The Lie That Opioids Aren't Addictive

In the 1980s and 90s, the fear of narcotics was so pervasive that even cancer patients who were dying struggled to get adequate treatment for their pain. And when pharmaceutical companies started releasing drugs using synthetic morphine, they had to contend with the public stigma surrounding adequate treatment for pain. 

But even though there were those who needed expanded access to painkillers, the push to de-stigmatize the drugs, according to Barry Meier of The New York Times, leaned heavily on misleading research which suggested that drugs like OxyContin were safe and not addictive. Purdue Pharma was one of the companies that utilized these kinds of false narratives when marketing to doctors, and ended up pleading guilty to deceit in a 2007 case. Meier talks to Bob about how reporters repeated the claims without due diligence and pushed the pharmaceutical narrative that strong pain medication should be much more widely prescribed. Barry Meier is also author of Pain Killer: A "Wonder" Drug's Trail of Addiction and Death.