Prescription Thugs Page #6

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if you take prescription...

I'm just looking at it

differently as it was then.

It's weird. I never did,

you know, illegal drugs.

I did prescription drugs

illegally.

When Mike died, I was,

like, sort of, you know...

At first, I was, like,

"Oh, my God. This is crazy.

I need to get off these pills.

I need to stop

living my life this way.

I need to go back

to what I was doing,"

and then I just got worse.

I went to a doctor

and said I couldn't focus.

She didn't run any tests.

She didn't do anything.

She just said, "Oh, okay.

Why don't you

try Adderall?"

You know? And then

that same doctor, you know,

'cause I was coming off

the opiates,

had me on Suboxone,

had me on Klonopin

and Adderall,

because of all those effects,

even prescribed me Viagra.

I didn't need Viagra,

but next time she prescribed

it...

Were you even

dating anybody, or...

I mean, it's not like

you were married and having...

No, I was dating somebody,

yeah, at the time.

Viagra was like,

"I'll take it 'cause it's fun."

Like, I'll take it

not because, you know...

Not because I need it.

Let me just try this

and see if it works,

and then if it works...

Works on what?

Um, whatever, like,

does it make you feel better?

Does it give you pleasure?

Does it get you high?

Does it get you to make you

happy? Does it make you,

you know, not as sad?

Just because a doctor

gave it to me, you know,

the doctor could be just...

Sometimes the doctors are

just as bad as the drug dealers

on the street. That's why

there's thugs on every level.

It all comes down to money

in the United States, you know.

In this country,

if you follow the money,

you're going to come

to the answer

to most of what

the problems are.

Well, the love of money

is the root of all evil.

Yeah.

The love of it

and not having it.

Right.

I like having it,

don't have the love of it.

The real story

that needs to be told here

is, you know, how these

pharmaceutical companies...

They produce all these pills,

you know what I mean?

And they flood

the market with them.

Look, all those guys,

the pharmaceutical companies,

the doctors,

the people that sell it,

they're all drug dealers.

That's the bottom line.

They're all drug dealers.

It's all about money,

that's all it is.

Look, this whole world

centers around money,

you know what I mean?

It takes money.

And for Big Pharma,

money is good.

Their senior executive

with pharmaceutical giant

GlaxoSmithKline

had a pep rally in Las Vegas

for their sales team.

There are people in this room

who are going to make

an ungodly sum of money.

Who wants to be a millionaire?

In the past 10 years,

the 11 largest drug companies

made $711 billion.

$711 billion?

If we were looking

for a bad guy,

sounds like

we may have found our man.

The pharmaceutical industry

remains the most profitable

business in the US.

More success and financial gain

for the companies will always

remain possible,

as long as more Americans

are encouraged to take drugs.

Pharmaceuticals

have always been around,

from the apothecary

of the Middle Ages

to the snake oil salesmen

of the Wild West.

All he wants

is a miracle, folks!

How can I deny him?

If he's willing to pay for it.

He's going to get it.

Any price.

There have always been sellers

of potions and tinctures,

with the promise of miracle

cures and remedies,

and most of them

were far from helpful.

So, to protect us from these

scam artists and charlatans,

we created agencies like the FDA

and required

pharmaceutical companies

to work under strict

regulations,

but that cut into their ability

to make drugs for profit,

and that's not American.

Those regulations were getting

in the way of big business,

and Pharma needed a hero.

Enter everyone's favorite

president and big business

poster child, Ronald Reagan.

The only way to stop abusing

them is to stop using them.

While Nancy Reagan

was waging her war on drugs,

Ronnie and his administration

were lifting a moratorium

on advertising to consumers.

You know, for freedom.

Big Pharma was born.

Drug companies were now ready

to take on the American public,

and Reagan had given 'em access

to the big guns:

direct to consumer marketing,

and in 1997 everyone's favorite

saxophone-wielding president

Bill Clinton

and his administration

loosened up the regulations

even further,

making us one of only two

countries in the entire world

that think that advertising

to consumers is a good idea.

I mean, I have to say this was

the advertising and marketing

coup of the century.

You couldn't do that before.

This is

my friend Dr. Garber.

In 1997, he became the first

person in the United States

to receive a PhD in homeopathy.

I mean, the fact that

you can present a problem

to an audience as big

as a TV audience and say,

"Ask your doctor if such

and such is right for you,"

Wow! I'll ask my doctor.

So I go to my doctor.

Lo and behold, because the rep

from the company was just there

with a truckload of samples,

he goes, "Well, gee, let's see."

He opens up the drawer, gives

the person like a month's worth

of samples, just, they're free,

and then there goes

the prescription writing,

and then that's it forever.

So I get it. You give 'em

the first taste for free,

and then they're hooked.

We tried to talk to a bunch

of people from various pharma

companies, but they didn't seem

to want anything to do with us,

so I talked to Gwen Olsen.

She was a pharma rep

for 15 years

and wrote the book "Confessions

of an Rx Drug Pusher."

I knew at some point

that was what my job was.

I was a drug pusher.

I was just doing it legally

and with the...

You know, being condoned

by society,

and when people would say,

"Well, you sell drugs,"

then I would always say,

"Oh, yes, ethical

pharmaceuticals," as if.

I've never seen

a commercial for OxyContin.

I've never seen one

for Vicodin, and...

They don't need them.

The drugs sell themselves.

So, why do they advertise

the other types of drugs?

Because they have to get

the consumer to believe

that they need them.

Hey, Pete.

Yeah, it's me, big brother.

Put the remote down and listen.

This intervention,

brought to you by Niaspan.

So, you cut back

on the cheeseburgers

and stopped using your exercise

bike as a coat rack.

That's it? You're done?

I don't think so.

If there was a panacea that

came onto the market tomorrow,

do you believe that they'd

have to spend hundreds

of millions of dollars

in advertising on prime time TV

for the rest of the world

to know about it?

It would be word of mouth.

People would know about it

in a heartbeat.

Women who take Lipitor

or the other statin drugs

for cholesterol have approaching

a 50% greater chance

of developing diabetes,

according to this study.

Well, what about

all these statin drugs?

Like, they're, you know,

saving people's lives.

We need statin drugs.

Statin drugs are

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