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The opioid epidemic in your town: What you need to know · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Lawmakers and health experts say that the country is in
0:07
Speaker 1: the middle of an overdose epidemic. In two thousand Americans
0:13
Speaker 1: died from drug overdose. The state of Ohio figures it's
0:17
Speaker 1: home to two hundred thousand opioid addicts. Pharmaceutical companies purposely
0:22
Speaker 1: misled doctors about the dangers connected with pain magic. There
0:27
Speaker 1: are far too many people overdosing, far too many people dying.
0:30
Speaker 1: There's hardly a family anywhere that hasn't been somehow affected
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Speaker 1: by the opioid epidemic. This is crime stories with Nancy Grace,
0:39
Speaker 1: We've doubled the number of overdoses and they continue to
0:42
Speaker 1: climb every year. It's the greatest public health crisis of
0:45
Speaker 1: our our generation. People need help right now, right now, immediately.
0:50
Speaker 1: It's a disease, and it needs to be approached as
0:53
Speaker 1: a disease in terms of early diagnosis. Believe it or not,
0:57
Speaker 1: drug overdose is now the leading cause of death for
1:03
Speaker 1: Americans under the age of fifty. Let me let that
1:08
Speaker 1: so ken. Drug overdose is now the leading cause of
1:14
Speaker 1: death for all Americans under fifty. That's by far over
1:23
Speaker 1: half of America. What the hey is happening? I mean,
1:28
Speaker 1: I see Grace. This is crime Stories. Thank you for
1:31
Speaker 1: being with us, with me A very special guest today,
1:35
Speaker 1: Dr William Maroney joining me, renowned medical examiner, Dr Maroney.
1:41
Speaker 1: I don't get it. I know this much. In all
1:45
Speaker 1: the years that I prosecuted, Dr Maroney, I remember seeing
1:49
Speaker 1: stock brokers losing their trading license, lawyers, doctors, young kids
1:57
Speaker 1: out of so called good families. Just across the board,
2:02
Speaker 1: people losing their licenses, their homes, their savings accounts, their marriages,
2:09
Speaker 1: their families, estranged from their children under orders not to
2:13
Speaker 1: have contact with their families because of drug dependency. It
2:17
Speaker 1: ruins everything, and once you're in it, you can't get
2:23
Speaker 1: out of it. I mean, for Pete's sake, I've been
2:25
Speaker 1: on weight Watchers for what two months now, and sometimes
2:28
Speaker 1: I do it and sometimes I don't. Um, don't tell Oprah.
2:32
Speaker 1: But if I'm like that, what about people that have
2:35
Speaker 1: a real addiction to drugs? And now it's claiming so
2:41
Speaker 1: many lives, the leading cause of death amongst all Americans
2:47
Speaker 1: fifty and under. Dr Maroney, makes some sense out of
2:51
Speaker 1: this for me? Please? Alright, this whole thing started around
2:59
Speaker 1: there is a non governmental organization. What do you mean
3:03
Speaker 1: this whole thing. This whole thing started for ten years
3:07
Speaker 1: before that, and I saw people losing everything because of drugs.
3:11
Speaker 1: So what things started? What what happened was a casual
3:16
Speaker 1: affair between doctors and patients about prescribing opioids that became
3:23
Speaker 1: out of control. What will you play? Stop talking like
3:25
Speaker 1: a doctor, because most of us are just you know,
3:29
Speaker 1: the common normal Joe doing our job, getting our children
3:33
Speaker 1: to skill. What's an opioid? Are you talking about a heroine? Yes,
3:38
Speaker 1: heroins do not prescribe heroine, but doctors prescribe opioid pain
3:44
Speaker 1: pills like hydrocode on and now mommy understands. Okay, so
3:55
Speaker 1: got it? Set OxyContin, narco and as people were liberally
4:03
Speaker 1: prescribed in an unorganized fashion because medical schools don't really
4:08
Speaker 1: teach the swell and hospitals are paralyzed. They don't want
4:12
Speaker 1: to deal with this either, so the physicians were left
4:15
Speaker 1: with very weak guidelines and just too many prescriptions for
4:20
Speaker 1: opioids went into the public. Stop saying opioids and nobody
4:25
Speaker 1: knows what you're saying. Well, okay, are you talking about
4:31
Speaker 1: pain killers? Okay that I know what you're talking about.
4:34
Speaker 1: Listen to this, Dr Maroney let's put this into perspective.
4:37
Speaker 1: The body bags piling up drug deaths, opioid as you
4:42
Speaker 1: insist on saying, opioid death now surpass the peak in
4:48
Speaker 1: car crash death that was in nineteen two. That's the
4:52
Speaker 1: year the most people in America died in car crashes,
4:56
Speaker 1: AIDS death AIDS and AIDS related s, in n gun
5:03
Speaker 1: deaths in nineteen And listen to this doctor, After twenty
5:09
Speaker 1: years of combat in Vietnam, our country's casualties represented just
5:15
Speaker 1: one third, one third of the death toll of ten
5:20
Speaker 1: years of dope overdoses, opioid overdoses, car crashes, AIDS, gun
5:27
Speaker 1: deaths Vietnam. For Pete's sake, I mean what nobody notices this?
5:32
Speaker 1: Am I the only one that's noticing. Yesterday, Alan Duke,
5:36
Speaker 1: the Duke is with us. Alan, remember that article we read?
