The OxyContin Express - Trailer

It's a disgrace that this is allowed in the State of Florida. These Doctors should be hung up by their toenails ruining families and creating money through killing people. The Manatees do get more respect than people. Well done documentary. So sad but it is so true. MONEY MONEY MONEY destroys people.

how can i watch the full videos?

THIS STORY IS A WORTHLESS DISGRACE

As I saw it the story failed to even find one person that could show them how easy it was to get pills. The junckie they used showed that the clinics did screen patients and wouldn't give him any medication. That was the best you could do?

And then blame the doctors when you yourself said Florida has a problem due to the state not having in place a monitoring system, whos fault is that exactly the states.

You say the places are unregulated.... Ok again great job researching. The clinics are inspected by the Dept of Health and DEA. ANd if you don't they do enough call them and complain.

And please learn about what an addiction is.
Physical dependence to pain medication is not addiction. Persons with
pain regularly treated with opioid analgesics will develop physical
dependence and they will experience withdrawal if they abruptly stop
taking the drugs. Proper tapering of the dose can prevent withdrawal
symptoms.

Wow look at yourselves blaming everyone else thats what this country has come to. This story is a one sided slanted worthless documentary. I have briefly expalined how wrong you are and there is so much more that would be to much to write.

Read this you obviously havn't:
http://www.painpolicy.wisc.edu/publicat/95apsip.htm
http://www.painfoundation.org/newsroom/reporter-resources/pain-facts-figures.htm...
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/asap/florida_guide.htm
http://www.painpolicy.wisc.edu/domestic/states/FL/fllaw99.htm

I lost my privacy when I started Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. I have no doubt anyone in the world can found out anything they want about me. The privacy statements I get at the doctors office aren't worth the paper they are printed on. They need to spend the money on the forest being destroyed to make Ecstasy, etc. I believe once we get a social security number any chance we had of any semblence of privacy disappeared. The get them at birth now don't they? or in grade school. We are headed for a two caste system anyway. Being a number in a machine will determine how we live. joan marie

I agree, No more Laws or loss of our privacy! That's why I support bioscriptrx.com is it doesn't store my personal information. It uses a finger swipe and the Meds that the finger has or is using! It's not a website so can't be hacked and it's real time. Wake up people. The bill passed in Florida is noting more then a website with all your personal information on it with your medical records. Case Closed. At some point every person in Florida will get a prescription that is reported. That means that you are on this website for life. Va was hacked as well as many others. However there is no need to hack it as every doctor and pharmacy in Florida gets a user name and password. So the kid working a summer job at a pharmacy can look you up! Look up a police officer! Their Mayor or even get paid to look up people for companies to see if you have AIDS! This is SB462 passed in Florida. Last bioscriptrx.com doesn't cost the tax payor a penny and why should we pay? Let the fat cat doctors and pharmacy pay who are
making millions.

I stopped the doctor. I told him enough was enough. Thankfully he is no longer perfoming surgery where I live. I just hope more people check out there surgeons, which I didn't only the group he was with, before allowing someone to cut them open. I have chronic pain problems, but can be controlled with non-opiate injections. Luckily, my insurance pays 100%. I use maybe ninety 5mg lortabs a year and generally I cut them in half. Take aspirin, you think, I have a liver disorder and aspirin is worse than the acetemetaphin in the Hydrocodone. I am managing well. It is a sad state of affairs that our government needs to control medications. I live in Florida and it is the worst state for abuse of these pain medications. joan marie

Face it, WE ARE A NATION OF ADDICTS! My question is:
WHEN ARE PEOPLE GOING TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR ACTIONS?
The person profiled lost his wife yet his mother SUPPORTS HIS HABIT !
The problem is deeper than Doctors supplying drugs.
IF YOU WANT TO QUIT YOU CAN WITH A LITTLE PILL CALLED SUBUTEX OR SUBOXONE! Not another law passed to PROTECT US FROM OUR DEMONS!

I had an operation. The surgeon was free with the Oxycodone, but ignored the need for antibiotics. As a result the 110 Oxycodone pills helped only the pain, but not the growing infection in my back. I was lucky enough to have another doctor who helped. I will no longer take them. Due to the botched operation and infection, I am in chronic pain. I will take nothing stronger than Hydrocodone, only if I am in a lot of pain and can't function. People are told they don't have to feel any pain, therefore a mere ache sends them running to the pill bottle. Medical Massacre is occurring in Florida everyday. We need this taken off the market, immediately.
joan marie, Bradenton, Fl

