'Dopesick' gives Purdue Pharma and OxyContin a sweeping dramatic treatment
CNN
"Dopesick" is an engrossing eight-part series, exploring the opioid crisis from multiple angles, including the ground-level carnage inflicted by OxyContin addiction, Purdue Pharma's inner workings and the government personnel seeking to combat it.
"Empire" producer Danny Strong did most of the heavy lifting in adapting the book by Beth Macy, writing or cowriting most of the episodes and directing a few, joined by a star-laden cast and directors like Barry Levinson and Michael Cuesta. The result is a rich mosaic of the high-stakes marketing of OxyContin, and the way Purdue leveraged its financial clout to stave off regulators and woo doctors into prescribing ever higher doses with predictably tragic results.
It's a daunting project, seeking to focus on individual characters but also present the sweeping toll across communities, and the frustration of Justice Department and DEA employees working on parallel tracks knowing that the drug is addictive but facing one hurdle after another in pressing those cases.
