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. 

Resources:

Warning: This Drug May Kill You
The Final Fix
Alamo Pictures 

Connect with Norman Stone:

Website

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Transcript for Factual America Episode 12 - Opioid Addiction: This Drug May Kill You

Intro 0:01
You're listening to factual America. This podcast is produced by Alamo pictures, a production company specializing in documentaries, television and shorts about the USA for international audiences. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Alamo pictures to be the first to hear about new productions, festivals were attending and how to connect with our team. Our homepage is almopictures.co.uk. And now, enjoy factual America with our host, Matthew Sherwood.

Matthew 0:38
Welcome to factual America, a podcast that explores the themes that make America unique through the lens of documentary filmmaking. I'm your host, Matthew Sherwood and every two weeks it is my pleasure to interview documentary filmmakers and experts on the American experience. We're coming to you this time, from York England. Factual America's Do an exile, also known in the Sherwood household as the kitchen. It's the lockdown version and it's our first lockdown podcast. And with that in mind, I want to instead of jumping to the topic, I want to bring our guest in straight away because in times like these, it's good to find out how people are doing. So let me without further ado, ask Norman Stone to say, Hello, how are you doing, Norman?

Norman 1:28
I'm doing fine. I think you've got a lovely kitchen. I'm personally in my home office up here in Scotland, just north of Glasgow.

Matthew 1:37
Well, it looks like a great man cave to me. But

Norman 1:40
don't tell the wife. And it's true. It's true.

Matthew 1:44
Well, thanks to the wife. That's why this kitchens possible, I had to paint it last week so so it's a fresh coat of paint. A nice nice white off white background so we should be okay for those of you actually watching and not just listening to this

Norman 2:00
Welcome to home decorating tips brought to you by

Matthew 2:04
Hey, those guys get a lot of views. I know I've watched a few. But let me just at this point before we even get to the topic, Norman, I have for those of you don't know, who don't know you you're you're an award winning director, producer and screen water writer, you've won two BAFTAS and I think twice have gotten a national EMMI. I'm not even going to start to try to go down your filmography, will it's going to be in the show notes and it wouldn't do justice. I know you rose to fame with the the TV drama of Shadowlands and it's just been it's been pretty much onwards and upwards from there. And I've noted that you've directed people like Claire Bloom, Peter O'Toole, Jonathan Pryce, Dirk Bogarde Lee remmick, Helena Bonham Carter, Jeremy Irons. You must have some stories you could tell

Norman 3:00
Oh, so many you wouldn't believe I'm not sure I'm allowed to tell every one of them. But yes, basically, they're great people, you know, I was a bit in awe of stars at first, and then you realize that just like you, they're just trying to do their best. And once you get on the same line with them, and you care about the film together, then I've had very good experiences of these people.

Matthew 3:24
I think, Well, I think we're gonna have to save some of those conversations for another another podcast, but I think just just O'Toole alone could probably fill several podcasts, but

Norman 3:35
he would have agreed with you entirely.

Matthew 3:39
I was gonna say, I have I have drunk I had a drink with Peter tool, but that's really stretching the truth.

Norman 3:44
You said drunk. I noticed the sort of time you said I had a drunk. It's a certain point in his life that would have been quite understandable. He dried out by the end

Matthew 3:54
it was probably more in reference to myself at the time but i think it's it's it's a bit of a stretch of the definition of the preposition with. I happen to be in the same pub. He frequented the Red Line just off German Street. I forget what the road is. But I was in there one time and looked over. And at the other end of the bar was Sir Peter O'Toole. So there you go. One of my claims,

Norman 4:20
He talked about that with me often he said there's one such at the other end of the bar,

Matthew 4:25
who was making a fool of themselves. American gonna yank. But anyway, so but it's not just dramas, you've done a lot of documentaries. That's how you cut your teeth. I gathered up a lot of dramatized docs, CJ Lewis or Florence Nightingale in the King James Bible has been a subject. So I think that brings us nicely I, I believe to the sort of the subject of today's Power podcasts because you've just just put in the can a film called The Final fix, which is launching in May and narrated by Ewan McGregor. And that brings us nicely to the topic, I think of today's podcast, which is an unfortunate topic, but when I think that deserves a lot of more attention than it's been getting, and that's opioid addiction.

Norman 5:19
Yeah.