5:40
Speaker 1: Tell me about it and it was in my home town. Yes,
5:44
Speaker 1: I've been wanting to ask you what's going on in
5:46
Speaker 1: making Georgia. They've had this incredible well. It also included
5:50
Speaker 1: warn of Robbins the demon city go ahead. Yes it did. Uh.
5:54
Speaker 1: The latest numbers out as of yesterday, twenty seven overdoses
5:58
Speaker 1: with people hospitalized and there have been I think six
6:01
Speaker 1: deaths is the latest death the last days. It was
6:04
Speaker 1: a bad batch of dope and all these people took
6:08
Speaker 1: it and odd, I want to get back to Dr
6:10
Speaker 1: William Moroney. Okay, doctor, this is way out of control.
6:14
Speaker 1: How is it happening? You know? I just had knee
6:18
Speaker 1: surgery and they gave me. Oh, I don't remember what
6:22
Speaker 1: it was, but it was some kind of an oxy
6:24
Speaker 1: oxy codo Naxi content related bottle of drugs. I was
6:29
Speaker 1: so afraid of it. First I put it on the
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Speaker 1: top shelf of the medicine cabinet, and then I remember
6:35
Speaker 1: that commercial where the children are getting the dope and
6:40
Speaker 1: they look in the mirror in the bathroom mirror and
6:42
Speaker 1: it's the parents fault because they find these drugs that
6:46
Speaker 1: are left. I immediately flushed the whole thing down the
6:48
Speaker 1: commode and threw away the bottle. How many days did
6:51
Speaker 1: you get from your doctor? How many days? And I
6:54
Speaker 1: took it one night and then I said what was that?
6:59
Speaker 1: And um I looked at it. When I saw what
7:03
Speaker 1: it was, I got so freaked out by it. I
7:06
Speaker 1: think that's when I flushed it down the common threw
7:07
Speaker 1: it away. Um, what do I think it was it
7:10
Speaker 1: was an oxy something. Well, here's what happened for the
7:14
Speaker 1: last ten years, for a good decade. Like robots, the
7:19
Speaker 1: prescriptions that were written were automatical. You get thirty days.
7:23
Speaker 1: Everybody thinks in thirty days. Yeah, I think it was days.
7:27
Speaker 1: You do not need thirty days. I don't know who
7:30
Speaker 1: taught thirty days. Maybe you need four, maybe you need five.
7:36
Speaker 1: But when you stick the human body on pain killers
7:39
Speaker 1: derived from opium for thirty days, it's dependent at the
7:44
Speaker 1: end of the month. And that's I'm just a lawyer, Okay,
7:50
Speaker 1: I'm just a trial lawyer. But when you just said opium,
7:55
Speaker 1: and I'm screaming, what is an opioid? It's a derivative
7:59
Speaker 1: of opium. Yes, And when I think of opium, I
8:03
Speaker 1: think of you know, the Far East and drug houses.
8:07
Speaker 1: I think of the Poppies and Wizard of Oz. I
8:11
Speaker 1: think of all the people that I try to get
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Speaker 1: into rehab and dealers dealing it. All those visions crashed
8:21
Speaker 1: together in my head. Opium derivatives are opioids, and what
8:28
Speaker 1: are their clinical names? OxyContin, oxycoda and what else? Purpose it? Norco, Thailand,
8:34
Speaker 1: all three vicodin, all of delauded. All of those chemicals
8:43
Speaker 1: come from the mother morphine, and morphine is a natural
8:48
Speaker 1: substance from the poppy. Now, when you are saying these
8:54
Speaker 1: medical names or professional names, the street names would be
8:59
Speaker 1: what oxy roxy, what else? Right? And uh you know, uh,
9:05
Speaker 1: vitamin H for the high power, and norco and the
9:09
Speaker 1: big d's for delauded, T threes for tail and all threes.
9:15
Speaker 1: But what people got from their doctors kind of locked
9:20
Speaker 1: their bodies into seeing it every day, feeling it every day,
9:24
Speaker 1: needing it every day. And then the doctors were afraid
9:28
Speaker 1: to say no, but the people would say they're in pain.
9:33
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, But wait a minute. The prescriptions and are
9:36
Speaker 1: one aspect of the overdosing of America. But all these people,
9:42
Speaker 1: like the twenty seven people that were hospitalized, that's not
9:46
Speaker 1: from a doctor's prescription. What is that, Nancy, I can
9:49
Speaker 1: tell you. In making Georgia, one of the concerns is
9:53
Speaker 1: fake percocet. They've identified a fake version of the drug percocet,
9:59
Speaker 1: which is being home manufactured not by a big pharmaceutical
10:02
Speaker 1: company but by some some criminals someplace and sold on
10:05
Speaker 1: the streets and it's killing people. But what were you
10:08
Speaker 1: gonna say doctor, and and here's what's happened. Insurance companies
10:12
Speaker 1: and restrictive laws have made it very difficult for doctors
10:18
Speaker 1: to continue to prescribe. And everybody always has a friend
10:22
Speaker 1: or there's somebody all always near that says, well, I
10:26
Speaker 1: can get you some of these, and you skip the doctor,
10:30
Speaker 1: you skip the pharmacy, and you start buying this stuff
10:33
Speaker 1: off the street. Like um Alan was just saying, it's
10:37
Speaker 1: called Cotton's kickers, oxy cotton ox ocs, Orange County os
10:43
Speaker 1: oxies killers, beings. There are uh kill Billy heroin. There
10:49
Speaker 1: are a million street names for this. Those are names
10:53
Speaker 1: for oxyconton on the street. So tell me, Dr Moroney.
