Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Dr. Death gives pregnant mom thousands of pain pills as people drop dead

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Dr. Death gives pregnant mom thousands of pain pills as people drop dead · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Addiction to opioids. It is an epidemic claiming more and
0:10
Speaker 1: more lives across our country. Can you imagine babies, infants
0:16
Speaker 1: being born addicted to fentnyl, addicted to heroin, addicted to
0:22
Speaker 1: painkillers straight out of the womb. Their lives are already
0:28
Speaker 1: broken because of this epidemic. And they are just one tiny,
0:33
Speaker 1: tiny example of what is happening now. But how do
0:38
Speaker 1: we stop it? Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Juanita told
0:50
Speaker 1: us the children were born addicted to drugs. I've lived
0:54
Speaker 1: in Belclasians born. I like factly, it's a pretty town. Yeah,
0:58
Speaker 1: it has a lot of worse for New York. In
1:00
Speaker 1: utter states, how do you know that the Harveys live
1:05
Speaker 1: in Beckley, West Virginia, hard hit by the opioid epidemic.
1:09
Speaker 1: West Virginia has had more opioid related deaths than any
1:12
Speaker 1: other state, followed by neighboring Ohio. The Harveys are now
1:16
Speaker 1: part of a class action lawsuit against opioid distributors, manufacturers,
1:20
Speaker 1: and retail pharmacies, accusing them of aggressively marketing, distributing, and
1:25
Speaker 1: overprescribing the drugs. Stephen Knew is the Harvey family attorney.
1:29
Speaker 1: He's closely watching the federal case involving Summit and Cuyahoga
1:33
Speaker 1: Counties in Ohio. In the courtroom, everyone's equal. A family
1:38
Speaker 1: like the Harvey family, or a county like Cuyahoga County
1:43
Speaker 1: stands on equal footing with multinational billion dollar corporations. Children
1:49
Speaker 1: born addicted to drugs one Aida Harvey and her family
1:54
Speaker 1: are just one of so many people joining in a
1:58
Speaker 1: class action lawsuit over addiction to opioids. It is an
2:04
Speaker 1: epidemic claiming more and more lives across our country. The
2:08
Speaker 1: Harveys are just one example. I mean, Acy, Grace, this
2:12
Speaker 1: is crime stories. Thank you for being with us. I
2:15
Speaker 1: had no idea when I signed on to be a
2:19
Speaker 1: prosecutor in Inner City Atlanta, and every arrangement calendar every week,
2:24
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty two hundred new felony indictments in
2:28
Speaker 1: my courtroom alone, and about sixty percent of those were
2:32
Speaker 1: drug related, if not more, There will be one guilty
2:36
Speaker 1: play after the next, after the next, after the next.
2:39
Speaker 1: Little did I understand then that this would result in
2:43
Speaker 1: an epidemic. With me an all star panel. Doctor William Maroney,
2:50
Speaker 1: Chief Medical Examiner, Bay County Michigan, also the author of
2:55
Speaker 1: American Narcan On Amazon created a new portable treatment center
3:03
Speaker 1: to fight opioid addiction. Doctor Judith Joseph Psychiatrists, Principal investigator
3:10
Speaker 1: at Manhattan Behavioral Medicine. Mark Tate, lawyer representing the Chatham County,
3:15
Speaker 1: South Carolina family's suing opioid manufacturers. And Berry Mayor, Pulitzer
3:22
Speaker 1: Prize winning former reporter for The New York Times, author
3:25
Speaker 1: of Painkiller, An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of
3:30
Speaker 1: America's Opioid Epidemic. You can find that at Berrymeyer books
3:34
Speaker 1: dot com. That's spelled m E I E R. Welcome everybody,
3:40
Speaker 1: Doctor William Maroney, Infants being born addicted to Opioid's first
3:46
Speaker 1: Break it down, Moroney, Okay, break it down. Okay, we're
3:50
Speaker 1: not doctors like you and doctor Judith Joseph. All right,
3:54
Speaker 1: what is an opioid? Street names? What is it? What's
3:57
Speaker 1: happening is if it's heroine or if it's heroin with
4:01
Speaker 1: ventanyl off its pain pills. When the babies are born,
4:06
Speaker 1: the supply stops because the mother's blood is discontinued at birth,
4:11
Speaker 1: and the baby begins withdrawal, which is a lot of
4:19
Speaker 1: fluid secreting, and they become stuffy and they have difficulty breathing,
4:24
Speaker 1: and they're irritable and there's pain, and then they have
4:27
Speaker 1: loose stool, loose diarrhea, and they have difficulty feeding. So
4:33
Speaker 1: you have a crisis immediately that the babies that ordinarily
4:39
Speaker 1: hug and cuddle and suckle at the mother's breast have
4:44
Speaker 1: difficulty feeding because of being in withdrawal, and immediately they're
4:49
Speaker 1: losing fluids and they're at risk of dehydrating, Doctor Moroni,
4:55
Speaker 1: Doctor Moroni. I remember when I volunteered for the nine
4:59
Speaker 1: years at the Battered them and Center at night. Part
5:01
Speaker 1: of that, many of our volunteers would go rock as
5:05
Speaker 1: we call them, crack babies at nurseries at hospitals across
5:09
Speaker 1: the city of Atlanta, and the babies after I had
5:13
Speaker 1: the twins, John, David and Lucy, I really had something
5:16
Speaker 1: to compare it to. They were so agitated, little tiny babies.
