Bentonville Film Festival 2020: Coming Clean-The Greed and Racism Driving the Opioid Epidemic

Coming Clean is an eye-opening, disturbing documentary written and directed by Ondi Timoner. Through the history of other drug epidemics and the personal stories of those affected today, it explores the devastating opioid crisis in America and it’s calamitous impact on it’s people and economy.

History of Opium

The film indicates that there were four historical Opioid epidemics in history. The first started in the 1830’s China, pushed by British trade in China. A search of the internet brings up many articles regarding the East India Company and its pursuit of control in India.

The East India Company (EIC), built as part of colonization efforts by the British Empire, controlled most of India by the 1750’s. The war in India and British demand for Chinese tea, paid in silver, had put England into considerable debt. To supplement their income, they used the large Bengali source of opium to trade with China in lieu of paying taxes.

Though Chinese law prohibited opium trade, the EIC found ways to overwhelm the southern Chinese coast with opium, supplying and addicting millions. With the increased demand, it all but wiped out China’s silver supply.

The second came in the 1870’s with the dawn of morphine. According to History.com, German scientist Freidrich Surturner “first isolated morphine from opium in 1803”. The film states that when morphine was derived, it was considered better for you than opium because it was a purer product. However, it was 10x stronger than opium and was widely used in America for pain relief during the Civil War.

Then, in looking for a less addictive form of morphine, heroine was created in the 1870’s. Because it was synthetic it was thought to be non-addictive, yet the third epidemic started in the 1900’s.

By the 1980’s, a surge of the use of Oxycontin began, fueled by lies and greed from its creator, Perdue Pharmaceuticals. According to this article from The Atlantic, one letter published in 1980 in the New England Journal of Medicine fueled the current opioid epidemic.

Source: The Atlantic

This letter, also cited in the film, states that the writers found “there were only four cases of reasonably well documented addiction in patients who had no history of addiction.” And further, that “We conclude that despite widespread use of narcotic drugs in hospitals, the development of addiction is rare in medical patients with no history of addiction.”

Perdue Pharma ran with this, citing the letter in it’s claims that opioids were not found to be addictive. They told the public Oxycontin use was “safe”, disregarding the study’s actual findings.

How The Opioid Crisis was considered a Crisis

Illegal opiates ran rampant in poor neighborhoods of color in many forms, from heroin to crack cocaine. Though these crises existed well before the US called it a crisis, it wasn’t until prescribed painkillers, which led to heroin use, infiltrated upper class, white suburbia, that it was found to be a “problem”.

When it started killing an inordinate amount of white teenagers in affluent neighborhoods, then the government started looking into the problem. The film attributes higher use of pain pills in teens to a generation living with higher levels of anxiety and depression.

Though social media can bridge a lot of gaps, studies are finding that the lack of physical interaction as a major source of depression. Humans in general are “pack animals” and we need one another to survive. Social media is pervaded by images of the rich and beautiful, who’s lifestyles are actually rare and impossible for most to attain. This too contributes to depression.

Couple that lack with childhood trauma and you’ve got a perfect mixture for addiction. According to the film, if you have only one of six types of childhood trauma, i.e. abandonment, you are 3100% more likely to be an addict over your lifetime.

Now, add in a completely profit driven, broken mental health system and what results do you think will happen? There is a massive lack of mental health services and a bigger lack of sympathy for addicts. Many believe it is a choice, a belief that couldn’t be more wrong.

The Biology of Opioid Addiction

Source: Interloper Films

According to the film, opioid addiction starts in the body. Opioids disconnect the pre-frontal cortex, the part of the brain used in judgement and analysis, favoring the midbrain, where our basic impulses, like hunger, sex and thirst are controlled.

Like food and sex, opioids send in a rush of endorphins which, naturally in the body, are our “pleasure” hormones. Hormones produced in the brain, like dopamine and serotonin, are crucial for a sense of well being in the body.

Opioids, however, are synthetic, sending an unnatural rush into the body. With continued use, your body quits making natural endorphins because it no longer thinks it needs to. When this happens, your body becomes “addicted” to the opiate because it is now the primary source for these hormones. As such, withdraw can be excruciating and many addicts continue use not for the “high”, but to avoid feeling sick.

According to the film, in Colorado alone, there are currently more deaths per year from opioids than from guns, homicides and auto accidents combined. In 1999, America’s “drug of choice” was alcohol. By 2019, it was all about prescription drugs.

In All Honesty…

Source: Shutterstock

There is FAR more information to be learned in this film. What I’ve written are just some of the important highlights within it. It is crucial to see this film and inform yourself about the horrific greed/racism behind the profits made from people’s pain.

According to the film, Switzerland hasn’t had a heroin related death in fifteen years since they made it legal, in a controlled setting. They’ve been able to use an all encompassing process that includes mental health and housing in order to gradually reduce the amount of pain these people feel in general. Why can’t/won’t the US do this? The almighty dollar.

In fact, in 2018, a subsidiary of Perdue Pharma was able to get the patent on a new drug that could help with opioid addiction. Yep, the same company that got millions sick is now set to profit from it’s “cure”. How disgusting is that? America has a “for profit” healthcare industry that makes more money on people staying sick than getting better.

Now that COVID has hit everywhere, mental health in general has declined, because we are having to isolate even more than ever. This, in turn, is driving higher addiction rates. There is simply not enough help to serve the need.

Common street nicknames for Fentanyl in the US

The newest drug Fentanyl, is 100’s of times stronger than morphine, yet it is being laced in most street drugs. Fentanyl is also much cheaper overall to make and pharmaceutical companies/dealers stand to make huge profits from it.

Where, I ask you, will this end? When will life be more precious to humanity than the almighty dollar? The answer alludes me, but I can’t help but think how much better humanity in general would be without money ruling it. The reality though is that nothing is ever going to change without overwhelming demand for it.

The ruling class is poisoning humanity and the planet with greed. As long as they can keep us fighting one another, the focus will stay off of them and will keep us busy with things that don’t really matter. It will keep most of us sick, uninformed and poor. This is the only way they can keep things going the way they are.

In the meantime the lack of awareness and sympathy for others pain will keep driving addiction. When humans can’t get what they naturally need, i.e. support, community, living essentials and love they will always find substitutes to get it.

Healing from pain is a long, tough road. We need more love, compassion and togetherness to overcome the paralyzing power and corruption of money. Like opiates, it too is a poisonous addiction that won’t bring true happiness or fulfillment.

It’s clear from history that greed is responsible for mass destruction of all kinds. Ultimately the choice is ours as a collective. What remains to be seen is if a better way of life for everyone is important enough to step out of our comfort zones and actively push as long as it takes for change to happen.

I’m in. How about you?