Matthew 5:20
Now, let's just have set the scene and then I'm going to quickly switch over to you as I should, as any good host should. Even the National Institutes of Health in the United States have described it as a serious national crisis that affects public health as well as social and economic welfare. 128 people die every day. That's around 47,000 people per year in the United States die from opioid overdosing overdoses. The CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, which is obviously in the news a lot these days with the Coronavirus has estimated that the economic burden of the crisis is a prescription opioid misuse alone is 78.5 billion a year in the US. And that includes the cost of health care, lost productivity, addiction treatment, criminal justice and criminal justice involvement. So

Norman 6:21
I could update those figures for you, by the way, they're modest figures. Well, they According to the American government figures, the cost over the last two or three years to the economy in America has been $2.5 trillion, which is bizarre to me. There's regularly I mean, back in 2017, I think it was where the figures come in. There was at least 72,000 deaths in America, which is higher, and there's just endless endless trouble because 2 million people in America have to get up in the morning and take a fixed as 2 million. I mean, they again the government figures say on this issue, that you have a amount of people who have been affected, or how did they put it negatively and powerfully by the addiction crisis. There's 46% of American population that has been affected by in that way by this crisis. That means over 151 million people need to think about this, want to think about this because they've been damaged by it. That's a lot of people.

Matthew 7:37
That's a lot of people, even in the context of the numbers we're talking about now. with this pandemic that's going on. And the figures you mentioned are even bigger than this crazy stimulus package that's come out recently in the states to try to address this one issue. I think, well, maybe later in the in the podcast, we talked about how maybe things are going to look different in the next, in the coming years. But these are amazing numbers and what I find, as an American, as someone who's been, you know, it's one of these things we're all aware of you hear the opioid crisis that gets, you know, you start picking up a list of things that need to be addressed. That's always towards the top. But that seems to me often where it kind of stops, people are aware it's happening. We can get into the discussion later about why there's sort of a lack of action, if you will, on this. But before we do that, as we as you know how we roll here at factual America, we've asked you to choose a film that well, that helps serve as a backdrop to this subject, and one that I think is near and dear to your heart. So that would be WARNING: This Drug May Kill You. So can you maybe it's directed by Perry pelts for HBO. So why did you Choose this film Norman?

Norman 9:03
I was preparing for another film, and I was on a plane, going across to America, and on those fearsome little screens, I saw an option of the film called Warning: This drug may kill you, which is an impressive title. But also I was interested in that particular subject anyhow, and I watched it. And frankly, it just blew me away. And it was incredibly well made, incredibly powerful. Someone who'd obviously crafted it well, but with passion, and it wasn't afraid of story and emotion. You see, I don't think that, for me, at least, documentaries are not meant to be illustrated lectures, you know, slideshows on science by a man in a white coat doesn't work for me. You've got to tell human stories and you got to be interested in stories and people, with all that that means with respect and relentless truth, that's got to be the center and powerful emotion. And that came in to a subject But could have been mistreated so easily. And she did not mistreated and it was very, very powerful. The only problem at the end, was after a tremendously powerful way of making the film and constructing it and structuring it and so on. At the end, you almost felt like slitting your wrists because there was no hope left. You saw people, she dissected the problem with these people going worse and worse and dying and so on. But brilliantly so. And then he said, well, if you want nowhere near as rehab is, of course, they will put you on another drug. Then we ask Samsa, which is an organization that America's you know, medical one, and then that was it. So I understood it. I felt the power of it. I didn't have anywhere to go, except I knew of something that maybe did have somewhere to go and I think you're gonna ask me about that later. So stay tuned.

Matthew 10:57
I think we might get to that point, I guess. I think actually To draw on your your wealth of experience, it also might be good at this stage to let's talk about this film specifically. Besides the subject matter, as you've already alluded to, it's extremely well crafted. And there's even a scene, well, there's the opening that we're not going to show because, as we've discussed previously, it's very powerful and anyone who hasn't a chance to see it I highly recommend you watch this. But the first two minutes are just some of the most powerful cinema I think I've seen in recent recent years yet. So what is it about what Perry's, she's a journalist by by broadcast journalist by background, so what was it that she did that really gets that story across?

Norman 11:46
She went after truth, and she didn't blink. I think that's a high accolade for a filmmaker. I've talked to her on the phone since she's helped me on a film that I've been making, and I haven't had really studied her enough. I know she gives talks on film structure and so on. I've seen them online. But I think she's a journalist with heart, a total commitment to truth and understands filmmaking in a way that keeps you watching, you know, as documentary filmmakers and indie drama, drama film directors, you have to earn the right to be heard. I think that's the phrase, our Ed Pomplon, you have to earn the right no one. No one owes me a viewing. No one just because I'm interested in it doesn't mean anything should be. So you earn the right to be heard in many ways. And one of the ways is by telling things with a straight eye, you do not turn away or fudge, you go after truth. So that's the one thing I, apart from the skills of a filmmaker, that's what I really think she's got. And long may that continue.

Matthew 12:56
Well I think that's good advice for for even we you young filmmakers that are thinking about entering into the into the business what is it that what's what's a key element to success if you will, is I guess is is this passion that you're talking about a passion

Norman 13:14
As if scale by itself isn't enough. You can get classic cases of people who are very skillful Lenny Rifenstall me rection fell over name was in in Germany. She was doing propaganda for Hitler brilliantly. There are still films locked away in vaults that we are not allowed to see because it was such a powerful anti Jewish propaganda. But she was brilliant that didn't make it good. That didn't make the there was a hollow center. It was based on lies. Whereas you've got to be you can be committed to truth and make a dreadful film as well. So I think the two things go hand in hand.

Matthew 13:49
Well, let's maybe even taking a step back. What are opioid?

Norman 13:55
I am needing a tablet right now.

Matthew 13:59
Probably, I probably do. And, you know, I guess the 90s the doctors started prescribing them. And you know, I don't mind naming shaming because it's public record Purdue pharma even pleaded guilty in 2007 and paid one of the largest pharmaceutical seller settlements. And then this will take us through, I think our first clip, but

Norman 14:21
You go back before then to the late 70s and 80s, where pain was made King. What do I mean by that? Well, suddenly, we were being told by pharmacists and doctors that pain was the important thing. It was even put forward that it would be a vital sign, which later people woke up and said, well, it can't be a vital sign. It's very personal. Some people feel terribly and some people don't, etc. But they were very keen to have pain be above everything else. Why? Well, you might not believe this, but they had some painkillers that they'd like to sell. And they started off on that road telling us that we needed pain was the big thing, and then saying, look, we can do this, and Purdue Pharma since you mentioned them, one of the brothers that started it had been high on Madison Avenue in an advertising and is very clever at that. And they took over an old constipation medicine factory outside of New York, and they tweaked it and switched it around to something that eventually became oxy..., which was the big opioid push that it did. And they did it with such calculating Lee, I can say this now because it's been proved in court, calculating brazen money centered brutality, that people, deliberately on their part started to take these tablets and the doctors were both bribed and encouraged and sweet talked and given holidays, and sometimes just hard cash to actually get people hooked on their product. Well, why would they do that? Because they were the owners of the product. They had it. I'll give you a quote which accidentally I don't know why I sort of committed it to memory. This was from a very early message in the early days of Purdue Pharma came out in court, and he's talking to his thousands of sales agents that he took on. It went skyrocketing. He said, anticipating what they're about to do and sell all these tablets, as many of them, he said, we will create a blizzard of prescriptions so white and so deep, that no one will be able to survive. And if the people come to us and say, You have addicted us, and you have made me ill, I think that was a phrase, we say to them, you are the criminals you have abused our good drugs. End of quote. and that is like a confession to murder as far as I'm concerned, because while they made billions upon billions upon billions dollars out of this. They killed hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands with cold blooded calculation. Of course they didn't necessarily want to kill them. They want to keep paying for the drugs. And then like a perfect storm, the pain thing that they'd started this is the most important, the painkiller thing and ordinary people these weren't junkies as they used to call them under the freeway or panhandling on the streets. These were good people, your neighbors, maybe yourself, people watching this podcast are gonna know someone who's done this and they're not nasty people. They are just hooked. That's bad enough, but we hope deliberately is criminal.

Matthew 17:41
Well, and I think that's where this I think this where the film Perry pelts his film is actually quite, quite striking. And, and I think that a good clip to show right now would be the, there's one main there's several protagonists, unfortunately many of them and I don't need to spoil Alert are no longer with us. But the main protagonist is someone named Stephanie Gay. And I think it's a clip that maybe you want to set it up but basically shows how she talks about how she unwittingly went down this slippery slope into into an addiction.

Norman 18:23
Yes, I think she had kidney stones as a teenage girl. And the doctor merrily gave her a tub of I think it was oxycottin painkillers, and she just went for it. She just got hooked, without meaning to. and that's the point. There's a girl and it's replicated many times across America to a point still is been, in those days with commissions to sell pills and so on. They were widely operated as distributors. They were the drug pushers. And I think I don't think there are wicked doctors necessarily. I think we are wicked people at the core of it, but I think they Would doing what made sense to them at this time, and no one knew the disaster that was going to happen. So there's Stephanie. She gets these drugs, and then we see what happens.