5:21
Speaker 1: They were all underweight and they were agitated. Nothing could
5:26
Speaker 1: calm them down. Sometimes we could get them calm down
5:28
Speaker 1: rocking them. But I'm those were crack babies. Is that
5:32
Speaker 1: what this is like when you're on when a baby
5:34
Speaker 1: is born addicted to opioids. In general, the withdrawal symptom
5:39
Speaker 1: is similar for all withdrawal from all drunks. It's a
5:43
Speaker 1: very similar conditioned syndrome. No matter what it is. Withdrawal
5:49
Speaker 1: is withdrawal. It's inconsolability, irritability difficult for a tiny baby.
5:56
Speaker 1: And uh, doctor moroney, you have children, as do I.
6:00
Speaker 1: It's hard enough to calm down a fussy baby in
6:02
Speaker 1: the middle of the night, a normal baby, much less
6:05
Speaker 1: a baby addicted to opioids. Barry Meyer, Pulitzer Prize winning
6:11
Speaker 1: form a reporter for The New York Times, author of
6:13
Speaker 1: pain Killer, An Empire of Deceit, and the Origin of
6:16
Speaker 1: America's apioid Epidemic? Barry What led you, a Pulitzer Prize
6:22
Speaker 1: winning reporter to get so enmassed in the opioid epidemic?
6:28
Speaker 1: Romancing back in two just two thousand, two thousand, one
6:35
Speaker 1: time for him. I was a reporter at the Times,
6:37
Speaker 1: and an editor came to me and said, you know,
6:39
Speaker 1: there's I've gotten a chip. There's this hot new drug
6:43
Speaker 1: on the street. It's called OPSI content and their reps
6:47
Speaker 1: going around claiming to druggists that the drug camp be
6:52
Speaker 1: abused It's unlike any other ooid pain killer that's been
6:56
Speaker 1: ever produced. It's safe, people can use it, people can
7:00
Speaker 1: use it as high as at sky Hide dosages without
7:05
Speaker 1: any health problems. But we're seeing it all out on
7:08
Speaker 1: the street. You know, it's being sold like hotcakes. So
7:12
Speaker 1: I began to investigate this, and what I started to
7:15
Speaker 1: uncover and documented subsequently in painkiller was a criminal marketing
7:21
Speaker 1: campaign by the drugs manufacturer OxyContin to lie to doctors,
7:26
Speaker 1: to lie to pharmacists, to lie to regulators, patients, everyone
7:32
Speaker 1: about the addictive potential of what became the most widely
7:38
Speaker 1: abused drug in American history, OxyContin. You know, I remember,
7:43
Speaker 1: I remember a woman gorgeous came into court. I was
7:48
Speaker 1: a new prosecutor. I was just doing my best. She
7:53
Speaker 1: had been a really successful stock broker and she came
7:58
Speaker 1: in in chains. I'm like, oh, dear lord, she must
8:01
Speaker 1: have shot her husband. That was my first thought. She
8:05
Speaker 1: came up and I pulled her file for the police.
8:07
Speaker 1: It was a plea deal and I looked at it.
8:10
Speaker 1: It was a plea deal reached by the prosecutor who
8:13
Speaker 1: was running that court. I was just a novice and
8:17
Speaker 1: I was standing up to practice reading somebody their rights
8:21
Speaker 1: and then giving a fact recitation to the judge to
8:24
Speaker 1: accept the police I had to stop in the middle
8:27
Speaker 1: of reading the police report out loud. This gorgeous woman
8:31
Speaker 1: stock broke her highly successful family of three children, married,
8:36
Speaker 1: lost her license, lost her children, lost her home, auster marriage,
8:41
Speaker 1: lost her job, everything because of an opioid addiction. Now,
8:46
Speaker 1: that was when I was still prosecuting in the mid nineties,
8:51
Speaker 1: and I had no idea what was to come. As
8:56
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, take a listen to this from
9:00
Speaker 1: Fox Say Cleveland reporter Matt Wright. I sought out what
9:04
Speaker 1: I knew would make me not sick anymore, which was heroin,
9:07
Speaker 1: which ultimately led an e fentanyl which brought me to
9:11
Speaker 1: my knees faster than hour before. Nathan Burcheck says he
9:14
Speaker 1: has struggled with opioid addiction for years. Stole my youth, booe,
9:21
Speaker 1: lots of opportunities, were in, lots of relationships. After several relapses,
9:25
Speaker 1: He's now living in a dorm here at the Cleveland
9:27
Speaker 1: Treatment Center. Stella Maris Stella Mare saved my life. But
9:31
Speaker 1: the nonprofits director of nursing, Carol Negus, says need far
9:34
Speaker 1: exceeds space and resources. If they don't get into dtox,
9:40
Speaker 1: there's a good chance that they're going to die waiting
9:42
Speaker 1: to get into dtox intake currently located in this trailer
9:46
Speaker 1: right now, there are more than one hundred twenty people
9:49
Speaker 1: on the daily dtox waitlist. It can take weeks to
9:52
Speaker 1: get a bet. I think the reason that the wait
9:54
Speaker 1: list has gone up so much definitely has to do
9:56
Speaker 1: with this opiate epidemic, There's no question about it. Crime
10:15
Speaker 1: Stories with Nancy Grace. In two thousand and nine, more
10:24
Speaker 1: than twenty nine hundred people died in Florida of drug overdoses,
10:29
Speaker 1: mostly from prescribed opioid pills. In one sixteen month period,
10:34
Speaker 1: DA records show Barry Schultz dispensed eight hundred thousand opioid
10:40
Speaker 1: pills from his office pharmacy. People who have become addicted
10:43
Speaker 1: to these drugs. People have died because of these drugs.