The NASPER system passed in Florida will NOT even slow down the pill drug dealers or poll millsThe dealers use up to 5 Fake ID's a day! There is a Real Time system that can Stop this within 30 days at zero cost! Its free! Bioscriptrx uses biometrics in place of ID. Its a real time program so the doctor or pharmacy will know before the dealer gets his greedy hands on the pills! This system has been around and why are we not using it? www.bioscroptrx.com

Did any Dr, or pharmacist explain to the patients that they were receiving (Heroin), and how addictive the drug is? Where are the pharmaceuticals getting the Opium to make these products? There is a smaller number of Drug Dr's than there are patients, why don't the GOV go to the source, cut it off there, instead of bombarding the jails with addicts, put the Dr's in jail. Cost the Tax-payers less! Ky has had to deal with so many problems this last year, so many job losses, rising Poverty Levels, in an already poverty stricken area! Its a .shame that our Mt Culture is being destroyed, as our Faith is being tossed out the window, some out of sheer ignorance, some forced to do these things to SURVIVE! Its easy to judge, especially from a distance, but people from other areas don't even have a clue to what Mt life is, the hardships we battle day to day, to survive in these beautiful hills!

Bren,

I am so sorry to hear about your son. I am not sure people who have not had a similar experience with a loved one or close friend can fully understand just how shattering it can me. There usually seems to be a "ripple effect" emanating in many directions from the addicted person. There is the obvious worry and anguish on the part of people who care about the addict/dependent person, but depending on the nature and severity of the addiction/dependency, the effects can escalate to the point where the person seems to become his own little San Andreas Fault. Financing their habit often puts an enormous financial strain on their family and can, of course. lead to criminal behavior if the funding dries up. Employers are often left in the lurch, children can become abused or neglected, treatment is imperfect and is, quite frankly, often temporary, since the rate of relapse is stunningly high). Just a bad bargain all around. You have my sincere and heartfelt sympathies.

I have seen so many young adults get addicted to this drug. So many have died from over dose. have seen many go to even harder drugs mainly heroin. I seen one of my sons on this crap , He turned to heroin. I can only hope and pray to god he will live through this addiction.
It tears a family to shreds. I know it has mine.

Excellent episode.
It easily could have been an hour.
Why is there no legal action against these doctors?

Thanks again!

cash only "pain clinics" which provide only medication therapy and can dispense controlled substances? this is so upsetting...and as a practicing pharmacist, infuriating. why do these MD's still have DEA number's? (are they being payed off too?) first, do no harm. thanks and great work, vanguard.

GREAT SHOW!!

There are a lot of really great points on this thread. We need to find a way out of the perpetuation of the trafficking. The people writing the scripts need to be held accountable and stop giving them out with no regard for human lives. Also, the people who are "seeking" the scripts, or "drug seekers" need to be responsible in their own minds for what they are doing to themselves. There has to be a realization that you cant just keep taking the same amount of medication and get the same results. Pain medications such as Hydrocodone, Oxycodone, etc. are supposed to be used short term. In essence, you are just blanketing pain and not getting to the root of it. Some chronic pain is not manageable without medications like this, but if we, as patients, just seek out more medication instead of different forms of therapy and alternatives, then the doctors will just keep giving us what we want. Ultimately doctors on both ends of the spectrum (pain clinics and private practices) are in the business of pleasing their patients and making money. It is horrific that some "doctors" will stoop to such a low level though. I see some of these medications as a means to an end with the hope that one day a preventative medication (opposed to an abortive such as oxy/lortab/vicodin) or HERBAL ALTERNATIVE will come along that will make death from these types of pain killers irrelevant. We just need to be individually responsible and realize there are core internal issues that lead to bigger issues aforementioned. Good luck to you all.
sincerely,
MakeupYourMynd

hold god, there's a clip where they start talking about broward county, and i swear its blocks from my house. i go to the eyeglass care store right there. it's weird; the area has a couple sketchy stores, but i don't think its an overall bad neighborhood. being from broward county, and growing up in the same house in fort lauderdale my whole life, i have to watch this now.

Very good job Mariana, a growing epedemic, so sad.
congrats again

I LIKE CHOICE AND THUS FREEDOM. THE RISE IN PRESCRIPTION DRUG PROBLEMS CAN BE TRACED TO BIG PHARMA. I KICKED BOTH DOPE AND OXYS THE DOPE WAS EASIER. SOME OF US WILL NEVER WIN THE SUPER BOWL BUT WE NEED THE FREEDOM OR CHOICE ! TO POP A PILL IF WE WISH. ARE THESE NOT OUR BODYS?

I have to take pills for pain daily, but I haven't become addicted to the extent of these people. Its sad that even though you may start out with good intentions in treating whatever disease or disorder you may have, but you wind up getting terribly addicted and possibly dying...

this shit is pretty bad in washington, its fucked up a lot of my friends lives, so yeah fuck oxy.

