Factual America examines America through the lens of documentary filmmaking. Guests include Academy Award, Emmy and Grammy-winning documentary filmmakers and producers, their subjects, as well as experts on the American experience. Find out more about the current and upcoming documentaries on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Sky Documentaries and other platforms directly from the creators. Whether we discuss true crime, music, burning social and political topics, history, or arts, Factual America is your #1 documentary film podcast. Factual America is produced by Alamo Pictures, a London- and Austin-based production company that makes documentaries about the US from a European perspective for international audiences.
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episode 12: Opioid Addiction: This Drug May Kill You
Warning: This Drug May Kill You (2017) by broadcast journalist Perri Peltz is a heart-wrenching account of opioid addiction in the US. Before the coronavirus, a different epidemic plagued America. Medical researchers will hopefully develop a vaccine for Covid-19 in the near future. But more than 2 million Americans remain addicted to opioids. Is there any hope in sight?
Norman Stone, award-winning director, producer and screenwriter, joins Factual America to discuss Peltz’s film. Norman has researched the opioid epidemic in America. Norman’s latest film, The Final Fix (2020), offers a glimmer of hope to the addicted.
Warning: This Drug May Kill You shows how opioid addiction affects people from all walks of life. Americans who would never seek illicit drugs find themselves hooked on prescription painkillers. Many move on to heroin.
The opioid epidemic costs the US economy many billions of dollars annually and destroys many lives. However, Norman says the problem is big pharma, which doles out trillions of dollars to the US medical establishment.
Inspired by Peltz’s film, Norman’s The Final Fix shows that there might be a relatively simple cure to opioid addiction – Neuroelectric Therapy (NET). But the authorities refuse to give NET a clinical trial.
“While they made billions upon billions of dollars out of this, they killed hundreds of thousands, with cold calculated precision.” – Norman Stone
Time Stamps:01:28 – Saying “hello” to our guest Norman.
02:18 – Who Norman Stone is and his career as a filmmaker.
04:56 – The topic of today’s podcast: opioid addiction.
06:25 – The economic cost of the opioid epidemic in the US.
08:50 – The film we are discussing today and why Norman chose it.
11:46 – The importance of focusing on the truth.
14:00 – What opioids are, and why they were so readily prescribed.
18:15 – First clip: the main protagonist and how she ended up on the road of addiction.
23:00 – The deliberate way that people have been coerced into addiction.
24:52 – Second clip: how addiction can hit anyone, even those living the ‘American Dream’. 31:34 – Discussing the clip, and how it discreetly shames doctors.
33:13 – The ways doctors are manipulated by big pharma to sell opioids.
35:04 – What’s being done to address the opioid epidemic.
36:14 – Norman’s previous films on drug addiction and treatment.
37:30 – Neuroelectric Therapy (NET), and the documentary Norman made about it.
39:39 – The different ways there are to stop addiction.
41:24 – Scotland’s drug and alcohol problems, and the amazing success of NET.
45:42 – The trials in America, and their unbelievable success.
Warning: This Drug May Kill You
The Final Fix A
lamo Pictures
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