Usually this wouldn’t be my type of show to watch, however seeing it on Disney+ and hearing other people talk about it I knew I had to give it a go, and I am very glad I did as it gives a fascinating insight into the world of medication in modern America.

Dopesick follows the Purdue Pharma scandal when they bought OxyContin into the mainstream for patients to be prescribed. This drug is a pain reliever opioid that was said to be less addictive than other opioids already on the market, however these claims were fabricated and false and soon enough an opioid epidemic happened in the US all because a pharmaceutical company was trying to make a lot of money.

In the show you really see how much greed plays into the pharmaceutical world and how corrupt that is. People’s health should be the most important thing yet that is often blindsided and ignored by people’s want to be rich and successful. In the show you get to see all different sides of the epidemic, from the police who are trying to take down the drug and take it off the market, to the pharmaceutical company trying to battle legal elements to keep their drug on the market and to increase the dose in their patients to make them more addicted to keep bringing revenue in, and even the people who are on the drug who don’t realise how bad it is until it’s already too late.

I know of the opioid epidemic in America, I have seen on the news and in social media how crazy it all is, but you don’t really understand how much of an impact it has had on that country until you watch the show. Even now people are still protesting against the family that created OxyContin and yet this happened and started in the nineties. To think we’re 20 years on and people are still addicted to this drug and having long-term effects in their lives because they were told that it was ok.

I feel sorry for the doctors and nurses that prescribed the drug thinking that they were doing what was best for their patients when really what they were giving them was doing way more harm than good, and it’s incredible how easy it seems to be to corrupt the system with facts and figures that were either completely fabricated or used in a way that showed that they were more prominent than what they actually were.

As I said at the start, I am not usually the target audience for these sort of shows, however this one I’ve really enjoyed and I highly recommend especially if you have an interest in the opioid crisis or if you just enjoy crime shows based on true events. It’s shocking to think what happened in America and how this can happen anywhere and how easily greed can overtake people’s care and love for one another.

What do you think of Dopesick?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding