{"id":7591,"date":"2021-11-22T17:51:42","date_gmt":"2021-11-22T16:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1515023"},"modified":"2021-11-22T18:02:10","modified_gmt":"2021-11-22T17:02:10","slug":"is-dopesick-based-on-a-true-story","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/is-dopesick-based-on-a-true-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Dopesick based on a true story?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>

By David Craig\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Monday, 22 November 2021 at 12:00 am<\/p>

\n\n

Harrowing drama Dopesick<\/a> launched via Star on Disney Plus<\/a> around the world this month, telling the chilling story of how America\u2019s opioid health crisis got started.<\/p>\n

To American readers or those familiar with the country, this will be an issue they are likely all too familiar with, but it is less widely understood to citizens of other nations.<\/p>\n

Dopesick explains how the soon-to-be-dissolved company Purdue Pharma mislabelled the powerful painkiller Oxycontin claiming it was not likely to be abused, with the company\u2019s sales team claiming \u201cless than one percent\u201d of users would become addicted.<\/p>\n

In reality, the opioid was highly addictive and so its unnecessary use for moderate pain, which had been encouraged by sales reps for the company, proved utterly disastrous and left the lives of many people in ruin.<\/p>\n

Dopesick creator Danny Strong explained that the show was required to accurately depict the key events in the development and marketing of Oxycontin in order to minimise the risk of legal backlash.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had several Disney lawyers go through every script with a fine tooth comb,\u201d he told RadioTimes.com<\/a>. \u201cThe Sackler family constantly threatens people with lawsuits and litigation as a bullying tactic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey actually never sue, but they constantly threaten it. So we had, like I said, a team of lawyers and researchers going through the scripts to make sure that they were factually accurate in their portrayal of the key events.\u201d<\/p>\n

A vital resource in this was a book by Beth Macy titled Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company That Addicted America, which was first published in 2018.<\/p>\n

The non-fiction work focuses particularly on the perspective of small-town residents, such as those in the mining community of Appalachia, who were targeted by Purdue for their high quantity of manual labour workers (thus prone to injury).<\/p>

While several of the main characters in Dopesick are fictional, that isn\u2019t to say their stories aren\u2019t to be taken seriously, as Strong explained all of them are amalgamations of real people affected by the opioid crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I made these characters composite characters, I [could] get way more of these anecdotes into these arcs with fewer characters and get more truthful stories into the show,\u201d Strong explained to NPR<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy fictionalising, I wouldn\u2019t be stuck to the truth of one person\u2019s life. I could use as many anecdotes as I wanted. I could achieve a more universal truth; a higher truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, there are some real figures featured in the show, most notably the Sackler family \u2013 owners of Purdue Pharma \u2013 who appear in segments set behind-the-scenes at the company.<\/p>\n

On the other side, we see depictions of Rick Mountcastle and Randy Ramseyer, who led the US Justice Department\u2019s investigation into Oxycontin and Purdue Pharma, fighting for justice as the crisis reached a desperate point.<\/p>\n