Stephanie 19:18
If somebody told me six years ago that I was going to be a heroin addict, I would have thought that they were crazy. Never in a million years. I didn't hang out with bad kids. I didn't get in trouble. I just would have never ever thought that it could happen to me. When I was about 16, I started getting kidney stones. And they would give me pain medication for it because that's pretty much all they could do.

Speaker 1 19:51
The X rays would show the kidney stones. There was no faking it. Nothing. I mean, here is the child 15-16 I was about the age she started getting them. And she's getting them every few times a year.

Stephanie 20:05
they gave me a shot of dilaudid, which is very strong painkiller. And then I remember them sending me home with a prescription of oxy cotton, and a prescription of Vicodin.

Speaker 1 20:17
And I remember thinking at that time, while those are kind of high powered medications for such a young person, but I trusted the doctors.

Stephanie 20:27
In the beginning, I would just take my vikan as prescribed when I was in pain, but at like, gradually got worse over time, it numbed my feelings and made me feel like okay about everything, you know, I'm fine, I'm, I'm good. You know, I would take an extra one here or there. And then if I had ran out, I would just pretend like I didn't know what was wrong with me so that I could get more, you know, faking pain to go to the hospital to get painkillers. I mean, It would be anything from oxycottin to Vicoding, into Norco. Then it went from taking the prescribed dose of like one every six hours to taking like 20 Narcos a day. I'm going through a month prescription in two days. And I called my mom crying and I was like, I don't know what's wrong with me,

Speaker 2 21:18
mom. I can't stop taking these because when I stopped taking them, I don't feel good. I said, Well, we need to talk to your doctor.

Stephanie 21:26
And he wrote me another prescription for Percocet, which was stronger than the Narcos that I had been taking.

Matthew 21:36
All right, I think. I mean, as Norman's been saying, you know, there's a lot of people affected by this, and unwittingly have fallen into addiction. And I think that's a very good example of this. This woman who was only a teenager, started taking prescribed pain medicine and now has fallen into this this horrible world of addiction. I mean, I think I hate to throw numbers out there, they're just numbers. But you know, it's just even in even the government's own official statistics are, you know, quarter to a third of patients prescribed opioids have chronic pain, Miss, you know, misuse them. You know, you have at least eight to 12% somewhere in there, develop a you know, abuse the drugs, an estimated 4% to 6% transition to heroin. You know, 80% of people who use heroin first misuse prescription opioids, so it's jus, it's this horrible, horrible, as I think the film says and anyone else. I think even the government officially calls it it's an epidemic.

Norman 22:51
Yes, it is. It was the plague before this one with COVID-19 actually, and it hasn't gone away and it will be back. Yeah, it's the frightening thing behind all of that, of course, it was deliberate and done for the dollar. And I know my dear American friends will, some of them will justify the fact that everyone has a right to earn $1 in America, but not if you killing people. And there are things that have still not been solved, even after the court cases. It was a big shake down, but they're still wanting to make money from these things. You've got to have a different ethic. That's all.

Matthew 23:27
Well, and I think I think this gets as you say, I don't blame the doctors, I think, I don't know there's maybe a different different mindset or attitude, certainly in the US, towards an attitude towards pain, as it's over the last, as you said, several decades. Actually, I think that will probably take us to our next clip pretty quickly here because I think even after these, what we see in the film is that even after the Purdue Pharma settlement, and some of these other things you have doctors still prescribing this medication, and in volumes to people who they know are abusing it. And I think it takes us to our if you don't mind, I think this would be a good place. Because Another thing I wanted to illustrate, I think probably a lot of people in America think it's almost I think gets conflated sometimes with the whole crystal meth problem. And it's a poor America poor Midwestern sort of a problem but there's another character that and I think you were going to talk about how we're you know, you've noted to me at least before we even had this podcast about the how creatively the the this one hour film is structured. And so we meet the main protagonists Stephanie Gay and then we enter interwoven or some other stories that come in and there's this young there's this woman named Win Doyle, who is anything but from but poor or Midwestern. Relatively, it's a glamorous person who actually will let you set the scene.

Norman 25:09
it's just the perfect it's the perfect American Dream family.

Matthew 25:13
Yeah.

Norman 25:14
And the the real punch in the gut that Perry pellets gives us with this as she has the, the story told by the family. And by that I mean teenage children who went through this and ended up having to be sort of Guardians of their mom to stop her getting worse. And just the systematic destruction of a loving family described by by teenagers is is a powerful, powerful way to do this.

