00:00:07.485 --> 00:00:10.479
(SLOW INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC)

00:00:39.920 --> 00:00:44.910
-One of the best reasons to go into
medical practice is to help people.

00:00:53.892 --> 00:00:59.260
When somebody comes to you, and they
feel their life is constrained by pain,

00:00:59.260 --> 00:01:02.866
the ability to relieve that pain
gives enormous satisfaction.

00:01:09.070 --> 00:01:12.320
-The only difference between you
and that drug pusher on the street

00:01:12.320 --> 00:01:13.995
is the "Dr." in front of your name.

00:01:13.995 --> 00:01:17.120
-When you go to the doctor, they gotta
fix something that's wrong with you.

00:01:17.120 --> 00:01:19.120
And this was not the case.

00:01:19.120 --> 00:01:24.990
-Here was this prominent pain doctor
who was being charged as a drug dealer.

00:01:24.990 --> 00:01:27.890
-He believed that his
patients were really in pain.

00:01:27.890 --> 00:01:30.030
He really gave me my life back.

00:01:30.030 --> 00:01:33.640
-Dr. Hurwitz has a whole slew
of patients who are just fine.

00:01:33.640 --> 00:01:36.302
-But we also have two
people that are deceased.

00:01:38.190 --> 00:01:38.892
-He's a demon.

00:01:40.820 --> 00:01:43.890
What he's done to my family
and the other families...

00:01:43.890 --> 00:01:46.450
-The doctor's name kept coming up.

00:01:46.450 --> 00:01:50.440
And that's when we knew there
was something bigger going on.

00:01:50.440 --> 00:01:54.170
-Oxycontin is America's number
one selling narcotic pain killer.

00:01:54.170 --> 00:01:56.950
-But it's also a highly
addictive and deadly pill.

00:01:56.950 --> 00:02:00.770
-There is no need for anyone
to suffer in pain anymore.

00:02:00.770 --> 00:02:04.570
-This is a drug that's an angel
of death or an angel of life,

00:02:04.570 --> 00:02:07.120
depending on how it's used.

00:02:07.120 --> 00:02:10.520
-The Hurwitz investigation was
unlike any case I've ever seen.

00:02:10.520 --> 00:02:15.730
-I never thought he was guilty of
what the government accused him of.

00:02:15.730 --> 00:02:18.220
-The man needs to fry.

00:02:18.220 --> 00:02:23.914
-The allegations against Dr. Hurwitz tell
a story of a major and deadly drug dealer.

00:02:33.338 --> 00:02:35.190
-(LAUGHING) I don't know.

00:02:35.190 --> 00:02:38.070
(BIRDS CHIRPING)

00:02:44.790 --> 00:02:48.220
-Well this started, sort
of, when I was 11 or 12.

00:02:48.220 --> 00:02:52.700
That's when I started to realize,
really, what my dad was doing.

00:02:52.700 --> 00:02:57.040
And then I had friends
who, when he was arrested,

00:02:57.040 --> 00:02:59.356
they didn't want anything
to do with me anymore.

00:02:59.356 --> 00:03:03.180
I had people often ask me if he was guilty,
as though that's an easy question --

00:03:03.180 --> 00:03:03.870
which it isn't.

00:03:07.574 --> 00:03:11.352
-We always told him,
"Billy, don't be a fool."

00:03:11.352 --> 00:03:12.310
But he wouldn't listen.

00:03:14.590 --> 00:03:16.530
This is a guy who went to the top schools.

00:03:19.970 --> 00:03:22.810
And who is he now?

00:03:22.810 --> 00:03:25.030
-Now, what goes where?

00:03:25.030 --> 00:03:27.924
-The auxiliary in left.

00:03:27.924 --> 00:03:28.590
-This goes here?

00:03:28.590 --> 00:03:29.089
-Yes.

00:03:29.089 --> 00:03:31.410
-All right.

00:03:31.410 --> 00:03:32.822
OK.

