5 topical works on the opiate crisis

Long courted by the greatest cultural and academic institutions on the planet, the Sackler family, which marketed the infamous OxyContin via its Purdue Pharma laboratory, has become the symbol of the excesses of a cynical pharmaceutical industry, ready to do anything to reap profits. profits. She continues to inspire American journalists and screenwriters.

The Empire of Pain, a shock investigation at Belfond

“A parable about the impressive capacity of the private sector to corrupt public institutions”. Patrick Radden Keefe does not mince his words in this meticulous 450-page investigation that he publishes on the “swindle” long elaborated by the Sacklers to make America addicted to OxyContin. The editor of the New Yorker tells how this family of philanthropists _ who had, before his disgrace, his wing at the MET and the Louvre, his museum at Harvard and his library at Oxford _ maneuvered to impose this drug falsely presented as a miracle cure to all evils.

No one comes out unscathed, between an unscrupulous FDA (the Food and Drug Administration which authorizes the marketing of drugs in the United States), a Congress neutralized by pressure, prosecutors torpedoed by their hierarchy and a fragile written press in the face of threats of destabilization (up to the venerable New York Times).

Painkiller, the long-awaited mini-series from Netflix

Eric Newman, the showrunner of Narcos: Mexico, is at the origin of an upcoming Netflix series devoted to the opiate crisis, the broadcast date of which has not yet been announced. Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster are the directors, and Patrick Radden Keefe, the author of The Empire of Pain, has been a consultant on this mini-series of 6 episodes of one hour each which is inspired by his previous articles on the subject. Long-awaited, it is served by a high-flying and apparently very motivated cast.

Matthew Broderick, in particular, who plays Richard Sackler, the former president of Purdue Pharma, was affected by the scourge in his family. “I had a mother who had cancer and was taking these pills, he told The Hollywood Reporter. She was in absolute agony and that helped a lot. So I saw both sides of it. I know how bad these drugs are. And I know what miracles they can do”. The rest of the cast: Uzo Aduba (Orange is the New Black), West Duchovny (Vegas High), Dina Shihabi (Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan), Taylor Kitsch (21 Bridges and Friday Night Lights), Sam Anderson (Forrest Gump) and Carolina Bartczak (Moonfall).

Also on Netflix will be released in the fall of 2023 a film by David Yates announced as “conspirator” based on another New York Times investigation on the subject, The Billion-Dollar Bank Job. It traces the journey of a penniless young mother, Liza Drake (Emily Blunt), who finds herself at the center of the criminal conspiracy after being hired by a Florida pharmaceutical start-up.

All the beauty and the bloodshed, Golden Lion in Venice

Awarded the Golden Lion at the 79th Venice Film Festival on September 10, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, Laura Poitras’ documentary focuses on photographer Nan Goldin’s resounding fight against the pharmaceutical industry. The film, which will be released on American screens on October 7, retraces in 1h57 the journey of the 68-year-old American artist who has repeatedly come close to death, from AIDS to the opiate crisis. Having put her notoriety at the service of the fight against the Sacklers from 2018, Nan Goldin embodies better than anyone the revolt of America against the cynicism of the family that owns Purdue Pharma.

Aged 58, Laura Poitras has a long history of committed films. In 2015, she won the Oscar for best documentary for Citizenfour, produced alongside whistleblower Edward Snowden, the third part of his trilogy on post-9/11 America. In 2006, she denounced the excesses of the fight against terrorism following the war in Iraq in and, in 2010, she stigmatized the situation at Guantánamo in The Oath.

Dopesick, the series that won an Emmy for Michael Keaton

Written by the talented Danny Strong (Recount, Game Change, The Butler, Empire, etc.) and directed by veteran filmmaker Barry Levinson (Rain Man. Good Morning Vietnam, etc.), the Hulu series broadcast on Disney+ Star takes the party to tell the scandal by its various facets, multiplying the points of view to restore the complexity of it. Sober and efficient, she immerses herself in a Virginia mining community where miners suffering from multiple work accidents have become easy targets for Purdue Pharma’s painkiller.

In the eight episodes, the trajectories of Richard Sackler (Michael Stuhlbarg), the heir to the family at the head of the lab, Dr. Samuel Finnix (Michael Keaton), Billy Cutler (William Poulter), a salesman in the service of Purdue meet. , and Betsy Mallum (Kaitlyn Dever), a young underage woman addicted to oxycodone. A remarkable cast, rewarded at the last Emmy Awards with the prize for best actor rightly won by Michael Keaton, whose nephew died of an overdose.

​Dopesick, Beth Macy’s Sum Book

Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America, Beth Macy’s bestseller which inspired the Dopesick series, was published in the United States in the summer of 2018. Purdue Pharma saga “from the boardroom to the courtroom” (from the board of directors of the lab to the trial) through the families ravaged by the scourge of which she describes the drama in a poignant way. From the Anglo-Saxon investigation, hyperdocumented.

The author even met a drug trafficker in prison whom she interviewed for six hours. The subject is particularly close to his heart. Beth Macy has just published Raising Lazarus, a new book related to the opiate crisis, this time from the perspective of social workers and volunteers who try to help victims by getting involved in associations, parishes, etc.