10:47
Speaker 1: People in your practice died from overdoses of opioids. A
10:52
Speaker 1: person one is enough that months to end. In my
10:58
Speaker 1: son's light, Carol Tane's son David, went to doctor Schultz
11:04
Speaker 1: for pain management after a car accident. Schultz prescribed an
11:08
Speaker 1: assortment of pain pills. Even after David became addicted. In
11:12
Speaker 1: two ten, David died of an overdose of opioids prescribed
11:17
Speaker 1: by doctor Schultz. So should doctor Schultz have prescribed these
11:21
Speaker 1: pain pills to him? No, he didn't even examine him.
11:24
Speaker 1: He hadn't seen him in born Apthews. He just just
11:29
Speaker 1: wrote wrote out these scripts. As far as I'm concerned,
11:31
Speaker 1: he's a murderer and not a doctor. He murdered my
11:38
Speaker 1: son as he he didn't need a gun. He used
11:42
Speaker 1: his pen to murder my son. Oh my stars. You
11:46
Speaker 1: know this morning, when I was getting the twins ready
11:50
Speaker 1: to go to school, Lucy goes and barricades herself in
11:54
Speaker 1: the bathroom to put on beauty treatments. I can't get
11:56
Speaker 1: her out, but John David unwittingly walked out early, and
11:59
Speaker 1: I forced him to practice the Waltz to Rainbow Connection
12:04
Speaker 1: by Kermit the Frog. Your thor probably thinking what does
12:08
Speaker 1: that have to do with what we just heard. This
12:11
Speaker 1: mom's son is dead. It's all over for her. I mean,
12:20
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons I get up in the
12:21
Speaker 1: morning to see John David and Lucy and to think
12:27
Speaker 1: that this son is gone from her life now. And
12:30
Speaker 1: she says the doctor is a murderer by a pen.
12:34
Speaker 1: Not a gun or a knife, but a pen. You
12:37
Speaker 1: were hearing our friend Bill Whittaker at sixty minutes, the
12:42
Speaker 1: opioid epidemic taking over our country like a tsunami. I
12:48
Speaker 1: had no idea when I would take a plea, after
12:50
Speaker 1: a plea, after a trial, after a trial. It was
12:53
Speaker 1: just the tip of the iceberg joining me. Mark Tate,
12:58
Speaker 1: attorney representing Chatham County, South Carolina, is suing the opioid manufacturers. Mark,
13:04
Speaker 1: renowned attorney. Thank you for being with us. Mark. Many
13:08
Speaker 1: people would argue, well, dopers take opioids of their own volition,
13:14
Speaker 1: it's not the manufacturer's fault. I remember, Mark, the first
13:18
Speaker 1: time I saw, actually saw somebody in real life shooting up.
13:22
Speaker 1: I was running in City of Atlanta. I had just
13:24
Speaker 1: gotten out of court. I was running and I ran
13:28
Speaker 1: past a Big Staff football stadium and there was a
13:31
Speaker 1: car parked out, and I glanced to the side and
13:34
Speaker 1: there was a guy in there with a serene shooting up,
13:37
Speaker 1: and it was it just felt. It's like you know
13:40
Speaker 1: when you see a snake, there's just something that you recoil,
13:44
Speaker 1: something inside. Unless you're a snake lover. Mark, I just
13:47
Speaker 1: recoiled and then I took off running. Tell me, what
13:54
Speaker 1: are you trying to do? Mark? And do what's happening?
13:59
Speaker 1: First of all, you know, you tell these things of stories,
14:03
Speaker 1: and really, these drugs, the opiates, that doesn't care about race,
14:07
Speaker 1: it doesn't care about it doesn't care about wealth, it
14:11
Speaker 1: doesn't care about poverty. It treats all comers exactly the same.
14:15
Speaker 1: And the reason that I got involved and wanting to
14:18
Speaker 1: do something through the power of our civil justice system
14:22
Speaker 1: because I have been around and involved in seeing so
14:26
Speaker 1: many people die. You know, are across the street. Neighbor
14:31
Speaker 1: became addicted to opiates, and unfortunately she died in the bathtub.
14:35
Speaker 1: One night, the son of a great friend of mine
14:40
Speaker 1: died in his dorm room, and I was the one
14:42
Speaker 1: who had to go, you know, clean it up and
14:44
Speaker 1: take care of the final affairs. And so I started
14:47
Speaker 1: noticing that's a horrible problem. And I have a lot
14:50
Speaker 1: of friends who are in the medical profession as well.
