin and eventually panned out to trying heroin in which she overdosed on and died from. This article also explains how her parents were even affected by her addiction. As anyone could imagine, being a parent of a child who is addicted to drugs can be an extremely heart-wrenching thing to experience. Betsy at one point was living on the streets and became a prostitute until her mom came and brought her back home. Her parents were extremely religious and the addictions also didn’t help any that she was exploring her sexuality. This big chain reaction of events could have possibly all been avoided if Purdue Pharma did not falsely advertise their drugs Oxycontin. Betsy, although she is a fictional character, represents some of the many people that have gone through this same cycle of starting out on one simple drug, and how it can truly affect the people that they love most.
In addition to Betsy’s tragedy, another example of just how significant addiction can be and how easy it can be for someone to fall into addiction, Betsy’s doctor also fell into the same trap that she did. According to the article that is titled, “‘Dopesick’ Episode 4 ‘Pseudo-Addiction’ Recap — Dr. Samuel Finnix Sinks Deeper” it goes on to say that Dr. Finnix became addicted to Oxycontin. He then eventually tries other drugs like methadone which is just as bad as Betsy’s addiction to heroin. Falsely advertising Oxycontin, although Dr. Finnix knew partially the effects that the drug can have on someone, changed his life forever.
Purdue Pharma falsely advertised their extremely addictive drug in the TV show Dopesick which is based off of the true story of the opioid epidemic. Oxycontin was said to be a drug that would help take away pain that patients were experiencing. Although it did take the pain away, it would make patients feel like they cannot live without it. Patients would keep coming back for more Oxycontin and eventually get higher doses as time went on. Through the show, Dopesick exemplified how in America, many individuals were extremely addicted to Oxycontin due to the false advertisement of it which caused hundreds of thousands of people to die. They showed not only the risks of first becoming addicted to a drug, but also the detriment of if a company falsely advertises their drugs.
While I have argued that many companies falsely advertise their drugs, it also could be the case that people are not reading all of the terms and conditions of the drug. In many cases, people will buy an over-the-counter drug that they heard about or were prescribed to take, but they don’t look at the nutritional facts or the ingredients in the drug. If some people took the time to read labels of drugs that they will be intaking, it would save a plethora of lives. This is reasonable because many people, including myself, most of the time don’t read the terms and conditions or the nutritional facts on the bottle. Nowadays, people could pick something up that looks similar to something that they usually buy and won’t even realize that they bought the wrong item until they get home.
Companies could falsely advertise their drugs by not giving the full information and misleading their audience into thinking their product has no flaws. Reading the labels could only go to a certain extent in terms of a patient taking it or not. For example, if a patient was told that a certain drug will cure their disease or the pain that they are experiencing, they will most likely take it because they want the pain to be gone now. The thing that patients don't know though is that in the long run they could still be taking the drug everyday for their own pleasure and then eventually it could lead into a pathway to other drugs. This pathway can become an extreme detriment into someone’s life because it can lead to the more severe versions of drugs such as heroin which Betsy overdosed with and eventually died to. Viewers have now learned he chain reaction from falsely advertising a drug can truly ruin an individual's life and their families if they sadly were to pass away or end up in a rehabilitation facility.
Wesley Robinson: Computer Science Major at Bloomfield College
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