--- title: TIME Ideas: How Drug Companies Pushed Opioids on America | TIME description: Chris McGreal, author of "American Overdose," told TIME how the American opioid epidemic is a result of corporate greed. canonical: https://time.com/video/ILWpfO2Z/ og:title: TIME Ideas: How Drug Companies Pushed Opioids on America og:description: Chris McGreal, author of "American Overdose," told TIME how the American opioid epidemic is a result of corporate greed. og:url: https://time.com/video/ILWpfO2Z/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/ILWpfO2Z/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: TIME Ideas: How Drug Companies Pushed Opioids on America twitter:description: Chris McGreal, author of "American Overdose," told TIME how the American opioid epidemic is a result of corporate greed. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/ILWpfO2Z/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # TIME Ideas: How Drug Companies Pushed Opioids on America > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: TIME Ideas: How Drug Companies Pushed Opioids on America [Watch (HLS stream): TIME Ideas: How Drug Companies Pushed Opioids on America](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ILWpfO2Z.m3u8) (3:10)  _Published 2019-01-17. Chris McGreal, author of "American Overdose," told TIME how the American opioid epidemic is a result of corporate greed._ --- Jan 5, 2024 6:59 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Ex-CEO Laurence Doud Is First Drug Company Executive Indicted in Opioid Crisis: Prosecutors](/video/n5vodBCh/) ### Ex-CEO Laurence Doud Is First Drug Company Executive Indicted in Opioid Crisis: Prosecutors [President Trump Blamed Criminals, Drug Companies, Mexico and China for the Opioid Crisis](/video/ZtI99Gva/) ### President Trump Blamed Criminals, Drug Companies, Mexico and China for the Opioid Crisis [President Trump Just Declared a National Emergency Over the Opioid Epidemic](/video/A02n6klJ/) ### President Trump Just Declared a National Emergency Over the Opioid Epidemic --- ## Transcript 85 % of the world's presrciption opioids are consumed in the United States, which is 5 % of the world's population. And you think how does one country come to be so dependent on these drugs? It is not that the United States has 85 % of the world's pain. Health in this country Is an industry, it's a medical industry. In most other countries, it's a public health service. There's money to be made. [ MUSIC ] I started this story really where the epidemic begins, which is in that little part of Upper Asia where these drugs first take off. In a lot of these communities, people are already using low level opioids. And then this drug comes along called Oxycontin. And it's 10, 15, 20 times the power of the origin drugs. This drug is so throughout the country but targeting these marginalized communities. And by sales force by Purdue Pharma that went out with essentially junk science. They pushed papers across to doctors making claims about addictiveness and they persuaded the Food and Drug Administration to endorse those claims on the label of The pills and these drugs spread very, very quickly. The demand for them rises because firstly they're seen as more effective. But also the circle of people who become dependent and then addicted to them widens very, very quickly. And people want more and more of them. And the drug companies are willing to sell them more and more. And one of the myths that was sold along with all of this was there was no upper limit to taking these drugs. That you Wouldn't become addicted, provided you're in pain. These drugs, which I repeat, are our best, strongest pain medications, should be used much more than they are for patients in pain. People kept taking escalating doses for what they thought was dealing with pain. But, in fact, it was withdrawal symptoms, if they'd cut back. And this created a massive market. By 2012, you have doctors in this country writing 250 million prescriptions a year for opioid pain medicines, which is effectively one for every adult in the country. We're 20 years into this epidemic, and there are now A lot of lawsuits, particularly, by states attorney generals and individual cities against both the drug makers, and the drug distributors, and in some cases, the pharmacy, and even the doctors. There's plenty of doctors that have been locked up, but there hasn't been a single executive, not a single one, has gone to prison for this. The US still prescribes at three, four, five times the rate of most European countries, for instance. So if you're not gonna have another generation who are open to addiction, there's gotta be a much tighter grip on prescribing. And there are people who genuinely need these drugs, but they're not 190 million people in a country of 360 million people. 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