About this episode
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