Prescription Thugs Page #4

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You know, honestly, those

painkillers enabled me to play

for as long as I did

because they killed a pain

that otherwise I couldn't

even bend down to tie my shoes.

Mm-hmm.

Um, but they also

created a monster.

I could tell you stories

about guys that in particular,

you know, OxyContin,

that used to do heroin

and quit doing heroin

to take OxyContin

because it's better!

I mean, and it feels

the f***ing same to me,

feels the same, and look,

if I can think about heroin,

you think about how horrible

and terrible of a drug it is

and where you're going

to end up if you start that,

OxyContin feels exactly

the f***ing same,

but it's not.

It's wrapped up in

a little blue pill,

comes in a bottle with

a prescription label on it,

with your name on it,

says "Take two of these,"

whatever, you know?

So, wait a second.

The drugs that the doctors

are giving us

are the same as the drugs

being sold on the streets?

Well, if you look at the

chemical makeup of opiates

like codeine, OxyContin,

Vicodin and morphine,

they are all directly

or synthetically derived

from the unripe seed pods

of the opium poppy.

Guess what else is made

from the opium poppy.

Heroin, that's right,

good old H,

and it's not just the opiates

that share a common source

with their street brothers.

Take Adderall and Ritalin,

which are made from

the same stuff as meth.

So, basically those pills that

you have your children popping

are street-legal meth.

Man, Heisenberg could've

saved himself a load of trouble

if he just opened a pill mill.

You're goddamn right.

- But hold on a second. Punky

- Brewster told me drugs are bad.

Drugs are bad for you.

Grow up.

Illegal drugs are bad news.

Don't mess with them.

We must wage what I have called

total war against public enemy

1 in the United States,

the problem of dangerous drugs.

In 1971, then President and

huge Elvis fan Richard Nixon

began the war on drugs.

Since then, the war on drugs

has cost the US over

one trillion dollars,

and the prison population

has risen over 700%.

Sounds like we're winning.

So, I get it:

Drugs are bad, and the people

who use drugs are bad guys

and criminals, like

Tony Montana, but Mad Dog

and his friends weren't even

talking about illegal drugs.

They were talking about legal

drugs, prescription drugs,

the kind you keep

in your medicine cabinet.

There may be a drug addict

in your house, and you may be

their supplier.

Federal authorities

call it an epidemic.

When you think of drug addicts,

you don't think of

a housewife with four kids.

Mm-mm.

No, but we're everywhere.

You know?

Everywhere.

You know other people like you?

Uh-huh.

There's lots of us.

Everyone's affected

by this epidemic,

like Betsey Degree.

She's a housewife

from Minnesota.

When her daughter was

prescribed Adderall,

Betsey turned to the medicine

cabinet to solve her troubles.

I ended up, you know,

taking one,

and then taking two,

and then taking all of them,

and then I just started

telling her

that she didn't have ADHD

and took it all from her.

Yup, I took it from my daughter.

When my daughter did take it...

This is how I justified it...

When she did take it,

She might have been able

to focus more in school,

but it took the joy from her,

so I kind of felt like...

I justified it, like, well,

it really isn't good for her.

And every time I'd get it

refilled, I'd say,

"I'm not going to do it

this time," you know?

And I always did.

Everywhere I go,

the story's still the same,

like my friend Colby from

the gym, and he's just a kid.

When I was 15 I shattered

my femur bone in four places.

Basically they put me

on opiates from that point,

and it just escalated

with the dose strengths.

And how old were you

at this time?

I started at 15.

Do you think there's a problem

with kids in high school

and stuff doing

prescription drugs?

Oh, yeah. Definitely.

I think it's so accessible,

and you're not really

taught about it in DARE

or in all these other

programs, you know.

It's always about marijuana,

or it's about cocaine.

This is crack.

We grew up in the generation

of, like, "Just say no"

and "Drugs are bad."

Has that ever sunk in?

Nope.

Nope, that never sunk in.

All that did

was create shame for people

who couldn't, you know?

This is your brain on drugs.

Any questions?

There's a stigma around it, too,

that we made this choice

to just be drug addicts,

you know.

Anybody can

get addicted to these.

Like I said,

I was an innocent...

I'm not innocent, but I was

16 years old, you know?

It wasn't like

I was seeking opiates.

Prescription drugs

aren't just hurting

the people taking them either.

They're destroying families,

like my friend Dustin.

His own addictions

almost cost him his son.

- The stupidest thing

- I ever did, eating Percocet,

was raise kids because

there was lots of conversations

that I should've had

that I didn't have.

My son was 16 years old,

2011 December 19th,

and he got ran over by a car.

Lots of things came to light.

Okay, he was high.

I didn't realize

he was doing it

'cause I was high, okay?

That moment in my life

was a huge wake-up call.

It was

a spiritual awakening,

nothing short of it,

because I sat there

in the hospital,

and I was just like, this...

You know what I mean?

This... I in a way

caused this to happen

because I was okay

with so many things.

Who taught you

how to do this stuff?

You, all right?

I learned it by watching you!

Another factor is, like,

I kind of came from a family

of addicts in a sense,

too, which I also think

is a very big thing with

why it's so easy for teens

to abuse pain medications

because, you know, well,

we come from addicts, you know.

That's kind of like

the human condition,

is that we're kind of

born to be addicted to things.

Why do you think

people in America

are so easy to just pop a pill?

Well, it's just because

all of us do.

I mean, it's just like

you follow the flock, man.

No one ever said,

"Well you shouldn't do

the prescription drugs

that the doctor said

you can take."

That's just a scary

situation all the way around.

I mean,

how many people are running

around on this planet

hyped up on pain pills

'cause their doctor told them

they can be?

That are completely checked out,

on autopilot,

raising children,

running businesses,

flying airplanes,

you know what I mean?

And you wouldn't even know.

You would never know it,

and it's okay

'cause they have a hall pass,

you know what I'm saying?

They're not drinking whiskey.

They're not doing illegal drugs.

Their doctor said, "Here you go.

Take these three times a day,"

you know? And lots of people

will start to abuse them

beyond that, but they've

got that little hall pass,

that little pill bottle

with their name on it.

They can take it anywhere

in hell all the time.

You can get pills anywhere.

I never ran out of pills.

Look, I would go to CVS

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