Matthew 25:43
Yes, there. I mean, there is a temptation actually just to show the whole segment. Because there's an eye, you know, it's not even one just one little clip that's better than the other of that segment, but I think the one that we've settled on is the one that, well, it's, It's not a spoiler alert because I think it's pretty obvious from the get go that Win did not succeed in her battle with the addiction. And you've got the whole scene where the children are there unfortunately, for when she dies, the boys are actually even having to try to resuscitate her. But then the kicker really for me is the daughter, who has I think, have you noted who is in some ways the reason she's on the painkillers, because she had this to Cesarian and it was a bad bet difficult pregnancy had painkillers prescribed here she is that daughter now as a teenager, only 16 years old, talking about how angry she is at the doctor's for giving her mother even more painkillers. So what we'll do is we'll watch that clip and then we're going to go to a break, and then after the break, we'll be back with Norman Stone.

Speaker 2 27:04
When the kids were with her, I was always on edge. Then it really just became about safety. I became this hyper vigilant sort of guy, and she was fine, but I knew it wasn't gonna last. It just slowly deteriorated again. I heard from the kids that she was going into the hospital because she had a kidney stone that they had to remove. She had been taking a lot of opiates. And once she got to the hospital, they were giving her what a normal person would be getting as a dose when you have pain, but it wasn't near the amount she'd been taking on her own. So there she is in a confined spot for four days going through withdrawals. And it was just getting worse. So she left the hospital and they gave her a bunch of opiates on the way up. Preston and Harry were staying with their mom.

Speaker 3 28:05
Like she needed all these pills on the side of her bed. The hospital told me to take these and understand. Just please don't overdo this. Like there's a lot of pills here, eight bottles filled to the top. And I was like, Who gave you all these? And she said, oh, my doctor did like I'm still in a lot of pain from the kidneys. And then the morning, she was just laying there with like, her arms spread out and her eyes were kind of open. We said goodbye and got no response. And we thought that was odd press and like, pulled out his phone, like take a video just like show our father like what was like going on. And I like told him like, put down the phone like right now and he's like, why? And I like that was I was like grabbing her foot and it was just ice cold and I call 911 they were telling me to do chest compressions on her. I were just yelling at pressing the stop and he just like said we did everything we can. It was I mean, that's when I had to call like my father.

Speaker 2 29:02
And it just was surreal. And having the conversation with Harry as I can hear Preston in the background, mom's dead, like, we need to do something.

Speaker 3 29:11
He just hidden him and I was just like, just get to the city like right now.

Speaker 2 29:16
And then hearing Preston screaming on the other kid, he's trying to give her compressions. By the end. at the funeral, there were hardly any of her friends.

Speaker 4 29:50
When I saw the pills on her bedside table when she had passed, that was probably the most anger I can feel ever because she's been to that hospital easily, like 50 times, they've seen her their unconscious had to like pump her stomach so many times. And yet she comes in there, and they leave her like with more.

Speaker 2 30:15
I firmly believe that there are so many people that are being prescribed opiates without any direction or support, that have no idea what they're getting into. And then once they can't get out of it, the shame and the inability to actually confront it and talk about it with somebody makes it worse, because now all of a sudden, they're an addict.

Mid-Roll 30:43
You're listening to factual America, subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Alamo pictures to keep up to date with new releases and upcoming shows. Check out the show notes to learn more about the program. Our guests, The team behind the production. And now back to factual America.

Matthew 31:06
Welcome back to factual America. Here with the filmmaker Norman Stone. We've been talking about the opioid epidemic in the United States. And we've just seen a clip from the Perry Pelt's film Warning: This drug may kill you. And I think you wanted to say something Norman about about what, something about that clip and also what Perry pelts his treatment of physicians.

Norman 31:34
Yes, I mean, it is a powerful story, as we've said, and as we've seen, and relentlessly, the finger is quite accurately pointed at this stupid doctors. These doctors that went along, sometimes not stupid, sometimes moneymaking their own rent, but they the way she treats them is not to swing the camera or the film away from the characters we're dealing, With the people we're caring about, but she's just exposes. She's doesn't blame the doctors in commentary or anything. She shames them by showing what they're doing, so the case that we've just seen they, that lady, that mom, that first of all perfect mom, gets prescribed tab is more painkillers when they're actually as you know, been pumping her stomach to get rid of the painkillers now, you could have made a big thing about that. But Perry stayed on her course. she cared about the people. You don't not blame the doctors but she doesn't hit you over the head with it, just as much as I guess or less so for me because I really don't like what the pharmaceutical companies have done, their companies, not people. I think you've got that the blame is at their door. It's not always necessary to trace them, but absolutely if you're going to tell the truth, you've got to show where the blame lies.

