Opioid Crisis in the US - Business & Addiction (2/2) | DW Documentary

Feb 14, 2026 | Purdue Pharma earned billions with OxyContin. The company also triggered a race, as dozens of pharmaceutical companies rushed into the market. One was Insys, which sold fentanyl, a drug fifty times stronger than heroin.

Profit was gained by any means necessary - from strippers seducing doctors to bribery, insurance fraud and massive dose increases without the consent of patients. Some did not survive.

In Florida, unscrupulous profiteers opened pain clinics that turned out to be "pill mills” - legal hubs for drugs. Chris George, head of the largest network, cynically reports on the system that made him rich before he spent 11 years in prison.

But by the end of the 2010s, the party was over: the justice system put a stop to the legal trade. Pharmacies stopped selling opioids. But the pills did not disappear. Mexican drug cartels took over the business. Members of the Sinaloa cartel explain in the documentary how they copied the methods of US pharmaceutical companies. To this day, they continue to flood the streets of America with fentanyl.


Part 1 of this documentary can be found here.

OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma to Pay $270 Million Legal Settlement That Will Fund Addiction Center

The state of Oklahoma has reached a $270 million agreement with Purdue Pharma—the makers of OxyContin—settling a lawsuit that claimed the company contributed to the deaths of thousands of Oklahoma residents by downplaying the risk of opioid addiction and overstating the drug’s benefits. The state says more Oklahomans have died from opioids over the last decade than have been killed in vehicle accidents. More than $100 million from the settlement will fund a new addiction treatment and research center at Oklahoma State University in Tulsa. “It’s really just the first move in what is a very complicated legal chess game,” says Barry Meier, author of “Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America’s Opioid Epidemic.” Meier was the first journalist to shine a national spotlight on the abuse of OxyContin. He asks, “Is this money going to be used wisely in terms of treating addiction?”

Heroin Addiction in the USA | DW Documentary

In the U.S. state of Ohio, drug addiction is rampant. The country is inundated with cheap drugs. Police in the small town of East Liverpool are waging a desperate battle against dealers and illegal drug abuse.

Jacob Talbott is on the front lines of the U.S.'s war on drugs. He's a police officer in his home town, East Liverpool, Ohio. Overdoses are part of daily life here. On his patrols, Officer Talbott might encounter former schoolmates who have become addicts. He says drugs have destroyed the community. East Liverpool is no exception. Entire regions are being inundated with opioids: heroin and synthetic or designer drugs like fentanyl. Millions of Americans, especially from the rural white middle classes, are struggling with addiction. Drug abuse claimed over 64,000 lives in 2016 alone - more than twenty drug-related deaths per 100,000 people. DW-Reporter Alexandra von Nahmen rode along with police officers in East Liverpool as they waged war on drugs.