14:53
Speaker 1: You were describing to me that they would get visits
14:55
Speaker 1: from drug reps. Pharmaceutical salespeople would come to the come
14:59
Speaker 1: to their offices and say, listen, OxyContin is not addictive.
15:04
Speaker 1: Oxyconton is the gold standard. If you are not treating pain,
15:09
Speaker 1: which is the fifth vital sign, as they were saying,
15:12
Speaker 1: then you're committing malpractice. The pharmaceutical lobbyists and reps went
15:16
Speaker 1: to the organization that certifils hospitals, pardon me, and to
15:21
Speaker 1: convince them that if they are not using opiates there,
15:24
Speaker 1: that they're committing malpractice. And all you have to wait
15:26
Speaker 1: a minute, Wait a minute, Mark, take Mark Tate. You're
15:30
Speaker 1: telling me a sales rep. Okay, you're telling me that
15:34
Speaker 1: a sales rep can convince a medical doctor what to do. Mark, Oh, absolutely,
15:40
Speaker 1: absolutely they do. Medical doctors have a few moments to
15:44
Speaker 1: listen to these reps, and they listen to and they
15:46
Speaker 1: show up with gifts for the staff, and they show
15:48
Speaker 1: up with gifts for the doctor, and they romance the doctors.
15:52
Speaker 1: Oh it works. And they come with studies that are published,
15:56
Speaker 1: studies that the manufacturers and distributors created. How they were false,
16:01
Speaker 1: and all of those doctors and other professionals who took
16:04
Speaker 1: part in those studies have now the candidates said, no,
16:07
Speaker 1: we were not telling the truth. We were bought and
16:10
Speaker 1: paid for, and we never believed that opiates were not addicted.
16:15
Speaker 1: We never believed that only one percent got addicted. We
16:18
Speaker 1: never believed that there was such a thing. Wait, now,
16:20
Speaker 1: who is saying they didn't believe it? The sales reps
16:23
Speaker 1: are the authors of the studies that the sales reps
16:25
Speaker 1: are purported to be distributing. Have all read my stars
16:30
Speaker 1: and you know they also they created this horrible fiction
16:33
Speaker 1: that if you see someone as a medical professional who's
16:38
Speaker 1: exhibiting signs of addiction, that's not addiction. That's pseudo addiction,
16:43
Speaker 1: and pseudo addiction has a cure one. I'm sorry, you know,
16:46
Speaker 1: I'm just an old prosecutor. What do you mean by
16:49
Speaker 1: pseudo addiction? Because if it looks like addiction, and it
16:53
Speaker 1: talks like addiction, and it walks like addiction, it's addiction.
16:57
Speaker 1: This is part of a gigantic fraud was perpetrated and
17:02
Speaker 1: forced the vest into this position pseudo addiction. Then it
17:05
Speaker 1: was an addiction, fake addiction. The cure for civil addiction
17:09
Speaker 1: is increasing the dose of the opiates. So this is
17:13
Speaker 1: what happened. This is what happened in the medical community,
17:15
Speaker 1: is what happened the pharmaceutical community. They're now being held accountable.
17:18
Speaker 1: Dang I filed the first lasses in the state of
17:20
Speaker 1: Georgia on behalf of Fulton County. I now represent close
17:25
Speaker 1: to seventy different municipalities and counties. They are all filed
17:29
Speaker 1: in federal court. We have a magnificently interested federal judge,
17:33
Speaker 1: Dan Polster, who's got the cases consolidated in Cleveland. We
17:37
Speaker 1: have now six years having started to gain progress on
17:41
Speaker 1: behalf of municipalities. Okay, now, wait, wait, wait now, now
17:44
Speaker 1: you're talking like a lawyer. Okay. And I used to
17:47
Speaker 1: love nothing more than having a lawyer on the elevator
17:51
Speaker 1: with a jury pool, and the lawyers, of course start
17:54
Speaker 1: showing off and throwing around Latin phrases that nobody understands.
17:57
Speaker 1: This is what I know. Congress called five reps sales
18:01
Speaker 1: reps to testify. Of the five, only one said that
18:06
Speaker 1: the pharmaceutical companies contribute to the crisis. But this is
18:11
Speaker 1: what I know. I know what Miss Juanita was just
18:15
Speaker 1: saying about her son. Right now, Defendants in a land
18:21
Speaker 1: mark case against opioid manufacturers and distributors negotiating in a
18:27
Speaker 1: last minute settlement. People all over the country devastated by opioids.
18:36
Speaker 1: You've got a child, You've got a son, you've got
18:38
Speaker 1: a daughter, You better listen crime stories with Nancy Grace. Tonight,
19:07
Speaker 1: the weeks of speculation are now over. The Midwest Medical
19:11
Speaker 1: Examiner's Office concludes Prince died of an accidental drug overdose.
19:15
Speaker 1: Self administered fetenyl fetanel, an opioid pain killer prescribed millions
19:20
Speaker 1: of times each year, is also available on the black market,
19:24
Speaker 1: and tonight a new mystery, where did Prince get that drug?
19:33
Speaker 1: A week before he died? Ambulances meeting Prince's plain after
19:37
Speaker 1: that emergency landing MP the night before his death, Prince's
19:44
Speaker 1: revs called an expert in pain medication addiction, his death
19:49
Speaker 1: highlighting the problem of prescription opioid abuse across the country,
19:53
Speaker 1: which has claimed two thousand plus more lives since that day.
