Prescription Thugs
Prescription Thugs
| 22 January 2016 (USA)
Prescription Thugs Trailers

Americans consume 75% of the world’s prescription drugs. After losing his own brother to the growing epidemic of prescription drug abuse, documentarian Chris Bell sets out to demystify this insidious addiction. Bell’s examination into the motives of big pharma and doctors in this ever-growing market leads him to meet with experts on the nature of addiction, survivors with first-hand accounts of their struggle, and whistleblowers who testify to the dollar-driven aims of pharmaceutical corporations. Ultimately his investigation will point back to where it all began: his own front door.

Reviews
SpunkySelfTwitter

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

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Ezmae Chang

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

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Taha Avalos

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

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Juana

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

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John M Joseph

This look into legal drugs (Prescription drugs) by film maker Chris Bell shows how money driven this country is. I am a proud American and I'll be the first to say how corrupt we are. Prescription drugs are being given out like candy in this country and for what? Yup, you guessed it....MONEY! These drugs are destroying people but money is all that matters. Chris will tell you his dirty little secret about his life during this film. I enjoyed it a lot.

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Ersbel Oraph

Short version: Suffering needs an external factor to blame. Mix that with the locker room game of who's penis is bigger and poor state education and you have enough to add more voices to the Conspiracy Theory.Long version: I remember enjoying Bigger, Faster. I don't remember much of its argument. It was about all people going for performance using anything that might enhance performance. Which makes perfect sense.This one is a different story. It is well made as a personal trip. But it is a trip down the conspiracy lunacy. The stars are the three Bell brothers. Not much school. Not much science. But hard work. Really hard work. Meaning they are not very qualified at reasoning, the same way a couch potato is not very qualified at pushing weights like the Bell brothers. To add more drama, the older brother is very dear to all, and he dies. Somebody has to be blamed. Not the family. Because the family is telling the story. Thus some external factor has to be found. The extreme sports? Nope. They gain their living from there. The state school that failed all three of them with mediocre education and high dreams? Nope. Because they believe that education, like church is by definition good.And here it comes the relevant part: the mindless state run campaigns against what they call drugs. That was only a smart way to use public money to reinforce and expand state control. All Chris Bell had to do was realize that legal drugs are not much different from illegal drugs. And than it spiraled down the Big Pharma conspiracy.Instead of talking how the state employees kill almost every overdose victim because street chemicals can't possibly be on a par with the quality of the pharmacy-sold chemicals, Bell talks about the rising profits of those who do the well made chemicals. Are the profits rising? Sure. Inflation is one reason. The same way the plumber asks me for more money in 2017 than in 2007 than in 1997, the pharmaceutical companies also do that.But Chris Bell is spiraling down and cheating like with other aspects of his life. He does not talk about profits. He pushes the income of those companies. And that is a scam. Because the state is taxing more money. From the minimal wage, to the mandatory health insurance to the ridiculous sums for medical trials, to all sort of other taxes. Everything the state is taking is finally going to come out of the consumers' pockets.Are Americans consuming 75% of the pharmaceutical production? I haven't seen the reference to that. I assume this is only a sleight of hand trick. A rough 75% of the value and letting the viewer assume 75% of the quantity. But that is only my speculation. Let's assume it's true and the Americans take 75%. Do they take 75%? Nobody can know that. Take the online pharmacies. That quantity is never taken into account. Now take the case of the person being impressed so much by this movie that they goes flushing down the toilet the personal stock only to find out they can't live without the painkillers, thus buying more even if they doesn't consume more.And even if Americans do consume 75% of the number of pills, so what? It does not mean anything. One pill can have a certain dosage and another pill, the exact same size can have ten times the quantity of active ingredients. Making a quantitative measure makes no sense. Now add that the Bell family is made out of adults, all paying taxes. And those taxes go to fuel the many wars and blockades the Global Policeman wishes upon other regions of the world. Regions that are left without basic medication. People that would take that medication, but they can't. Do the people in the remote areas take pills? No. Because they can't afford the many days of walking to the nearest town with a pharmacy or doctor.Or maybe the people living below the poverty line do not suffer any illness or injury.Anyway: why is the quantity of pills relevant? A 12 year old in a poor neighborhood will not take pills even if he need them and a 85 year old aids sufferer will take pills by the fist. Quantity means nothing.Why is the price relevant? The Average American pays more for lunch than the Average Indian. The quality is better for the American. The American lunch is full of proteins which happen to be more expensive anywhere in the world than starch. And even if the lunches were comparable, food prices are higher in the States so the American is left with the more expensive bill. So does the price say anything? Yes. That the Americans are richer.Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch

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jonnysolem

What do we have here? We have Chris, who have made this film. Chris is one of three brothers. These brothers are heavy users of anabolic steroids. Which, by the way, strangely enough is not a topic in this movie, although my 13-year old daughter saw that right away. Chris's oldest brother have been in wrestling and wants to be a famous superstar, and he is addicted to painkillers. Painkillers are the topic in this film. In the film Chris is going after the painkiller industry, the pharmaceutical industry. In his tour around for showing us how this dirty business really works, he interviews a lot of guys. The guys are medical junkies, no doubt, all on heavy doses of anabolic steroids, like Chris himself, big strong guys who cries sometimes in front of the camera, really crying tears, obviously in mental disorder. And he interview a homeopathic doctor who tell us all the bad things the pharmaceutical industry does. A homeopathic doctor! Why does he interview a homeopathic doctor? Well, because homeopathy is quackery, and the whole movie is in some way quackery. I feel sorry for these guys. I really do. And for Chris, the little guy who wants to be big as his bigger brothers. They obviously need help, all of them. But when they combine all this drugs that they do combine, and blame it on painkillers, that really is just too stupid. Someone should have told Chris, because he is not in a condition to see for himself, as we will find out in the movie. But someone should have told him: "Don't make this movie, you are out of balance and don't see clear, Chris".

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einherjarjac

Here we have a documentary blaming doctors and prescription drugs for the fact that there are stupid and reckless people out there who will mix ten different drugs without even knowing if they have interactions, or who will take 50 pills of something containing acetaminophen without even bothering to go online and do some research to learn that it is extremely damaging to the liver and is deadly.The solution, according to this documentary? Blame doctors and make prescription drugs harder to get. I have used drugs for recreational purposes many times in my life and have been addicted to pills at times and to alcohol for years at a time and I can tell you from experience, alcohol is 1,000 times worse than benzos or opiates, UNLESS YOU'RE STUPID ENOUGH TO BE DOWNING ENTIRE BOTTLES, AND TAKING THEM IN COCKTAILS YOU NEVER EVEN BOTHERED RESEARCHING! I mean jeez, cant we just blame stupid here? It ticks me off when people like my father, who has rheumatoid arthritis, are having to fight with their doctors all the time and be put on excruciating "drug holidays" all because of documentaries like this and the people who agree with them. Chris Bell made it sound like these drugs were easy as can be to get from a doctor; yeah, if you've got 6 figures in the bank because you're a pro wrestler, UFC fighter, etc. Not to mention that nearly all of the anecdotes he heard from these people were regarding their doctor-shopping behavior from several years to a decade or more ago. For the normal patients in the year 2016, most of which actually need the drugs, these drugs have become incredibly hard to get at doses high enough to do anything or duration's long enough to treat chronic pain.But guess what? The reckless, too-dumb-to-research-the-drugs-on-the-internet abusers and addicts can still get it online, on the street and from clandestine laboratories. But go on, blame the doctors and blame the drugs. Never mind that nearly every person he interviewed here was so knuckle-draggingly dumb and that even the majority of people who do abuse these drugs don't die or wind up in serious trouble precisely because they are not as kuckle-draggingly dumb as these idiots.I mean come on, the guy who had a stroke was talking about taking 90 pills a day, including several that were of the same class and two in high quantities that both contained acetaminophen! That level of stupid can not be blamed on anything but stupid!

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