OMGGG! I cant wait for tomorrow!
So many new things on CURRENT!
This and Emmbeded! I cant wait!!!!!! :D

As a recovering opiate addict, I've been waiting for current to cover this subject for some time.
I was prescribed OxyContin 80mg #360, Methadone 40mg #120, Fentanyl patch 10mcg/hr #15, and Valium 10mg and/or Ativan 2mg # 90, each month. All this, written to me by a SINGLE doctor. I was 19 yrs old at the time, living in CA.
This was for a legitimate illness, but getting my opiate tolerance so out of controll has made it impossible for me to feel any relief whatsoever when taking opiates for pain.
At the time, I was not a drug user, and had no idea what the pills were made of, nor how addictive they are. That was almost 7 years ago. Now, I attend a methadone clinic alognside heroin addicts, though I have NEVER touched heroin in my life. These drugs aren't as bad as heroin: They're much worse. The withdrawl from heroin has a much shorter duration than its prescription counterparts, and heroin overdose is now more than double that of its legal cousins.
Thank you so much, Ms Van Zellar, for exposing this problem, though it is not limited to FL.
I do believe it is a necessary evil, as many people have legitimate reasons for using these drugs.

Stick with the plants, at least they won't kill you.

i caught this on tv the other night - an excellent investigative piece and totally shocking. well done to mariana and the team.

x over oxy's any day

I can't wait for this premiere. It's going to be amazing.

this is an issue i have been screaming about for years...unless you are from florida you don't get it...i have been dealing with this epidemic for far too long, and the devastation it has brought to my family and friends...thank you van guard for bringing this issue to the table...i watched it on hulu tonight, and cried relentlessly, for the one's who i have lost to this drug, and celebrating the victory of one of my best friends, who after strugglihg with addiction to roxy for years beat it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the legal heroin is everywhere in florida, i can find you pills ten times faster than you can find pot....literally sickening...maybe 15 deaths a day will get some attention because apparently 11 doesn't mean anything...f*** pfizer

I applaud the Vanguard team, yet this epidemic has been going on here in WV, Tenn, and KY since 2001 and now its beginning to hit everyone. Last year, here in WV, the leading cause of death for 26 - 34 yr. olds was opiate and opioid abuse. In a small town in WV, this year's grand jury indictments regarding prescriptions surpassed all other categories.
35 - 50% of pain meds on the street aren't from people selling their own pain meds but from people who mail order &/or go to mexico.One problem now, in my experience, is that now many people can't get pain management due to this exposure. People are drug tested and marijuana shows up in their system so then they're cut off. They try to stay "clean" for their drug tests and then have trouble getting a "script" They buy off the streets and perpetuate the traffic (cat & mouse game).
Buy american pot, grow your own, or insist of decriminalization.

Pain management is not always a lack of ability to deal with reality, although some peoples reality is based on judging others to feel better about self.

Marijuana, booze, pills...whatever. Just weak people justifying their pathetic inability to deal with reality.

Prescription drugs work great if you need them but if you get addicted and have a way to get them they're horrible and they make you non functional and constipated!

Why do street drugs when you get legall drugs? It is much easier to go see the good Doctor and be a legall drug addict. all you need is script in your name and the cops can't fuck with you. unless you are driving then you get a D.U.I. Me myself I like the Herbs. Ya'll can keep the Pills.

It was Lortabs that were prescribed to me. Works great, but bad withdrawal.

http://current.com/items/90758899_this-ones-on-the-white-house.htm

Wow guys, this is a Vanguard that's really going to hit home. I'm looking forward to catching it on TV.

Just watched it and it was really depressing.....lose a sibling and a bride and yet still using it.

Pills make me itch....marijuana card for pain and nausea management, priceless.

I watched this on Hulu. Great Job Mariana

wow. Cant wait to watch.I live 10 minutes from Broward...

On two occasions, after surgery, I was prescribed a similar painkiller (I forget the name). After only one week when the prescrition ran out I suffered intense withdrawal symptoms. It only lasted one night ,however, thanks to Benadryl, the feeling passed. It was terrible and my sympathy goes out to anyone going through withdrawal. This is some truly dangerous stuff.

Warning: I posted this on a related thread...and it hasn't gotten any more interesting since the first time I posted it...but some peole aren't aware of how easy this stuff is to obtain:

Any kid with a valid credit card can get as much oxycontin as they wish over the Internet within 24 hours. They fill out an online form with a few mouse clicks (including checking the box that asks them to "promise" that they are over 18 years of age).