19:57
Speaker 1: The DA telling ABC News it's related to the overall
20:01
Speaker 1: opioid epidemic in America. There is not a region in
20:04
Speaker 1: this country today that is not under siege from heroin
20:08
Speaker 1: or front Noll prescription drugs. David. While the Medical Examiner
20:11
Speaker 1: has released the cause of death, the Sheriff's office is
20:14
Speaker 1: still investigating. That was our friend, Eva Pilgrim at ABC
20:17
Speaker 1: and with the DA, Jack Riley with Me, Doctor William Maroney,
20:21
Speaker 1: doctor Judith Joseph and Mark Day. Doctor Moroney, do you
20:25
Speaker 1: recall when Prince died and you and I were on
20:30
Speaker 1: the found talking immediately? Remember, Yeah, I'll never forget that
20:33
Speaker 1: because everybody didn't understand how much opioids were prevalent, and
20:39
Speaker 1: he died of diversion of illegal opioids. He wasn't prescribed,
20:45
Speaker 1: but he was seeing a doctor and getting other opioids.
20:49
Speaker 1: But it wasn't enough. And that's what happens to everybody.
20:52
Speaker 1: It's never enough. Your brain is hijacked, just like that
20:56
Speaker 1: guy injecting in the football stadium. If you don't don't use,
21:00
Speaker 1: you get sick, you vomit, your body aches, you have
21:05
Speaker 1: panic attacks, and you can't breathe. What happened to Prince
21:09
Speaker 1: was a crime and it affected everybody. We still really
21:13
Speaker 1: don't know where his fentanyl came from, but we knew
21:16
Speaker 1: he was seeing somebody and being treated for pain and
21:19
Speaker 1: it got out of control and he couldn't get enough.
21:23
Speaker 1: And that's where we are in America. Nobody can get enough.
21:25
Speaker 1: It's going to get worse before it gets better. Doctor Moroni,
21:29
Speaker 1: let me plug your book American Narcan on Amazon. Explain Narcan.
21:34
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that. Narcan is the brand
21:37
Speaker 1: name for the lock Zone, and the lock zone is
21:40
Speaker 1: an opioid molecule that does not activate or get you high.
21:45
Speaker 1: It blocks the brain where the opioids go. So when
21:50
Speaker 1: you overdose, you get this medicine injected into you be
21:57
Speaker 1: blown up your nose as a mist, injected into your
21:59
Speaker 1: muscles and ejected into your bloodstream and it goes to
22:02
Speaker 1: the brain. And because it shaped like opioids, it fits
22:07
Speaker 1: in the same place. It kicks out the oxycon, it
22:10
Speaker 1: kicks out the fentanel, it kicks out the heroine, and
22:14
Speaker 1: then you begin breathing again. That's the first step to recovery.
22:20
Speaker 1: It's the first medicine. It's the beginning of rehabilitation. It's
22:24
Speaker 1: the beginning in detox. Without it, you're dead. It should
22:27
Speaker 1: be in every home in America, not just my book,
22:31
Speaker 1: but the Narkhan should be in every home in America,
22:35
Speaker 1: just like an EpiPen for people with peanut allergies. Our
22:41
Speaker 1: children are at the greatest risk they've been in a
22:45
Speaker 1: hundred years. You know what, Let me get on what
22:48
Speaker 1: you're saying right there, Doctor Judas Joseph, my friend and
22:51
Speaker 1: colleague psychiatrist Principal Investigator at Manhattan Behavioral Medicine, doctor Jude
22:56
Speaker 1: Joseph Maroney has just told us at children are at risk.
23:01
Speaker 1: Now we've already talked about infants Kneeborn's already addicted to opioids,
23:07
Speaker 1: who have a very high risk of death, high mortality rate.
23:11
Speaker 1: Doctor j Joseph, When does it first become When do
23:14
Speaker 1: your children first? When are they first in danger getting
23:18
Speaker 1: addicted to or trying drugs. So that's a great question, Nancy,
23:22
Speaker 1: because one of my first positions after training in child
23:26
Speaker 1: in Nato Lescen Psychiatria YU was out in Staten Island,
23:29
Speaker 1: and Staten Island is known as a lot of boroughs
23:31
Speaker 1: that has you know, a lot of hard working, working
23:33
Speaker 1: class cops, firemen, and people who moved out there because
23:40
Speaker 1: they wanted a better life for their kids. They wanted
23:42
Speaker 1: to stay out of the city. And this is one
23:44
Speaker 1: of the areas of New York that is being hit
23:46
Speaker 1: the hardest and treating kids out there. From what they
23:49
Speaker 1: were telling me, they were getting these medications from their parents,
23:53
Speaker 1: not directly, but they were taking them from the prescription
23:56
Speaker 1: cabinet because people did not realize that a medicine is
24:00
Speaker 1: given to you by your doctor properly could be addictive.