Matthew 33:03
And that's that raises an interesting point. Are these doctors What are these doctors being told is they just trying to get the problem to go away and maybe the easiest thing is to give this patient

Norman 33:12
they get nice holidays, paid for by the pharmaceutical companies. Sometimes they get money. Sometimes they go slightly rogue, although not that rogue, and they put up I don't know if they still do, but they were putting up pop up doctor offices, and you'd know they're in town because they'd be queuing around the block and fill in the carpark people and they just say, look, don't tell me anything, just give me 250 bucks an hour give you the tablets, and that's drug pushing, but that has been recorded again and again and again. Then it's turn up signups, and live very well of it. I could name names, you don't need to you just need to read some of the books that have been written recently about this. And it is astonishingly awful. But that's what the system did. Sometimes their family doctors and everyon, I know doctor who is still alive today, deeply regrets this. He bought what he read in the papers, he bought the infomercials set out by Purdue Pharma and others. He said, this is the way to do it. I know pain is a problem I've been told It is, therefore this is what you do. And now he looks back. And it's obvious to see the self blame he feels. And I feel sympathetic for him because his intentions were right. But it's no excuse for not knowing that you shouldn't give a tub of pills to people who have just been stomach pumped 32 times over the previous year for that same thing. I just I think it was an abrogation of the system, a system that was bad.

Matthew 34:43
So this gets us to the point what is what's being done. Because obviously, plenty of people recognize it's a problem. We've had court cases, Government agencies are saying this is an epidemic. Yet it rages on. I know the The number of deaths and overdoses in the last few years is the the rate actually been increasing. So it seems like nothing's really being done about this.

Norman 35:14
Well, that is partly because there isn't really that much to do about it. In Scotland where I live, they're thinking of giving free drugs to everybody that needs them, which will, I think exacerbate the situation in a very bad way. It'll end up on the black market and so on. But they would disagree. In America, we've got the Match. Services, medical assisted treatment, which has great intentions is not popular with the addicts. They want to get off not be parked on another drug. Methadone has not been the answer as part of that Mht format, and yet they're very scared, you shouldn't criticize that because people may die. Now, if that's all that was in the cupboard, I would understand that, except I would say every addict, I've met more or less, there's a handful that are in the middle of it and don't want to stop it. Don't want to get off. But when you reach that point, you really know you're addicted, you want to get off. And I think you've got to respond to that if there's any hope. And that brings me to the film I was working on, when I came across this film, Warning: This drug may kill you on that plane. And why it attracted me tremendously was because I'd already started to do probably the biggest film of my life, which has just come out, available on Amazon pay per view, but it's it just come out, and I had done a film or two previously, in my many, many years as being a director, about a treatment that claim to get you off your drug of addiction, whatever it is, sometimes drugs of addiction, addictions, plural. In five to seven days, it used to be seven to 10 days without any serious withdrawals, and no cravings from then on. Now. It sounded great. And what I saw is impressive. But I just assumed that the medical word world would pick it up and take it. I assumed without three P's power, profit and prestige, that's what I boil it down to, especially profit in America, it would rain on a lot of pictures, as we say, in Britain, it would disturb the status quo, which is very, very successful financially. So I decided to go back to this treatment. It's called NET, neuro electric therapy, it's non pharmaceutical. It just delivers a little pulse behind the ear, and that's very adjustable. And they've worked on it for many years now. And it's really responsive. But I thought, hang on, I really can't expect people to believe that this works. Let's have a big feature documentary, that will show it and test it and tell the truth. Thank you, Perry Pelts, whatever it is, however, painful it is. And so I set up I didn't think it was going to take almost two and a half years, which it has, I deliberately didn't get a commission from the BBC or anywhere else, because I wanted to make sure I wasn't being pressured by executive producers or anything like that. I wanted the chance to tell the truth, good or bad. And we did it. It's called The Final Fix. And it's worth a view because what you will see is what I saw myself with my most truthful hat on, and watching and asking to see if there's any cracks in the foundations or problems or something hidden up the sleeves, nothing. It's the most powerful indictment of people in the gatekeeping community of addiction, who have turned their backs on this again and again and again, because it doesn't fit the system and hey, did I mention, it doesn't use pharmaceuticals. That's a big, big bad mark for some people. Anyway, you should watch it and save yourself. Because in actual fact, it works. Simple as that.