That form is sent to one of dozens of doctors who scratch out an online prescription to treat their new "patient's" "painful condition." For an extra ten bucks, the pharmacy sends the prescription by overnight mail to the "patient's" mail drop of choice.

As a result, middle school kids are becoming addicted by the thousands -- and dying by the hundreds -- all across this country. I had a nurse on the stand a year or so ago, describing for the judge an incident in which a 15-year-old who had become addicted in this manner held a gun on her and demanded oxycontin.

Where was she at the time? She was monitoring the patients in an addiction treatment center! The assailant figured that any place that treated drug addicts must have drugs. He was wrong insofar as there really WASN'T any oxycontin on that floor of the facility...or any other narcotic for that matter. But the most chilling part of her testimony was her description of the kid's demeanor. She said that while on his approach he looked like any other clean-cut American teenage boy, his eyes were utterly flat and lifeless.

He was obviously in withdrawal, and she said that she did not doubt for one second that he would have shot her in the head without hesitation or remorse if she had not immediately told him that she would get someone who could provide him with the drugs he sought...

This is really pretty good, and somewhat frightening. It's on HULU atm for those who want to watch it

I do wonder what has happened since the thing came out. This is a pretty damning indictment of the state government policies
http://www.hulu.com/vanguard

This isn't about the medications, it's about how people get their hands on them. Who prescribes these meds??? Physicians. Why do they continue to prescribe them so freely??? Well lets see: to help patients deal with pain, to get the "repeat offender/frequent doctor visit" patients off their case, another reason perhaps is that the Joint Commision has put so many standards in place that physicians and hospitals don't want to violate them in fear of losing accreditation, and finally there is litigation.

Pain is a big deal in health care and because of these standards and fear of being sued, physician's will give a patient damn near anything they ask for it. I'm not saying that we should not treat pain, but that some discretion needs to be taken when prescribing these strong pain meds. Just the other day at work a "frequent flyer" , as we call them, came in for some sort of pain and was prescribed Oxycontin no questions asked. She had made numerous visits to our center in the last 2 yrs. This person was not a chronically ill person. For whatever reason she comes in all the time and many of the doctors prescribe whatever she has "run out of" or "what works." A common ploy when offered a non-narcotic or alternative is "oh, I can't take that, I'm allergic to it, but I can take Percocet." It's sick. I think that physicians need to be re-trained on how to handle pain control and how to recognize the abusers. That's how these meds get out there in the first place. I worked in an ER years ago that busted a family of drug seekers. They would come in for various injuries and what not to get Vicodin and would then sell it on the street. Finally someone took notice of their frequent visits and the DEA busted them. I have so many similar stories like these it's nauseating.

But denying legitimate patients or people with pain, effective pain medications is not the answer. Don't blame the meds or drugs, blame the industry that promotes them. Blame the physicians who recklessly prescribe them. Finally, blame the lawmakers or governing bodies who want to slap on some new regulation that defeats good judgment and undermines a physician's decision not to prescribe narcotics.

People are the problem, not the actual medication.

Yeah my sister got hooked on oxycontin. She eventually graduated to heroin. She was an A student with three years of college under her belt. She's been in and out of rehab half a dozen times, and has stolen thousands of dollars from my parents in the form of forged checks and electronics/furniture. It kills me that marijuana is demonized while this stuff is being manufactured by big pharmacutical corporations. Talk about your gateway drugs. It's time we reassess which drugs are harmful in this country. Let's face facts, human's will always have a desire to achieve altered states of consciousness, but we need to evaluate which ones are the most lethal/detrimental, and focus our efforts there.

Wow this is sad :( i agree this is a growing epidemic... ruining lives... such an addictive drug :(

The use of oxycontin (percaset) is what distroyed my liver. and that is why I have a 215 card.medical marijuana
The stuff works but it is very addicting.

this looks captivating. It is hard for me to imagine that mainstream media/public is just now realizing that there is a prescription drug epidemic going on. There needs to be reform all around and this is one of the many problems that are coming into focus because great journalists like the Vanguard team realize that we CAN actually make a difference, that were not just our SSN, and we actually hold the key in this generation. Keep up the great work. I find your pieces truly motivational and inspiring. Thank You.
Sincerely,
Jessa

Here's to Health Care Reform...and you thought lab rats had it bad. Wait til the Eugenicists take over.

I hate the pills that take away my pain. I would rather deal with the pain than to be strung out on DOPE. With that said. I do like me some Herbs. With the Herbs I still have a little pain but it stops the Muscle Spasms and that makes all the diffrence.

this looks deep!!
damn you big pharmacist!!!