11:01
Speaker 1: Doctors over prescribe. The patients come in and claim they're
11:05
Speaker 1: still in pain, and they may be, they may be
11:08
Speaker 1: imagining it, or they may just want the drugs. I mean,
11:12
Speaker 1: look at um Jim Carey right now. He is embroiled
11:16
Speaker 1: in a wrongful death suit filed by his mistresses, his
11:21
Speaker 1: girlfriend's family. He was getting drugs under a different name
11:27
Speaker 1: and she got them either he gave them to her
11:29
Speaker 1: or she got them on her own and she died. Okay,
11:34
Speaker 1: So there's also the fake name using to get prescriptions,
11:40
Speaker 1: uh in his case, So the whole world wouldn't know
11:42
Speaker 1: Jim Carey was using a painkiller then, like Michael Jackson,
11:48
Speaker 1: just to them, Yeah, and Nicole was all. They would
11:53
Speaker 1: doctor's shop and pharmacy's shop, and they would get tons
11:56
Speaker 1: and tons of these pills from all different pharmacies in
11:59
Speaker 1: the pacies didn't know about each other. What about that,
12:02
Speaker 1: Dr Maroney, Well, the pharmacies are supposed to be running reports.
12:07
Speaker 1: The federal government has a system that they've encouraged all
12:12
Speaker 1: the states to have software that a pharmacy or a
12:15
Speaker 1: physician can look up a patient by name and birth
12:19
Speaker 1: date and see two years worth of the last of
12:22
Speaker 1: narcotics that they filled. These are called Prescription Drug Monitoring systems.
12:28
Speaker 1: And every pharmacist and American can run a report, and
12:31
Speaker 1: every physician can run a report. But doctors became lazy.
12:37
Speaker 1: Pharmacists are pushed to see a lot more people, and
12:40
Speaker 1: people don't take the time to get those reports. And
12:43
Speaker 1: if you if mandated dry, those laws are coming, but
12:49
Speaker 1: up until now they've been voluntary. As they put it
12:54
Speaker 1: in place, mandating it is the answer. Mandating means if
12:58
Speaker 1: you're going to write a narcotic. If you're going to
13:01
Speaker 1: write a pain killer, you have to run a report
13:04
Speaker 1: on that patient. If you're gonna fill a narcotic, if
13:08
Speaker 1: you're going to fill a pain a pain killer drug,
13:12
Speaker 1: as a pharmacist, you have to run that to see
13:16
Speaker 1: that that patients not running a scam and running a
13:18
Speaker 1: couple of different doctors. Let's talk about percoset too, which is,
13:21
Speaker 1: as you say, a derivative of and it's an opiate
13:25
Speaker 1: perks Paula's roxy cotton, Roxy's blue dynamite, uh five twelves.
13:31
Speaker 1: That refers to the generic brand that prints a five
13:35
Speaker 1: one two on a round white percocet pill. There's a
13:39
Speaker 1: million names for this for these dangers. So it's from
13:44
Speaker 1: two sources. People getting overprescribed one way or another, by
13:48
Speaker 1: hook or by crook, and then, as Alan correctly pointed out,
13:53
Speaker 1: other people producing it not through pharmaceutical measures, and getting
13:58
Speaker 1: it on the street. So okay, would you agree so far,
14:02
Speaker 1: Dr Maroney of um, the problem off the street is
14:10
Speaker 1: a market that was created because now patients don't want
14:14
Speaker 1: to go to the doctors, so they got kicked out
14:15
Speaker 1: of a doctor's office or they know they can't get
14:18
Speaker 1: enough from a single doctor, so they turned to the street.
14:21
Speaker 1: And in the old days one of the only other
14:24
Speaker 1: options you had on the street was you just got
14:27
Speaker 1: heroin from a dealer. But now these fake pills are
14:30
Speaker 1: on the street and somebody will offer you heroin or
14:34
Speaker 1: the fake pills, and everybody knows that heroin is being
14:37
Speaker 1: laced with other chemicals and drugs like fentanyl, and people
14:40
Speaker 1: are dying, So people are afraid to ask for heroin,
14:44
Speaker 1: and they're going back to things that look like pharmaceuticals
14:48
Speaker 1: but they're fake. And it's an entire market driven by
14:54
Speaker 1: the drug cartels and the dealers to give people more
14:57
Speaker 1: options so they don't have to go to the doctors.
15:00
Speaker 1: But they're already dependent, they're already addicted. Right now, people
15:05
Speaker 1: dying of drug overdoses and record numbers. This is not
15:08
Speaker 1: just a slight increase. It is a very scary, a
15:14
Speaker 1: horrific surge and drug o d s in our country. Now.
15:19
Speaker 1: Many claim we should be more permissive and more tolerant,
15:22
Speaker 1: more understanding about drug abuse, and I agree with that.
15:26
Speaker 1: Uh you know, Dr Moroney, you and I have talked
15:28
Speaker 1: about this off camera so many times. Like I have
15:32
Speaker 1: told you in the past, I would come out of
15:34
Speaker 1: one arrangement calendar with a hundred and fifty new felonies
15:38
Speaker 1: on it. I'd be in there in the courtroom all day,
15:42
Speaker 1: cutting deals, putting cases on the trial calendar, trying to
15:46
Speaker 1: get as many people in rehab as I possibly could.
