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“We doctors were wrong in thinking that opioids couldn’t be used long term. They can be and they should be.”
Those are some of the first words of Warning: This Drug May Kill You, HBO’s new documentary about America’s opioid epidemic. Intercut with grainy video footage of men and women — many of whom are mother and fathers — passed out in supermarkets, cars, and on buses, that recommendation is clearly meant to seem ominous, and it is. Those two sentences come from an aggressive 1990s marketing campaign from Purdue Pharma, a campaign which greatly helped to increase the popularity of opioid use. Thanks to this powerful opening scene, the hypocrisy and cruelty of this epidemic is apparent. This drug crisis was largely born from an industry that is supposed to help people.
For their part, pharmaceutical representatives and healthcare professionals are not given a voice in This Drug May Kill You. Instead, the documentary, directed by Perri Peltz and Sascha Weiss, focuses on awareness, leaving it up to speculation as to why the healthcare industry would continue to hand out these drugs that help with intense pain but are also incredibly addictive. However, this is such a widely ignored problem, the documentary’s single-minded focus works. Instead of a discussion of how the opioid epidemic came to be, This Drug May Kill You explores how disturbingly common it is for an OxyContin prescription to turn into a heroin addiction through three families’ stories.
Though the documentary follows three different subjects from different parts of the country, all three stories are eerily similar. In each case, an injury or medical procedure resulted in their first opioid prescription. However, what starts as a pain relieving solution quickly leads to a drug dependency with the user chasing their next high. From there, these stories follow the same sad beats that have been come to be associated with most stories of drug addiction — the quest for stronger substances, the lies, self-harming oneself to get more drugs, and the seemingly never-ending rehab cycle.
Perhaps the most painful of the film’s three subjects is Wynne, a young mother whose overdose led to her death. Hearing her three teenage children and her husband describe her episodes of self-harm, which she performed in an attempt to get more drugs, is heart-wrenching. Hearing them talk about finding their mother’s lifeless body is far worse.
The other two subjects of This Drug May Kill You are Brendan and Stephany. Brendan’s story, who died of a heroin overdose while living with his parents in the middle of suburbia, is told by his teary-eyed parents. Stephany, the only addict who is still alive during the course of the hourlong documentary, is a young mother whose addiction very clearly ruined her picture-perfect life. In every instance, the documentary’s point is clear. Anyone can become addicted to prescription pain medicine, and this industry is ruining lives.
This Drug May Kill You does end on a somewhat upbeat note as it follows Stephany returning to rehab. However, a post documentary note tells viewers that Stephany left that facility before using again and has received treatment at another. For Stephany, the battle with her addiction continues, and this is where the HBO documentary excels. Opioid abuse is one of those issues that’s quite literally destroying communities, though it’s rarely if ever covered by the mainstream news. This Drug May Kill You puts a face to this epidemic and explains in no uncertain terms how widespread this problem is. According to the documentary, 91 people die every day from opioid overdose. The most disturbing aspect of that statistic is how many of those cases we as a country are ignoring.
Warning: This Drug May Kill You premiere on HBO, HBO Go, and HBO Now Monday, May 1 at 10 p.m. ET.
