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There's no way that legal drugs could be bad, right?
I mean, they're prescribed by doctors.
Hate to break it to you, but some prescription drugs
are almost identical to street drugs.
Hate to break it to you, but some prescription drugs
Kids across America take the prescription drug Adderall,
which is an amphetamine.
But you know what else is an amphetamine?
***.
I'm gonna need to confiscate that.
Oh, boy, I've got a lot of drugs.
The chemical composition of the two drugs
is nearly identical, and in one study,
people who took both couldn't even tell the difference.
So, I should stop taking Adderall?
No, Adderall still helps a lot of people.
But the fact remains, we're giving kids
essentially the same drug we make scary TV shows about.
I am the one who concentrates.
And the line gets blurrier.
Uh...
But there are no prescription drugs
as bad as, like, ***.
Actually, *** was first marketed and sold
by the drug company Bayer.
You know, the aspirin people.
(coughing)
Mm, cough, eh?
Well, take two *** and call me in the morning.
Wait, so anyone could just go into a store
and buy ***?
Yep, they even gave it to kids.
(coughing)
You little rascal.
Now, back to the coal mines with ya!
*** was considered so safe, one medical journal
even claimed that there was no danger
of acquiring a habit.
Well, now, we know better.
I mean, doctors don't prescribe drugs like that anymore.
Yeah, they do. All the time.
*** is an opioid, so when it was banned,
scientists just invented new opioids
that act on the exact same receptors in the brain.
***'s illegal.
Well, this isn't ***, it's... OxyContin.
Let's advertise the (bleep) out of it.
And so, they did.
In the '90s, drugmaker Purdue
started marketing OxyContin like crazy,
producing weird swag like plush toys,
golf balls, and even a swing CD.
And OxyContin's popularity soared.
My elbow really hurts, Doc.
Yeah, well, take two Oxy and call me in the morning.
This led to a surge in painkiller abuse
and overdoses.
It's just that it really hurts,
and it's probably gonna hurt for a long time.
So, if you could just scribble, scribble, scribble!