15:50
Speaker 1: I come back to my office six seven o'clock at
15:52
Speaker 1: night and there'll be a hooldy stack of a d
15:56
Speaker 1: fifty more felonies to take to be disposed of. In
16:00
Speaker 1: their jargon, not mine. There were not enough spots for
16:05
Speaker 1: people to go to rehab. Dr Maroney. I would try
16:09
Speaker 1: to to get into rehab, a state rehab where you
16:13
Speaker 1: don't have to pay for it. Most people cannot pay
16:15
Speaker 1: for it. You'd have to wait to either have to
16:18
Speaker 1: let them out of jail, which then immediately go and
16:22
Speaker 1: get back on drugs the minute they walked out of
16:23
Speaker 1: the courthouse, or they have to wait in jail for
16:27
Speaker 1: a spot in rehab. And sometimes the weight in jail
16:30
Speaker 1: would be seven eight months before you could get in rehab,
16:34
Speaker 1: and by that time you know they I didn't They're
16:38
Speaker 1: doing a year of jail time. It just was just
16:42
Speaker 1: there was no money, no resources, and very often the
16:47
Speaker 1: only thing I could do is send somebody to jail
16:50
Speaker 1: an addict. And I knew that wasn't the right answer,
16:54
Speaker 1: but it was the only answer I had. Here's what
16:57
Speaker 1: the new move is. We know there's not an off
17:00
Speaker 1: addiction doctors, we know the primary care can't do this,
17:03
Speaker 1: we know there's not enough rehab clinics. The federal government
17:07
Speaker 1: started in the last administration and is going to continue
17:12
Speaker 1: drug court services for rehabilitation directly out of the drug
17:18
Speaker 1: courts supervised by the drug courts. Drug courts are one
17:22
Speaker 1: of the answers to the future. The Drug court associations
17:26
Speaker 1: will create guidelines that will say, if you had a
17:30
Speaker 1: nonviolent crime and your crime was based in UH drug use,
17:36
Speaker 1: and you are admitting that you're an addict and you
17:39
Speaker 1: need help, it's cheaper to get you a job, apartment
17:45
Speaker 1: and drug court services and treat you outside of the
17:49
Speaker 1: jail than it is to pay all that money and
17:52
Speaker 1: keep you locked up. Or you're not getting any help. Now,
17:55
Speaker 1: listen to this. According to Justice Department, two thousand people
18:01
Speaker 1: died of drug o d s in America two thousand fifteen.
18:04
Speaker 1: Over half of those death dr Maroney. Over half involved
18:09
Speaker 1: the use of synthetic pain meds. Fentanyl and other opioid
18:14
Speaker 1: drugs over half now. Early numbers two thousand sixteen show
18:20
Speaker 1: the death attributed to that opioids fentanyl, oxyconton, et cetera
18:27
Speaker 1: have now skyrocketed to above sixty thousand. Sixty thousand people dead. Now,
18:34
Speaker 1: Tell me about fentanyl. Fentanyl is a drug that works
18:41
Speaker 1: in the brain that is not directly related by chemical
18:46
Speaker 1: structure to opium and morphine. It's it's synthetic, but it's
18:53
Speaker 1: very powerful, and we've always used it in surgery and
18:57
Speaker 1: in hospice patients. But the new way that fentyl is
19:02
Speaker 1: being used by the drug cartels is that it's being
19:05
Speaker 1: sprinkled into the heroine. This fentanyl comes from Mexico and
19:10
Speaker 1: it comes from China, and it is supposed to be
19:15
Speaker 1: super branding and making the heroin stronger, but the people
19:19
Speaker 1: who sell it really aren't managing the quality control. And
19:23
Speaker 1: if there's too much fentanyl in your heroine, your heart
19:28
Speaker 1: stops and you die. Tell me what are the what
19:31
Speaker 1: are fentanyl patches? Explain to me how those work. Fentanyl
19:35
Speaker 1: being manufactured by an ethical pharmaceutical company is available in
19:40
Speaker 1: a patch that you wear on your skin like a
19:42
Speaker 1: band aid, and the best way to say it is
19:46
Speaker 1: they kind of mixed the medicine in the glue and
19:51
Speaker 1: it sits on the skin for seventy two hours or
19:53
Speaker 1: three days, and the plastic on the outside prevents the
19:58
Speaker 1: drug from touching their people, so it's absorbed into the
20:04
Speaker 1: skin and for for three days or seventy two hours,
20:08
Speaker 1: you don't have to take any pills. Well, the patch
20:11
Speaker 1: was designed for people who were really sick and head cancer.
20:14
Speaker 1: We're gonna die and we're nauseated because they couldn't swallow,
20:19
Speaker 1: or because they were sick. So the fentanyl patch was
20:24
Speaker 1: not designed for an average person on the street. Let
20:29
Speaker 1: me ask you about this. What do you make of
20:31
Speaker 1: the declaim there's going to be an anti heroin vaccine
20:37
Speaker 1: that the shot could prevent recovering addicts from relapsing by
20:44
Speaker 1: blocking the high you get from heroin. What do you
20:48
Speaker 1: make of that? Well, currently, we have UM a drug
20:53
Speaker 1: that we inject once every twenty eight days. It's not
20:56
Speaker 1: technically a vaccine. It's still a depot like a birth
21:01
Speaker 1: control shot, but it's available for men and women, and
21:04
Speaker 1: it's a it's a shot in the buttocks every twenty
21:08
Speaker 1: eight days and it does stay in the system and
21:11
Speaker 1: block the brain. That shot is a drug called neil
21:15
Speaker 1: trek Zone, which is similar to methodone or some box zone,
21:19
Speaker 1: but instead of being an active drug that activates the pathway,
21:24
Speaker 1: it's a blocker and it's in the same family, but
21:28
Speaker 1: it has the opposite action of morphine. And that nel
21:32
Speaker 1: trek Zone shot was available as a pill for a
21:35
Speaker 1: decade and the federal government saw it was extremely successful,
21:41
Speaker 1: but then people would forget to fill the prescription, so
21:44
Speaker 1: they encouraged the development of that shot that you show
21:48
Speaker 1: up your doctor once a month, you get the shot,
21:50
Speaker 1: and then you don't have to take the pills. Let
21:52
Speaker 1: me ask you this. Have you seen the wave videos
21:57
Speaker 1: and photos of parents past doubt in the car on
22:02
Speaker 1: opioid addiction. It's like every other morning I look at
22:06
Speaker 1: the daily mail and there's a new set of parents.
