Amy Goodman
@DemocracyNow·3.2M subscribers·19.4K videos
“Pain Killer” Author Barry Meier on How West Virginia Became Ground Zero of Opioid Epidemic
Posted
June 4, 2018
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3:37Now PlayingWest Virginia had the highest rate of opioidrelated deaths in the U.S. in 2016, making the state ground zero for a national opioid epidemic that has killed more than 200,000 people in the past two decades. A record number of people in West Virginia died from overdosing on drugs in 2017. Between 2007 and 2012, the three biggest wholesalers of prescription drugs in the U.S. shipped some 780 million pain pills containing oxycodone or hydrocodone to the state of West Virginia alone433 pills for every man, woman and child in the state. That’s according to Barry Meier, author of “Pain KillerAn Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America’s Opioid Epidemic,” published this week in an updated and expanded edition. We speak with Barry Meier, the first journalist to shed a national spotlight on the abuse of OxyContin.
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