From DW Documentary.

The current US opioid epidemic was fueled in what is known as the first wave by the overprescription of painkillers by pharmaceutical companies.

In the 1990s, Perdue Pharma introduced OxyContin, a highly addictive painkiller stronger than morphine and earned billions of dollars with it. This triggered a race among dozens of pharmaceutical companies like Insys Therapeutics, who made Subsys, a sublingual fentanyl spray. Insys used controversial tactics, already seen before, to persuade doctors prescribe the painkiller.

This opened up a large market made up of people who had become addicted. The transition from legal painkillers to street fentanyl created the deadliest drug epidemic in US history.

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