22:08
Speaker 1: They're like asleep on the sidewalk or in their car
22:11
Speaker 1: with the children in the back seat, oded on heroin
22:14
Speaker 1: or an opioid. I mean, a daughter just recently live
22:18
Speaker 1: streamed her parents on heroin binge when she got home
22:22
Speaker 1: to find them passed out in front of the TV.
22:25
Speaker 1: And that was shot of course in America showing the
22:28
Speaker 1: parents slumped over and unresponsive. The daughter even starts kicking
22:33
Speaker 1: her father to try to wake him up. It it's
22:37
Speaker 1: it's awful, and that really brought it to the forefront.
22:41
Speaker 1: A recent shot, a shot of a mom and a
22:45
Speaker 1: dad passed out in the car with their little children
22:48
Speaker 1: in the back seat, and they were high on I
22:51
Speaker 1: guess heroine or a derivative of opioid. So what do
22:56
Speaker 1: we do with these children that are suffering because of
22:59
Speaker 1: their parents drug addiction? Just tell me what you think
23:03
Speaker 1: we need to do now, Dr Maroney, what what is
23:06
Speaker 1: your book? Your new book coming out? My My new
23:09
Speaker 1: book will be out in about two weeks. It'll be
23:12
Speaker 1: available on Amazon dot Com and awful web page that
23:15
Speaker 1: we're finishing. The name of the book is American Narcan.
23:21
Speaker 1: Narcan is the blocker. It's the drug that reverses overdose.
23:25
Speaker 1: American Narcan is the first book in America on the
23:29
Speaker 1: essentials of the lock zone and heroin fentinel associated mortality.
23:34
Speaker 1: Narcan American back with us when if you can on
23:39
Speaker 1: the day that comes out, I know you'll be busy. Now,
23:42
Speaker 1: just give me something I can understand. Dummy down for me.
23:46
Speaker 1: What can we do now? Give me your top three suggestions.
23:50
Speaker 1: In America, the drug Narcan and the generic no lock
23:56
Speaker 1: zone is available. This there's like forty three governors that
24:02
Speaker 1: have assigned laws that say you can get this and
24:06
Speaker 1: keep it in your house. And that is to fight
24:08
Speaker 1: your addiction. It's not to fight the addiction, it's to
24:11
Speaker 1: reverse the overdose. Ah. Yes, that's what they tried to
24:15
Speaker 1: Is that what they tried to give to Prince, to
24:18
Speaker 1: prince and when when that one night when he was
24:21
Speaker 1: on the private plane. It is, but what happened is
24:25
Speaker 1: you don't have to go to the hospital. Get that
24:27
Speaker 1: now naran can be prescribed. Yes, it's exactly the same
24:33
Speaker 1: drug though, Nancy, it's the same drug. But the thing
24:38
Speaker 1: nar Can you can have in your home. You can
24:41
Speaker 1: have it in your home for and iver does to
24:43
Speaker 1: save your life. Okay, number two, Number two, all Americans
24:50
Speaker 1: need to understand there are hundreds of thousands of people
24:57
Speaker 1: who have had their brains hijacked by the these drugs,
25:01
Speaker 1: and we need to get them help and have sympathy.
25:04
Speaker 1: We cannot we cannot beat them up with stigma and
25:08
Speaker 1: prejudice and jail jail. Okay, So understanding, got it? At
25:15
Speaker 1: number three, break it down, doctor, break it down. We're
25:18
Speaker 1: not all m d s like you. Not everybody had
25:21
Speaker 1: the money or the seven years from med school. Okay, okay,
25:24
Speaker 1: so talk down to me. And and the third and
25:27
Speaker 1: final thing is we need to pressure our lawmakers to
25:32
Speaker 1: get the funds to the people that are doing the treatment.
25:36
Speaker 1: I will never forget when I first entered the District
25:39
Speaker 1: Attorney's office, my elected d A in his wisdom, sent
25:43
Speaker 1: me along with the lobbyists on anti crime issues to
25:47
Speaker 1: the Georgia Legislature. I've never been hit on so many
25:51
Speaker 1: times in my life by married people that cured me
25:54
Speaker 1: from any desire of thinking I could make change in
25:58
Speaker 1: the world through politics. So good luck with that funding,
26:03
Speaker 1: Dr Maroney. But you know what, I'm also an optimist.
26:06
Speaker 1: I hear you, and I agree with me. Renowned medical
26:10
Speaker 1: examiner and author Dr William Maroney his new book coming out,
26:16
Speaker 1: American nar Can. Did I get that right? I can't
26:21
Speaker 1: believe you have all people didn't have some long subtitle
26:24
Speaker 1: like Facts and Statistics regarding the Opioid deaths in America
26:28
Speaker 1: from nineteen fifty nine to two. Anyway, American nar Can.
