Painkiller (2023)

Directed by

Noah Harpster, Micah Fitzerman-Blue

Genre

drama television series

Country

United States

Length

1 season, 6 episodes

Rated

TV-MA

Rating

7.2 of 10 from 213 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This series shows how the Sackler family and their company Purdue Pharma aggressively marketed OxyContin. It follows the tactics they used to downplay the drug's addictive risks which helped spark the opioid crisis in America.

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What happens

Painkiller is an American drama television miniseries created by Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster. Based on Patrick Radden Keefe's New Yorker article "The Family That Built an Empire of Pain" and Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America's Opioid Epidemic by Barry Meier, the series focuses on the birth of the opioid crisis, with an emphasis on Purdue Pharma, the company owned by Richard Sackler and his family. It documents Purdue's aggressive and unethical marketing tactics used to promote their 'blockbuster' drug OxyContin, an extended-release formulation of the opioid oxycodone. The Sackler family has been described as the "most evil family in America", and "the worst drug dealers in history". Painkiller premiered on Netflix on August 10, 2023. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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