“I was invincible, unstoppable, not even God could kill me.”
In 1996, Purdue Pharma launched Oxycontin, offering “smooth and sustained pain control all day.” Doctors, hospitals and patients immediately embraced the semi-synthetic opioid, making it the best-selling prescription painkiller in America, bringing in $31 billion in revenue for Purdue, and leading to widespread abuse and the opiate/heroin addiction epidemic that is now plaguing the country.
Crushed presents five young adults – Jordan, Liz, Clayton, Rachel and Richard -- whose lives were forever changed by Oxycontin. Their stories detail the nightmare of the pain relief/addiction/recovery/relapse cycle; describing how they got addicted; the drug’s effect on their lives and the people around them; what they had to do to sustain their habits; and their struggle to get clean or die. It is a provocative and intimate portrait of how Oxycontin devastates lives.
Produced by Tom Gorai and Steven Okazaki for Blackwood Entertainment Group & ShadowCatcher Entertainment, LLC