24:04
Speaker 1: And I think that this is why the epidemic is
24:06
Speaker 1: just so hard to catch up with, because these drugs
24:10
Speaker 1: weren't considered to be street drugs. You typically think of marijuana,
24:13
Speaker 1: you think of cocaine, but with pills, you don't see
24:16
Speaker 1: them as being harmful or evil or as if you're
24:19
Speaker 1: doing anything wrong. And that's why I think that this
24:22
Speaker 1: epidemic has become so out of control. And I've had
24:25
Speaker 1: stories of teams telling me that, you know, they would
24:27
Speaker 1: feel anxious in school because you know what, school's hard,
24:30
Speaker 1: and they remember just taking like one of these pills
24:33
Speaker 1: at their desk, passing it to a friend, and before
24:35
Speaker 1: you know it, you had a whole community that used
24:38
Speaker 1: these pills to self medicate and they were hooks. Oh
24:41
Speaker 1: my star dot Jose if you are scaring me so much,
24:45
Speaker 1: because you know Mark Tait with me representing Chatham County
24:49
Speaker 1: suing opioid manufacturers. I watch what they do. I look
24:54
Speaker 1: at their phones. I know what veggies they have, I
24:57
Speaker 1: know what underwear they're wearing right now because I set
24:59
Speaker 1: it out for him last night. But I can't control
25:02
Speaker 1: what's happening at school, Mark Tay, you're on the forefront
25:06
Speaker 1: along with doctor William Rone, fighting the opioid crisis, and
25:10
Speaker 1: right now you're taking on the actual manufacturer. How is
25:15
Speaker 1: that going to help me and my twins in their classroom. Well,
25:18
Speaker 1: it's going to help consume quit having false information shoved
25:23
Speaker 1: down their throats by these manufacturers. And I'd like to
25:26
Speaker 1: add Nancy that there is in two states in our
25:29
Speaker 1: country a beautiful legislative tool called the Drug Dealer Liability Act.
25:34
Speaker 1: And in Georgia and in Michigan, unlike every other state,
25:37
Speaker 1: you do not have to have a prior conviction of
25:39
Speaker 1: the drug dealer, and the drug dealer does not have
25:42
Speaker 1: to be selling street drugs or illegal drugs. And so
25:45
Speaker 1: in Georgia we have undertaken representing the spouses and the
25:48
Speaker 1: children people who have become addicted to prescription drugs by
25:53
Speaker 1: a pill mill doctors supplied by distributors who know there's
25:57
Speaker 1: distributing war drugs that are therapeutically necessary, against the manufacturers
26:01
Speaker 1: who created this entire demand for these drapes. Mark Tay,
26:05
Speaker 1: Mark Tate more drugs and is therapeutically necessary. What I
26:11
Speaker 1: think you are saying in a very eloquent fashion that
26:15
Speaker 1: would be wonderful in front of an appellate court. What
26:18
Speaker 1: you're saying is, doctors are prescribing people painkillers to death.
26:24
Speaker 1: It's not just that. It's not just that, yes, they are,
26:26
Speaker 1: but in addition to that, the suppliers of those drugs
26:30
Speaker 1: know that they're giving out more drugs than are necessary
26:33
Speaker 1: or could even be conceivably used properly, and the manufacturers
26:37
Speaker 1: created the fraudulent environment telling people that these drugs are safe.
26:41
Speaker 1: That's what's going on. It's still going on today. And
26:44
Speaker 1: there are tools that we have that present the families
26:48
Speaker 1: and loved ones of the individual abuser and hold those
26:51
Speaker 1: people accountable, and we're doing it. Listen to this, Frank
26:55
Speaker 1: Christina Thompson, ABC, smither says Patients victims in courts d
27:00
Speaker 1: A special agent Christopher Dizec and US attorney Randy Rams
27:03
Speaker 1: tell us there were about three hundred people from at
27:06
Speaker 1: least four states, some as far as Ohio who regularly
27:10
Speaker 1: saw doctor Smithers. Some patients were prescribed opioids without even
27:14
Speaker 1: being seen. These were drug seekers, addicts, and certainly, as
27:19
Speaker 1: a judge, label the victims which they are, he was
27:21
Speaker 1: a prescribing very potent. Doctor Smithers prescribed more than five
27:25
Speaker 1: hundred thousand pills. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I came
27:44
Speaker 1: to represent my daughter. She was a patient and doctor Smithers.
27:49
Speaker 1: Ramona Hartshorn's daughter, Heather, is the only confirmed overdose death
27:53
Speaker 1: caused by doctor Smithers, says over prescription of opioids. I
27:57
Speaker 1: hate that she's gone, but I feel like her death
28:01
Speaker 1: was instrumental and to bringing him to justice, closing down
28:06
Speaker 1: Peel Mill and sending out a message to others, welcome back,
28:10
Speaker 1: hy Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories you're hearing ABC
28:13
Speaker 1: thirteen years reporter Christina Thompson and the mother of a
28:18
Speaker 1: young girl that overdosed on opioids, Doctor William Moroney. I
28:22
Speaker 1: started off asking you guys, Dodtor Maroney, chief Medical Examiner,
28:27
Speaker 1: Bay County, Michigan at Recovery Pathways and has now created
28:32
Speaker 1: a new portable treatment center. It's like a giant stay
28:37
Speaker 1: of the art RV to treat the opioid crisis. Now
28:41
Speaker 1: that is dedication. Doctor Judah Joseph with me, psychiatrist principal
28:46
Speaker 1: investigator Manhattan Behavioral Medicine and Mark tap renowned attorney actually
28:52
Speaker 1: taking on opioid manufacturers, Doctor Maroney. Once you try an opioid,
28:58
Speaker 1: let's just say oxy content, how does it get a
29:01
Speaker 1: hold of you. That's what I try to tell the
29:02
Speaker 1: twins without you know, nagging at them or harping on it,
29:06
Speaker 1: because if you argue too much then they'll run out
29:09
Speaker 1: and do it. But explain how once you try it
29:13
Speaker 1: just once or twice, you're hooked and you can't stop.
