“Erin Brockovich”, 2000, “Dark Waters”, 2019 and eventually a new movie will be released about the poisoning of water in Flynt Michigan in 2014 – all have one thing in common. The greed of some very wealthy companies and individuals who could have ever cared less about the “common people”, “the poor”, he “unfortunatet masses” who they share this world with. These are corporations and individuals (Pacific Gas and Electric and Dupont) who did not care if the common people died, as long as the profits continued to role in unabated. How do people like this exist? Where do they come from? How can they sleep at night? These are questions I asked myself while watching these two great movies.

The new Hulu 8 part series “Dopesick” is about Purdue Pharmaceutical and the Billionaire Sackler family who created a drug called OxyContin. Purdue executives said OxyContin was the greatest pain killing drug ever created. They also said that the odds of ever becoming addicted to this drug were less than 1% – a lie they even put on every bottle. Over time, as the drug grew in popularity, only because of the massive marketing and mass lying campaign, the company continuously changed the lies into a moving target of deception that over time caused the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. In fact, Purdue Pharmaceuticals has been the main cause of the Opioid crisis in this country.

The cast for Dopesick is outstanding, starting with Michael Keaton, who plays a small town doctor who becomes addicted to OxyContin after prescribing it to several of his own patients. Rosario Dawson and Peter Sarsgaard are great in their roles as Government agents who spend years trying to stop and then prosecute the executives of Perdue Pharma. The standout in this series is actor Michael Stulbarg who plays Richard Sackler who was the architect of the marketing deceptions that went on for years and ultimately killed thousands of Americans. Richard Sackler is the embodiment of pure evil throughout this entire well told story. Kaitlyn Dever is another standout in this series in her role as a young coal miner who becomes addicted to OxyContin and later Heroin after a back injury after an explosion in a coal mine.

The Greed displayed by the many sales people who traveled this country and lied to so many doctors and Hospitals was a times very hard to watch, because they all knew that this drug was killing people for years.

The IMDB rating for this series is a very high 88% and I agree with this high number and highly recommend this series, which is every bit as good as Erin Brockovich and Dark Waters in showing the worst parts of humanity.