The death of actor Matthew Perry and the recently announced criminal charges have brought attention to a very dangerous pattern in America – the doctor to dealer pipeline. This is when doctors become little more than drug dealers for their wealthy clients, and it is far more common than you would think. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: The death of actor Matthew Perry and the recent announcement of criminal charges have brought attention to a very dangerous pattern in America, the doctor to dealer pipeline. This is when doctors become a little more than drug dealers for their wealthy clients and it’s far more common than what you might think. As a matter of fact, it’s almost a way of doing business. As you know, we brought, this law firm actually initiated the national case with opioids. We started that case. I took the depositions, we settled it for the neighborhood of $60 billion by the time it’s all over. And that’s still not over. It’s still going. One thing we found there was doctors had become part of that feeding frenzy. Right. They’d go to a doctor, they’d say, doc, why don’t you come on out and come to Honolulu with us.
We want to give you a class on why you should give as many opioids as you can. As a matter of fact, doc, if you don’t do that, you might be sued for malpractice because your patient is going to be in pain unnecessarily. And that’s the Sackler group. Now, we’re just now, the Sackler company just came out of bankruptcy. And so we’re just now start our attack there. The documents, Farron, I would almost have to make ’em up for them to be any worse for the company. I’d almost have to write ’em and say, hey, this is really gonna kill ’em. That’s how bad the documents are.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And it is horrible that it has to go through a tragic event like Matthew Perry, a high profile event for people to really understand this. But this is something, and we’ve seen it with celebrities going back to Elvis. They just have these doctors who know that they are slowly killing these individuals, whether it’s Elvis, whether it’s Michael Jackson, Matthew Perry, all things that people are very familiar with. But then the story dies down. Right. Okay.
Mike Papantonio: Everything’s alright.
Farron Cousins: Well, that’s over. That’s settled. It’s just these rich people. But it’s not. It’s people that don’t have $2 to go buy themselves lunch that are also addicted to these painkillers. And they go and do what’s called doctor shopping. Something we have talked about plenty of times because they know that if they go to enough people, they’re gonna find somebody, some doctor with no morals, no scruples whatsoever, looking for the quick payday. And they’ll say, yeah, sure, I can give you a 30 day prescription for this. And maybe you’re in a little more pain. Maybe you take two a day, so maybe you come back in 15 days and I can renew it for you. I can put you on something stronger here. Because a lot of times they will get kickbacks from the pharmaceutical companies for choosing those drugs over the other ones.
Mike Papantonio: Oh yeah. Big kickbacks.
Farron Cousins: And so it happens across the spectrum. It’s not just the celebrities that are using their doctors as dealers.
Mike Papantonio: This one is ketamine. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: And so what we know is it’s a general anesthesia. We know that it causes disorientation, it skyrockets your blood pressure, your heart rhythm to dangerous levels. We know it can make you unconscious that quick. They think that’s what happened to Perry, that he became unconscious in his hot tub. But the point is, the doctors are pushing it by ways that they say, well, this sounds legitimate. I’m gonna give this out for PTSD. I’m gonna give this out for depression. And the truth is, the numbers aren’t in. The epidemiology is not in. When they make a product, this guy can go to a laboratory, for example, and he can make ketamine right there in his laboratory or somebody does. It’s not something you have to grow like, you don’t grow it. It’s not a poppy. It’s not like the opium, morphine, heroin kind of connection. This is done right there in a small lab. Right.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And so that is another big part of this too. Other people, when you’re getting it off the street or even some of these lesser doctors, which we talked about, they will buy from these kind of dealers as well.
Mike Papantonio: No control.
Farron Cousins: And you don’t know what’s in it, if it’s a good product. And these people do become addicted, just like they become addicted to opioids. They’re being told by their doctors that this is the only way to cope with this. There’s nothing else we can do for your depression or your PTSD or your chronic pain. They don’t want other solutions because this is what’s keeping them rich and it’s killing people.
Mike Papantonio: And they’re selling it as kind of a dissociative type of medicine. You take this and you’re gonna have some euphoria. You’re gonna feel disassociated with all the problems that you have. And oh, by the way, it’s probably gonna kill you. And I’d love to say the medical profession isn’t just driving that train, but they are, again, just like they did with opioids.