26:33
Speaker 1: Let me stop right now, just a moment and thanks
26:37
Speaker 1: someone very special for making today's podcast possible. Our partner,
26:43
Speaker 1: our sponsor, Blue Apron, the number one fresh ingredient and
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Speaker 1: tie basul whoa Blue Apron. Thank you for making this
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Speaker 1: podcast and so many others possible. Okay, back to the story.
27:51
Speaker 1: We are being joined by one of my favorite people.
27:56
Speaker 1: She's beautiful, she's talented, but most important, she is brilliant
28:04
Speaker 1: and committed with me. Is Robin Gail Bund and she
28:08
Speaker 1: is the president of I call it a think tank.
28:14
Speaker 1: It's Fair Health. They are nonprofit, they don't owe anybody,
28:20
Speaker 1: Nobody affects their opinion, and they are sought after from
28:26
Speaker 1: entities all over the world. They are think tank about
28:31
Speaker 1: health issues. That's all they do. They have just released
28:37
Speaker 1: one of the leading studies regarding opioids. Robin. I just
28:42
Speaker 1: can't thank you enough for making time to join us
28:46
Speaker 1: on crime stories. Fair Health has issued a series of,
28:50
Speaker 1: as you say, white papers on the opioid crisis. It
28:55
Speaker 1: is a crisis. You started last July with the opioid
28:58
Speaker 1: crisis among the privately ensured, the opioid abuse epidemic as
29:04
Speaker 1: documented in private claims data. That's a mouthful. Then September
29:09
Speaker 1: you published The Impact of the Opioid Crisis on the
29:11
Speaker 1: health Care System, a study of privately build services. Now
29:16
Speaker 1: your third in the series, peeling back the Curtain on
29:20
Speaker 1: regional variation in the opioid crisis, spotlight on five key
29:25
Speaker 1: urban centers and their respective states. Wow, okay, that was
29:30
Speaker 1: a lot to take in, so I want to focus
29:34
Speaker 1: on the paper that is coming out. What makes this
29:39
Speaker 1: white paper different from the other two? Well, thank you
29:42
Speaker 1: for for your interest. In this topic, which is a
29:45
Speaker 1: critical one. Um. As you probably know, Fair Health houses
29:49
Speaker 1: the largest private claims collection in the country, over twenty
29:54
Speaker 1: three billion records for a hundred and fifty million people.
29:57
Speaker 1: Of course the identified and while we okay, hold on,
30:01
Speaker 1: let me break down down to regular people talk okay,
30:04
Speaker 1: because you're like warp speed ahead of me and Alan Okay,
30:08
Speaker 1: I think what she just said, Alan of us that
30:12
Speaker 1: they procure and gather millions, billions, yeah, of health claims
30:19
Speaker 1: and from that they don't care who you are, what
30:22
Speaker 1: your name is. They're trying to deduce or figure out
30:26
Speaker 1: what's happening health wise in our country, you know, Robin,
30:31
Speaker 1: Like in Great Britain, Uh, everything is socialized. The government
30:36
Speaker 1: has their fingers in everything, so they can very easily
30:39
Speaker 1: track what's happening health wise. In fact, the other day, Alan,
30:42
Speaker 1: I read how I v F raises your likelihood of
30:47
Speaker 1: getting cancer by like thirty of varying cancer because of
30:51
Speaker 1: a britt study. Because it's socialized, Fair Health is doing
30:56
Speaker 1: that for the U S. Sorry, I just had to
30:58
Speaker 1: break it down to regular people to okay, Guy Robins, sorry, Oh,
31:02
Speaker 1: of course. So we have this enormous ocean of claims.
31:06
Speaker 1: So what we try to do is, in effect, take
31:08
Speaker 1: a glass bottom boat out and out on that ocean
31:12
Speaker 1: and really try to reveal trends that we're seeing. And
31:15
Speaker 1: you're right. We issued two earlier papers on the opioid crisis,
31:19
Speaker 1: but those were at the national level UM and so
31:22
Speaker 1: what we really want to do now instead of really
31:24
Speaker 1: being out on that glass bottom boat scuba dive more
31:27
Speaker 1: deeply and really looked at regional variation in the issue
31:32
Speaker 1: involving opioid abuse and dependence. And what we saw with
31:35
Speaker 1: dramatic differences in what's really happening under the hood in
31:39
Speaker 1: these different states. You know, I can listen to you
31:41
Speaker 1: talk all day. I really could. The way you compared
31:44
Speaker 1: to gliding across the statistics statistics in our country and
31:48
Speaker 1: glass bottom boat two deep diving in five states. You
31:53
Speaker 1: picked opioid epidemic and we're talking about um oxycontent, oxycode codeown, percocet, heroine,
32:04
Speaker 1: of course, any poppy opium derivative. California, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas.