29:16
Speaker 1: It's like the devil's gotten into you. The most important
29:19
Speaker 1: thing is it takes over your brain. You're hijacked physically.
29:24
Speaker 1: You get nauseous, you have panic attacks, you can't breathe,
29:29
Speaker 1: your body aches, and you know that if you take
29:31
Speaker 1: an opioid, whether it's heroin or oxycotton, it goes away.
29:37
Speaker 1: And that's how you're hijacked. It's withdrawal, it's dependence. And
29:43
Speaker 1: we need more people to treat and less people to
29:46
Speaker 1: throw pain meds out on the street like the ice
29:49
Speaker 1: cream truck. People get greedy, they make too much money.
29:53
Speaker 1: That gets easy. The states are out of control and
29:56
Speaker 1: everything comes down to there's not enough people a treat.
30:00
Speaker 1: We've created this problem with twenty years of bad prescribing.
30:05
Speaker 1: Now we need treatment. Okay, Wait a minute, Wait a minute, Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,
30:11
Speaker 1: Mark Tate, doctor Moroni, Judah, Joseph. I can't even call
30:15
Speaker 1: out all these names. All of these are opioids, Vicodin,
30:19
Speaker 1: tailing all number three and four, Chesstra, Tussian, next, tussiecaps, Targenic, roxy,
30:27
Speaker 1: set rosera, Percaden, percocet, palliadone, oxy set, oxyconton, opana, norco.
30:35
Speaker 1: I mean lord set, Lord tab loqui, set, hidrocan, hydromette,
30:40
Speaker 1: high set. There's so many. I can't even go vicadendon,
30:44
Speaker 1: I say that, zodiol. There's so many, I can't even
30:50
Speaker 1: tell you all of them. And there's street names Captain Cody, Cody, Skillboy,
30:55
Speaker 1: Doors and fours, Pancakes and loads, Emma's and mother, Miss Emma,
30:59
Speaker 1: Monkey Stuff, Demi's, paint Killer, Apachee, China Girl, Dance Fever.
31:03
Speaker 1: I don't even have time to say all the names
31:05
Speaker 1: on the street. So, Mark Tate, your lawsuit, which is
31:10
Speaker 1: very brave, how many do you believe? How many people
31:14
Speaker 1: are affected by your lawsuit? Total population of addicts and
31:21
Speaker 1: they're loved ones, you know, probably eight million, ten million people.
31:25
Speaker 1: And again understand that what we're doing with the lawsuits,
31:28
Speaker 1: we have on behalf of the governments. We are filing
31:31
Speaker 1: and representing them to get back the money, the taxpayer
31:35
Speaker 1: money that they had to spend to treat the attic
31:39
Speaker 1: law enforcement, drug courts, jails, corners offices, narcan, equipment and training.
31:44
Speaker 1: These types of things have cost taxpayers money. So the
31:47
Speaker 1: real ridiculous tragedy, in addition to the number of people
31:51
Speaker 1: who are dying and addicted at all the costs of
31:53
Speaker 1: treating those people and all the lawsuits their loved ones experience,
31:56
Speaker 1: is the fact that we, as taxpayers funding our government,
32:00
Speaker 1: are subsidizing these industries. We are fixing it so the
32:04
Speaker 1: families and the stockholders of these companies and these companies
32:07
Speaker 1: and their executives are getting fat and rich and happy,
32:11
Speaker 1: and soon they are rolling in money. Mark takes rolling
32:17
Speaker 1: in money while people are dying. That's exactly right, and
32:22
Speaker 1: we have subsidized that. You know, It's kind of like
32:25
Speaker 1: when Walmart teaches its minimum wage employees how to go
32:28
Speaker 1: get Medicaid. We're subsidizing their wealth. We are subdizing these
32:33
Speaker 1: companies as taxpayers. And what we're doing is saying, listen,
32:36
Speaker 1: you are now going to bear the full cost of
32:40
Speaker 1: your product. No longer are you going to get to
32:43
Speaker 1: skip happy taking our money while you're killing us. We're
32:46
Speaker 1: going to make you pay all of the economic costs
32:49
Speaker 1: you put on us and pay for future treatment of
32:52
Speaker 1: these people, and hopefully we can change a mindset. And
32:56
Speaker 1: you mentioned this earlier where you know people are blaming
32:58
Speaker 1: the addict and it's just not proper because what happens is,
33:02
Speaker 1: as the doctor was saying, this drug changes your brain chemistry,
33:06
Speaker 1: and so it is no longer a voluntary act. You
33:10
Speaker 1: are you are taking this drug to keep yourself from dying,
33:13
Speaker 1: because if you go cold turkey off of opiates after
33:17
Speaker 1: you become addicted, you can die. People have seizures, you've
33:21
Speaker 1: you've heard describe the nausea and vomiting. But it makes
33:24
Speaker 1: it so you you can't just stock. You gotta paper
33:27
Speaker 1: off and switch to other things, you know, like the
33:30
Speaker 1: old method toone clinics, and so that's the way you survive.