Matthew 39:07
I think I and all our audience will have a chance to watch it. I know you've had a soft launch and it's on, as you said, on that website run by one of the world's richest men, but I think it's I think it's going to be on other platforms as well, to be named later. But I mean, I want to go back to this because it's an interesting point you raised, and if you don't mind I might even play a little devil's advocate or

Norman 39:34
Please do, please do the more you question the better.

Matthew 39:38
Yeah, so so we know solution. So we know cold turkey doesn't work, right? People can't just like say one day, I'm gonna kick this this addiction to the class.

Norman 39:47
Some can but it's very difficult. That's the way the AIA works for alcoholics. He it is possible, but it is very tough.

Matthew 39:56
Okay. It's like the way my dad kicked smoking. He did. He did cold Turkey, but any I never understand why others can't do it. But it's it's I think this sometimes the reformed smokers are the worst. Then there's, then there's the drugs. You've already alluded to the the meth, and we got methadone and there's a whole cocktail of drugs that people try. Now, you say that's one where the addicts themselves aren't keen on it, because it's addiction to another drug. Is that is that right?

Norman 40:28
That's what they tell me.

Matthew 40:29
So now, if you go to the NIH, or in any of these other places, they they don't obviously don't mention NET, They mentioned the drugs, therapy, and they talk about better education and less, you know, I guess coming up with alternatives to opioids, but you know, it doesn't help those who are already hooked.

Norman 40:57
Did that persuade you? No, no, there's nothing about it. That persuade I have to say, yeah, there's nothing that persuaded me. So as much as Okay, I'm naturally one that's not, I have to say into big conspiracy theories and things like that. So well, if there's something that is out there that does work. Why, I mean, why isn't there even been, as there been any trials any scientific trials?

Yes, it has. Let me give you an example if he wishes, if I can, here in Glasgow, right in Scotland, where I live, there is one country that is worse than America for drug addictions and overdoses. America's very bad. One country is worse. And I thought, aha, Guatemala, Bolivia, somewhere. It's Scotland. It's Scotland. We pay and this is pounds, not dollars. 9 billion pounds a year in Scotland. There's only got five 5 million people in it. 9 billion pounds a year for drug and alcohol treatment. The results from that the success after 18 months is 3%. The actual figures that I have seen and watched debated and agreed with behind the scenes on the film with this NET thing, same period, no drugs, five, seven days, eight let me get this right 92% success rate, which would be ludicrous. It's ludicrous if you get 9% success rate. So one of the problems may be that it sounds too good to be true. Certainly it did for me, and it certainly does for a lot of my interviewees. There's one lady, Phyllis Platt who worked for Sparling University didn't believe it at all. And for her study, not long ago, she took local people, was paid to do the trial, to find the data and when with her, it got to 82% success rate, right, 82. And she said, This is amazing. Yes, yes, yes. But she wasn't afraid. He said, what happens if the 18% What did what went wrong there? If you're not meant to have any cravings afterwards, what went wrong there? So she found them, she went after them, found almost all of them and not in one case, she said, was there any connection with cravings why they'd relapse, the dog had died, the wife had left them, they got depression, it was all the different lists you could imagine. And I said, what did that do to you? She said, I became, I opened my mind to understand that this is it. this works. Because if that's the case, it's unheard of in medical history. Now, transport yourself to the top of Harley Street, the doctors, the highest doctor was street in the land in London or any other high medical profession. You've got a career. You've got a respect, you've got probably clinics and other things in your Name along comes something that says you don't need that you don't need that, no medicine, five to seven days bingo, and no more cravings, you are going to be challenged by that in a number of ways. And I've had doctors run away from the cameras, as I say, literally in one case, and put the phone down. I have just come over the years before this, I was interested in it too, to a degree. And I've seen people not face up to the truth, or please challenge the truth. And at the end of this, of the film, after two and a half years, what is the great battle cry I had in the film? Do you know what it is? It's the very British. Please, could someone look at this? That's all that's it. How polite is that over a cup of Earl Grey tea. But that's what I'm saying. Just somebody look at it, challenge it robustly because everything I filmed in the trial seems to suggest we're sitting on the answer and refusing to look because it doesn't fit into the system. And I'm old enough and slightly cynical enough to believe that that's as things are.

Matthew 42:50
And I have seen a few of I've been able to have a look at a few of the clips from from your film, and I did see something where we know the state of Kentucky is especially affected. It's one of the epicenters, and you have policemen and government officials who would say yes, let's give this a try. We've tried everything else nothing's working. Why not? So if you if you made any inroads there...