32:10
Speaker 1: How did you pick those five We chose those five
32:14
Speaker 1: states because they host the five most populous cities, and
32:18
Speaker 1: by choosing the largest cities in the country and their
32:21
Speaker 1: accompanying states. We thought that that would be the best
32:24
Speaker 1: way to really provide a rich, detailed understanding of what
32:29
Speaker 1: was happening in connection with this growing crisis. Guys, stay
32:33
Speaker 1: with me, stay with us on this. The lives of
32:37
Speaker 1: your children, your neighbors, your family, your relatives may depend
32:42
Speaker 1: on what you are about to hear. Robin, I know
32:46
Speaker 1: the findings to keep by surprise. I was surprised by
32:50
Speaker 1: a number of things that came out of this sort
32:53
Speaker 1: of deep down dive into this ocean. And one thing
32:56
Speaker 1: I was surprised by was that the largest number of
32:58
Speaker 1: procedures in both rural and urban settings were associated with
33:03
Speaker 1: those age fifty one and older. What what what did
33:08
Speaker 1: you just say in regular people to Some people have
33:12
Speaker 1: associated the opioid crisis with really younger, younger people under
33:18
Speaker 1: age thirty five, or millennials, if you will. But what
33:21
Speaker 1: we're seeing is healthcare claims being submitted in connection with
33:26
Speaker 1: those fifty one and older. And what that might suggest
33:30
Speaker 1: is that this is really again getting to the heart
33:33
Speaker 1: of some prescription patterns in the medical community, because it's
33:37
Speaker 1: that age group that often is obtaining various procedures orthopedic surgery,
33:43
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. So really that's an alarm
33:46
Speaker 1: bell to look at that group of individuals and really
33:49
Speaker 1: try to understand why they are outdistancing all of the other.
33:54
Speaker 1: Now you look at the five most common opioid related
33:57
Speaker 1: procedures for each state and the five pid realited procedures
34:02
Speaker 1: that represented the highest expenditures. What did you learn, Well,
34:08
Speaker 1: we learned that every state is very different and that
34:12
Speaker 1: raises really interesting questions. So, for example, if you look
34:15
Speaker 1: at the top five procedures in all the states, only
34:19
Speaker 1: one code was on all of each of those five
34:22
Speaker 1: states list, which was related to a drug screening test.
34:27
Speaker 1: But in California, for example, the most common procedures were
34:31
Speaker 1: associated with intens of outpatient services, whereas Illinois they seem
34:37
Speaker 1: to rely heavily on a medication called maltrek zone, which
34:42
Speaker 1: is part of their treatment protocol. New York, for example,
34:47
Speaker 1: is known for methodome maintenance program that was its most
34:51
Speaker 1: common And then you see in Illinois, um, I mean
34:56
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania. In Texas they have primarily laboratory testings greening
35:00
Speaker 1: as opposed to group therapy, intense about patients, or any
35:04
Speaker 1: of those other services that might have surfaced in the
35:07
Speaker 1: other states. So what it's interesting are those differences due
35:11
Speaker 1: to different philosophies of the different states and the way
35:15
Speaker 1: they want to treat Is it due to the reimbursement
35:18
Speaker 1: practices of the insurance industry? Is it due to access
35:24
Speaker 1: or the lack of access to some of those services.
35:27
Speaker 1: And why it's so critical to look at this snapshot
35:30
Speaker 1: in time is now to think about what happens after
35:33
Speaker 1: this photograph was taken. Now that we know that there
35:36
Speaker 1: are such differences in these various states, what are the
35:40
Speaker 1: outcomes of these different protocols. Who's relapsing, who's having overdoses
35:45
Speaker 1: after going through these treatment regimens. These are laboratories in
35:49
Speaker 1: real time that we can now start looking at and
35:53
Speaker 1: public health officials can start looking at. And importantly, as
35:56
Speaker 1: you know, as you open up the newspaper every day,
35:59
Speaker 1: there may be of abuses going on in different states
36:02
Speaker 1: in the way in which people are being screened or
36:04
Speaker 1: tested or administered medications. So it's it's important to both
36:09
Speaker 1: try to create impactful treatments and interventions, but also try
36:14
Speaker 1: to understand what's not working. What Robin is saying is
36:19
Speaker 1: so critical because we're not talking about selling crack cocaine
36:25
Speaker 1: or a doper showing up at your door at three
36:27
Speaker 1: am to give you a bag of marijuana. We're talking
36:30
Speaker 1: about open ord related deaths. People oh ding young and
36:38
Speaker 1: old off heroin op M related products. Like what your
36:44
Speaker 1: pharmacist and doctors are giving you oxycoda and oxycontent, uh percoset.
36:49
Speaker 1: I mean, I just had knee surgery. They gave me
36:52
Speaker 1: thirty days of something robin oxycoda and roxy conton. I
36:57
Speaker 1: took one one night. My husband get it was like
36:59
Speaker 1: the size of a tiny, tiny, tiny little pill. And
37:03
Speaker 1: the next night, I'm like, what was that you gave me?
37:05
Speaker 1: And I looked at it. I saw it was an
37:07
Speaker 1: oxy something. I'm like, uh uhm. I was afraid to
37:11
Speaker 1: even put it in the medicine cabinet because I thought
37:13
Speaker 1: the twins might find it. We went and dumped it.
37:16
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't care if my knee hurts. If
37:18
Speaker 1: they ate one of these, dear Lord in Heaven, and
37:21
Speaker 1: it has prescribed medicine, people think, oh, the doctor prescribed it,
37:26
Speaker 1: it's fine. It's not fine because you get hooked on it.
