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Opioids II: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

LastWeekTonight · 10.6M views · 2019-04-15 · 21:21

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Overview

John Oliver's second Last Week Tonight segment on the opioid epidemic, covering the role of large companies in driving it. It touches on Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family.

On Hacker News

Commenters cite it, with Oliver's other two opioid segments, as a well-researched case against pharma marketing and the Purdue settlements.

Recommended by 3 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2019–2024

Topics

Media, journalism & propagandaMedicine & infectious diseaseLaw, policing & justice
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opioidspurdue pharmasackler familypharma marketingjohn oliver

What people said

pagade · 2024-07 · Strong recommendation

I recently watched these 3 episodes of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Highly recommended. Opioids III: The Sacklers: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver ( [LINK] ) Opioids II: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver ( [VIDEO] ) Opioids: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver ( [LINK] )

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dstick · 2021-12 · Recommendation

Good. For those that haven't watched them yet, there are 3 John Oliver segments on the subject that will back up the "Good." statement: Opioids [LINK] Opioids II [VIDEO] Opioids III (this one focuses 100% on the Sacklers) [LINK]

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mattangriffel · 2020-03 · Recommendation

Yes! MAPS has conducted and collected some really great research around psychedelics and their use in the treatment of things like PTSD and addiction. Specifically, Ibogaine Therapy has shown some real promise around drug addiction [1]. Unfortunately, it's going to be quite a while before any psychedelics are FDA-approved. Right now, MDMA and Psilocybin are both in FDA trials (Phase 3 and Phase 2, respectively) but I think Ibogaine is still quite a ways out. Interestingly, in terms of your comment about Ibogaine's use outside of the US: other countries besides the US (and Canada) have not really seen quite the same problem in terms of opioid addiction as we have here in the US. This is mostly due to American pharmaceutical companies historically having been really successful at convincing US doctors to prescribe opioid-based pain medication [2], and due to the fact that pain was added as a 5th vital sign in 2001 by the Joint Commission [3]. That isn't to say that other countries haven't had problems with opioid addiction, but it hasn't generally been at nearly the scale of the problem in the US, and other countries have had varying rates of success with solutions that haven't been possible in the US thus far. [1] [LINK] [2] There's a really great John Oliver segment about this [VIDEO] [3] [LINK]

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Sources

Video by LastWeekTonight, played through YouTube.

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