Prescribing death

Oxycontin. Codeine. Fentanyl. All prescription drugs that countless patients have become addicted too. As America battles an opioid crisis that sees 170 citizens die every day, lawyers and prosecutors are trying to bring an end to Big Pharma’s impunity. The first doctor has gone on trial for murder for over-prescribing drugs.

Midwest City, Oklahoma. Tornado season begins. Donald Trump declared the Opioids Epidemic a National Health Emergency. Today is the first hearing in the trial of Regan Nichols, a family doctor charged with five murders involving the over-prescription of opioids.

The film tells the story of the surge of opioids in a medium-sized city in the United States. Through the victims’ families, the doctor's lawyer, the ones fighting Big Pharma, we dive into the American opioid disaster. When did it become so unbalanced? How did regular citizens end up as junkies, doctors as criminals, pain killers as active ingredients of death? Through the scope of the epidemic, the film shows those who, in this battered medium-sized city, are trying to reverse the trend: 'addicts' struggling to get clean, lawyers and prosecutors trying to bring an end to Big Pharma’s impunity, doctors experimenting with alternative pain management solutions, and the police force building a preventive approach.

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