37:30
Speaker 1: So what are the major points? Rob and you expect
37:34
Speaker 1: readers to take away from your latest study. From this
37:38
Speaker 1: latest study is to show that this is an issue
37:42
Speaker 1: that is evolving daily, and also for people to be
37:47
Speaker 1: very mindful exactly what you just said, if you are
37:49
Speaker 1: coming out of her procedure, to really question your medical professional,
37:53
Speaker 1: if you are being given prescriptions for things that thailan,
37:57
Speaker 1: all other types of pain management read amans could be
38:00
Speaker 1: just as effective. It's also important to recognize that to
38:07
Speaker 1: address issues with your insurance company, to see to what
38:10
Speaker 1: extent if you are in the midst of some type
38:13
Speaker 1: of opioid abuse disorder, to check to see what kind
38:17
Speaker 1: of reimbursement and benefits are available to you through your insurer,
38:21
Speaker 1: And to also really um address the fact that each
38:26
Speaker 1: state is really moving and evolving in real time, and
38:32
Speaker 1: that it's important to um understand that illicit drug distribution
38:38
Speaker 1: channels may be impacting the type of approaches that again
38:41
Speaker 1: state biases may be doing that as well, and that
38:44
Speaker 1: it's important for these mini laboratories to help the country
38:47
Speaker 1: design effective responses and create off ramps to this epidemic. Wow,
38:52
Speaker 1: you know, I am so knocked out by you and
38:56
Speaker 1: by fair health. I never realized fair health existed until
39:04
Speaker 1: my former ep Deemsicoli told me about it, and I
39:08
Speaker 1: started following you and following fair Health and your studies,
39:12
Speaker 1: and they are incredible. Just think about it. Millions and
39:17
Speaker 1: millions of health claims across our country, billions, and they
39:23
Speaker 1: take all of that information and they pick a topic
39:29
Speaker 1: like opioid addiction and what it's doing to our country,
39:32
Speaker 1: to our children, to our teens. Are high school students,
39:37
Speaker 1: college students older than that that are getting these prescriptions
39:41
Speaker 1: after surgeries or for pain, and then everything goes sideways
39:46
Speaker 1: and people are dropping like flies. I mean, Alan, what
39:51
Speaker 1: about those last studies at showing sixty thousand people dead
39:55
Speaker 1: in two thousand sixteen. I'm looking right now at fair
39:58
Speaker 1: Health chart. This looks like it started around two thousand
40:02
Speaker 1: thirteen and then it just the graph just goes skyrocketing
40:07
Speaker 1: up to and it's sort of leveled off in the
40:09
Speaker 1: last year according to as far as insurance claims. This
40:12
Speaker 1: is a question I've got San Antonio, Texas. What's going
40:16
Speaker 1: on there? Robin? You're you're reporting a hundred and forty
40:19
Speaker 1: one thousand percent increase and in these addiction treatment claims
40:25
Speaker 1: in the last ten years, hundred forty one percent. Where
40:28
Speaker 1: does that happen. Why so opioid use as revealed, and
40:32
Speaker 1: the claims also includes sentinel and it's been understood that
40:37
Speaker 1: within the San Antonio region there are some distribution networks
40:41
Speaker 1: there that should probably in our already catching the attention
40:46
Speaker 1: of both enforcement officials and public health officials. Yeah, I
40:50
Speaker 1: found that fascinating that, for example, in New York City,
40:53
Speaker 1: which constitutes of the state population, only of the opioid
40:59
Speaker 1: related claims were present there were San Antonio, which has
41:02
Speaker 1: only in its surrounding area has only six percent of
41:05
Speaker 1: the population, accounts for six of the claims within that state.
41:11
Speaker 1: So yes, that's why the data are so important. They
41:14
Speaker 1: can really shed a light and allow uh, sort of
41:17
Speaker 1: the canaries in the coal mines to surface, and to
41:19
Speaker 1: allow attention and resources to be directed to the geographic
41:23
Speaker 1: regions that are really in some ways screaming out for
41:26
Speaker 1: some intervention. Robin, listen to this. People are now designated
41:33
Speaker 1: no axon carriers instead of designated drivers when partying no
41:39
Speaker 1: axon is the anti opioid. It's it's I think what
41:46
Speaker 1: they tried to give prints on that private plane when
41:50
Speaker 1: he was odying on prescribed drugs allegedly just very shortly
41:56
Speaker 1: before his death, they gave him the antidote to o D.
42:00
Speaker 1: Now it says saying, hey, you be the designated driver,
42:03
Speaker 1: don't drink tonight. They're like, hey, are you carrying the axon?
42:06
Speaker 1: I mean that's crazy. Absolutely in some ways an effect,
42:09
Speaker 1: everyone is being enlisted to be a foot soldier in
42:12
Speaker 1: this army. Whereas naloxon used to be um you could
42:16
Speaker 1: be found to be violative of a law for administering
42:20
Speaker 1: NLAX and people were afraid to administer it because they
42:23
Speaker 1: felt they're giving it to someone taking an illegal drug.
42:26
Speaker 1: They will be found in trouble as well. States like
42:29
Speaker 1: Illinois and a number of other states are passing laws
42:32
Speaker 1: that in effect immunize people or make it, you know,
42:36
Speaker 1: perfectly legal to administer that drug to stop someone from
42:39
Speaker 1: having an opioid overdose. It's almost a recognition that this
42:43
Speaker 1: is becoming at such an epidemic proportion, all of us
42:46
Speaker 1: have to be deputized in trying to aid people from
42:50
Speaker 1: really dying from an overdose or having some acute incidents.
42:54
Speaker 1: So it's a fascinating social experiment that's going on in
42:57
Speaker 1: real time right now with us the President of Fair
43:02
Speaker 1: Health doing everything in her power to save lives in
43:09
Speaker 1: our country. Robin, You're awesome. Thank you for being with us.
43:14
Speaker 1: I'm Nancy Grace Crime Story, signing off, goodbye friend,