33:34
Speaker 1: But you know it's not the volition of the addict,
33:38
Speaker 1: and so you gotta, we gotta, hopefully, although it's going
33:41
Speaker 1: to be difficult, destigmatized addiction so that people do get
33:44
Speaker 1: treated and do get better. And like I said, with
33:46
Speaker 1: the drug dealer liability actor. You now have a tool
33:49
Speaker 1: in Georgia and Michigan to go after these companies on
33:52
Speaker 1: behalf of the loved ones of the individual abuser. And
33:55
Speaker 1: we're doing it, and that's going to make it different.
33:56
Speaker 1: I want you to listen to doctor Barry Scholtz and
34:01
Speaker 1: what he does when he's asked why he prescribed one
34:05
Speaker 1: thousand opioid pills to a pregnant mom d A record
34:10
Speaker 1: show in two ten, one patient of doctor Scholtz was
34:14
Speaker 1: prescribed nearly seventeen thousand of the highest potency oxycodone pills
34:19
Speaker 1: in a seven month period. Another got more than twenty
34:23
Speaker 1: three thousand over eight months. That's more than one hundred
34:27
Speaker 1: pills a day. Business was so good Scholtz was making
34:31
Speaker 1: more than six thousand dollars a day prescribing and selling
34:35
Speaker 1: opioids to his patients. The numbers of pills that you
34:38
Speaker 1: were prescribing are astronomical. Who takes that many pills and
34:43
Speaker 1: puts them into their body? What were you thinking? I
34:45
Speaker 1: was thinking that the patient was a genuine patient who
34:49
Speaker 1: had real chronic pain, whose complaints were legitimate, and that
34:53
Speaker 1: I was prescribing medication that they needed. Doctor, you prescribed
34:57
Speaker 1: a thousand opio pills to a pregnant woman. I don't
35:02
Speaker 1: think most doctors would prescribe a thousand aspirings to a
35:05
Speaker 1: pregnant woman. I would like to stop yep. When Whittaker
35:09
Speaker 1: turned up the heat the doctor, if I could even
35:12
Speaker 1: call him, that left the interview. Doctor William Moroni, take
35:17
Speaker 1: a listen to this. We got the report from the
35:19
Speaker 1: Midwest Medical Examiner's Office, which did the autopsy on Prince's body.
35:23
Speaker 1: They also did the toxicology of his bloodstream, and what
35:26
Speaker 1: they are saying is he died from an overdose of
35:29
Speaker 1: an opioid. We told you on TMC dot com for
35:32
Speaker 1: weeks that we were told Prince had an addiction to percocet,
35:35
Speaker 1: which is also an opioid. The shocking thing about this
35:38
Speaker 1: report is that they are saying he died from a
35:41
Speaker 1: fetanyl overdose. Fentanyl, so that everyone knows, is a very
35:45
Speaker 1: very strong opioid. It is very similar to percocet, but
35:48
Speaker 1: much stronger. You're hearing our friends over at t MZ,
35:52
Speaker 1: doctor Moroni, if Prince, if Prince's life couldn't be saved,
35:58
Speaker 1: what does that say for thems? Moroni? It's gonna get
36:01
Speaker 1: worse before it gets better. When you have all the
36:04
Speaker 1: money in the world and you end up taking fraudulent pharmaceuticals.
36:10
Speaker 1: He didn't know he was getting fentyl and he was
36:12
Speaker 1: still addicted, and he couldn't afford treatment, and he didn't
36:15
Speaker 1: get it sooner, it's gonna get worse before it gets better.
36:20
Speaker 1: Hug your children, well, wh wha white white Hug your children.
36:24
Speaker 1: That's all you've got for me. I mean, you gotta
36:26
Speaker 1: give me more than hug your children already do that. Narcan,
36:29
Speaker 1: Narcan in the house, Narcan buy the book. See that
36:33
Speaker 1: you need Narcan in your house. It's more important than
36:36
Speaker 1: soap and water. Right now. We love our kids in sports,
36:39
Speaker 1: we love our kids in choir, we love our kids
36:41
Speaker 1: in class. But narcan because you never know where the
36:45
Speaker 1: fentanyl is gonna come up. Right now. De fentyls in
36:48
Speaker 1: method fetam, the fentanyls in marijuana, the fentyls in cocaine.
36:51
Speaker 1: So if the kids say, well, I'm gonna try drug,
36:53
Speaker 1: but I'm not gonna get an opioid, they can still die.
36:57
Speaker 1: That's how bad it is out there. Let me give
36:59
Speaker 1: you this number one eight hundred and six six two four, three, five, seven, one,
37:04
Speaker 1: eight hundred and sixty six to help. I hope that
37:08
Speaker 1: parents are listening. Nancy Grace's crime Story, signing off goodbye friend,