Norman 45:40
Well the in the first inroad, we didn't have a huge budget, but we managed to get a bunch of guys randomly chosen that had nothing to do with it. I wanted to go straight down the line and see what went on. The ones that completed the trial, one did not they once that completed the trial came off exactly as they said. I didn't see any examples of cold turkey. I saw them literally bloom as human beings. And this is five days, five, seven days, boom. They're back, bright eyed, bushy tailed believing they're Superman. And that was over a year ago. Now, when we did that, because we've made the film from that point. They're still clean, they're still happy. They're still full human beings. One of them went to university came from his class is now working around the world. I keep wishing in a way that I found something wrong because it sounds you know, it's easily misinterpreted, if you're not careful. And if you tell the truth in this instance, it might be an infomercial when it isn't. I tried my best to keep everything neutral, not having hands on, but I was going to be honest, and I have been well

Matthew 46:53
One thought that comes to mind is you know, I know the media is a bit distracted at the moment. This is where, we're In the middle of April here in 2020, with the with the Coronavirus, but it sounds like something that the New York Times or any of these outlets would be all over.

Norman 47:11
Well, the LA Times is, they're not bringing out now but we went and had a meeting with the editor there and I believe they're interested not in the film so much as the as the as the subject. You mentioned NIH, they are very interested in this now. In fact, I believe the head of NIH already had come to the conclusion, that if you didn't want to go Be careful not to tell tales out of school, but if you didn't want to park people on another drug, it must be possible with this steady arrival of electric medicine. And as I mentioned, it must be possible to stimulate the natural painkillers in the brain, endorphins and ??, which are the lack of which causes cold turkey he was already At that point and now talks are ongoing with him with the NIH and with neider, who are a very powerful and very well he'll group, National Institute of Drug Abuse. I've met them and talk to them myself. So there are there are, there is real interest, but there's also a huge danger to people's profits, and the pharmaceutical companies and other people who bought into this, I'm afraid to tell you that America is not all of milk and honey. Money and corruption are around and just look at the transcripts of some of the court cases that have been held against Purdue Pharma and many others. It is astonishing what comes out there and they get 60 lawyers to cover all over as best they can and move on with steal 2 billion in their pocket. You know, it is it is a all the good stuff and interest and pushing it forward, is pushing up here with ever striking a dead donkey as long as these people are concerned. And because they do not strange this, they do not wish to lose billions.

Matthew 49:04
Well, I think it sounds like a film we should all watch. I think it probably dovetails really nicely with the Perry Pelt's film. You know, I think, watch that. And then when, when this you said it's probably gonna launch in May? Well that's the hard launch, I believe.

Norman 49:24
Yes, it is about we've allowed it to be on Amazon so people can pay per view and get the get the grassroots interest in it and some early reviews and the rumor mill, but the big press launch and getting out there on the main organs of our communication society will probably be mid to early May. That decision is being made very soon, and you'll hear about that.

Matthew 49:49
So for those of you listening, this will be putting links to appropriate links in the show notes when we when we do release this podcast, and I guess in a matter of a few weeks here. I'm afraid to say I'm looking at the watch here. I don't have my usual director whispering in producer whispering in my ear to tell me to wrap things up. But I looking down at the clock down here, and I think we are starting to come very close to running out of time. Didn't even come close to addressing all the things I wanted to talk to you about Norman, but I'll come back.

Norman 50:22
I'll come back. I will.

Matthew 50:24
Thank you. I will take you up on that offer. We don't often get the guests offering to come back. So that's that's really good. I think it's worth just mentioning again that the film we were primarily talking about is Warning: This drug may kill you came out in 2017. Directed by Perry Pelts for HBO. I want to thank Norman for being our first lockdown addition guest joining us all the way from from Bonnie Scotland. And as we've discussed in the last few minutes, his films, The Final Fix, narrated by Ewan McGregor. And I guess we're how to follow you best way following you, Norman. Is it just? Do you do social media or you? Just you have a website?

Norman 51:12
Yes, we do. We have a website, which is very simple. It's called www.Thefinalfix.com.

Matthew 51:18
There we go. And we'll put that in the show notes too. I just wanted to say, well, big shout out to our listeners. As usual, please get in touch. Let us know what you thought about this episode and ideas for future ones. Please remember to like us and share us with your friends and family wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts. And this is factual America, signing off.

Outro 51:42
You've been listening to factual America. This podcast is produced by Alamo pictures specializing in documentaries, television and shorts about the USA for international audiences. head on down to the show notes for more information about today's episode, Guests and the team behind the podcast, subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Instagram and Twitter at Alamo pictures, to be the first to hear about new productions, festivals were attending and to connect with our team. Our homepage is Alamo pictures.co.uk