Barry Meier – New York Times Reporter and Author

Opioids: Hidden Dangers, New Hope

Barry Meier on the addictive nature of opioids and narcotics ~ "The fact is that any type of opioid or narcotic, once you begin to take it, your body physically adjusts to it. It's a very natural process called tolerance, so if you're getting say a specific level of pain relief from, let's say, 40 milligrams of the drug, you're going to soon need more of the drug to get the same level of pain relief, so doctors kept having to ramp up and ramp up their patients' dosages." Barry Meier - New York Times Reporter and Author of "Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America's Opioid Epidemic" in studio with host, Brian Wilson Brian Wilson Few people have devoted as much time to studying the origins of the opioid crisis as Barry Meier. As the author of "Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America's Opioid Epidemic" Meier initially explored this as a reporter for the New York Times. His book came out in 2003. Still some 15 years later he found there was much more to the story. This led Meier to revisit his work and update more than a decade of developments in a riveting rewrite. Barry Meier: In the early going it was quite remarkable, because when I first started on the story I knew nothing about opioids; I knew nothing about pain treatment. I had done some stories about the pharmaceutical industry, and this whole story came to light with the emergence and appearance of the drug OxyContin. OxyContin was very much the seed that launched this whole opioid epidemic, and back in 2001 there was an outbreak of abuse of this new drug OxyContin. Brian Wilson Where was it coming from? Barry Meier: Well, the drug was made in Connecticut by a small company named Purdue Pharma, and marketed very aggressively by the company: Male Speaker 1: I got my life back now. Now I can enjoy every day that I live. I can really enjoy myself. Female Speaker 1: Since I've been on this new pain medication I've not missed one day of work and my boss really appreciates that. Lauren is there every day. Female Speaker 2: Life is wonderful again. I've found life again, and it's worth living now, and I'm so grateful. Barry Meier: But the abuse was turning up in places like Maine and Appalachia and very rural parts of the United States. Brian Wilson I have seen maps that suggest there is a huge problem throughout the Appalachians. Barry Meier: Well, in the early 2000s I would say that was part of the epicenter of the opioid epidemic or what was then basically an opioid crisis, and you had what we would refer to as hot spots, where you had these outbreaks of OxyContin abuse, so I remember when I was starting to report on the story you'd see local newspapers, and I mean small town newspapers in tiny little towns and cities throughout Virginia and West Virginia and Kentucky, Ohio, Western Pennsylvania, there'd be stories about scattered arrests of drug dealers or drug users, and maybe the occasional arrest of a doctor for running a so-called pill mill, essentially like a medical practice where you could come in and say, "Boy, my shoulder hurts me," or, "My back hurts me, and I heard about this drug called OxyContin. My friend told me it really works great for pain," and the doctor would write you a prescription for it. Brian Wilson Were there other ways that it was making its way into the public? Barry Meier: Essentially OxyContin was a very unique drug. It was a drug that was marketed as a long-acting pain reliever. Most traditional narcotic pain relievers last four hours. OxyContin was promoted as lasting 10-12 hours, but what was remarkable about OxyContin is that it's manufacturer, Purdue Pharma, was able to get a claim from the FDA that because it was a so-called long-acting drug it was less likely to be abused than shorter acting drugs like Percocet and Vicodin. The sales reps for this company went out to doctors, to pharmacists, to whomever, and were promoting this drug as a drug that couldn't be...