00:03:32.822 --> 00:03:35.768
-Yes, we're on.

00:03:35.768 --> 00:03:37.010
What... what...

00:03:37.010 --> 00:03:37.850
what would you like?

00:03:37.850 --> 00:03:38.850
-Oh, do "Georgia" in F.

00:03:38.850 --> 00:03:40.090
-All right, "Georgia."

00:03:40.090 --> 00:03:40.590
Let's dance.

00:03:41.037 --> 00:03:41.870
(SINGING) Georgia...

00:03:44.720 --> 00:03:48.940
-While I was in prison, I
taught a course on music theory,

00:03:48.940 --> 00:03:54.770
and I became buddies with a bunch of
people who were singing and playing

00:03:54.770 --> 00:03:57.098
classic R&B music and gospel music.

00:03:58.810 --> 00:04:01.981
One of my buddies is now my
current housing companion.

00:04:01.981 --> 00:04:02.814
(PLAYS OFF-KEY NOTE)

00:04:02.814 --> 00:04:04.305
-OK, no.

00:04:04.305 --> 00:04:05.299
(LAUGHING)

00:04:05.299 --> 00:04:06.300
Excuse me.

00:04:06.300 --> 00:04:10.290
The way we met was, he
noticed that everything hurt.

00:04:10.290 --> 00:04:18.240
You saw me, and you said to me, "It appears
that your movement is somewhat cumbersome."

00:04:18.240 --> 00:04:19.040
And I said...

00:04:19.040 --> 00:04:21.870
(LAUGHS)

00:04:21.870 --> 00:04:24.870
Understatement, my good fellow.

00:04:24.870 --> 00:04:26.490
Over a decade, I've known him.

00:04:26.490 --> 00:04:28.890
He's genuine and sincere.

00:04:28.890 --> 00:04:30.631
He's never been anything else.

00:04:36.110 --> 00:04:40.160
-I'd been in medical practice -- in
one form or another -- since 1971,

00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:42.781
when I graduated from
Stanford Medical School.

00:04:46.550 --> 00:04:52.010
I don't know that I had any specific
idea that I wanted to be a doctor --

00:04:52.010 --> 00:04:55.640
except that it was science and
I was good at math and science,

00:04:55.640 --> 00:04:58.923
that it was involved with
people and I like people,

00:04:58.923 --> 00:05:03.640
and that it would allow me to engage with
lots of people in various circumstances.

00:05:06.520 --> 00:05:10.020
I grew up in Boston, Massachusetts.

00:05:10.020 --> 00:05:15.000
I was the oldest of three sons.

00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:18.330
It was the beginning of
the Civil Rights Movement,

00:05:18.330 --> 00:05:23.030
so the ideological bias as a member
of a liberal Jewish household

00:05:23.030 --> 00:05:26.960
was sympathy for the downtrodden.

00:05:26.960 --> 00:05:28.290
I like taking care of people.

00:05:33.022 --> 00:05:34.730
-Billy was my neighbor in Rio de Janeiro.

00:05:38.830 --> 00:05:42.950
His kitchen and my kitchen were -- you
just could go from one kitchen for a little

00:05:42.950 --> 00:05:44.042
just...

00:05:44.042 --> 00:05:45.724
a little bridge.

00:05:45.724 --> 00:05:49.288
And so, we were neighbors.

00:05:51.920 --> 00:05:55.060
-After I finished my
internship, I got the job

00:05:55.060 --> 00:06:00.330
to be the medical director of Peace Corps
Brazil, and of course, that was exciting.

00:06:00.330 --> 00:06:03.120
I got to see the world, I
got to meet my future wife.

00:06:05.470 --> 00:06:06.660
-He was a good doctor.

00:06:06.660 --> 00:06:10.480
He took care of anybody.

00:06:10.480 --> 00:06:14.850
And he loved being a doctor.

00:06:14.850 --> 00:06:17.040
That's why I think I got close to him.

00:06:23.070 --> 00:06:29.360
-Upon returning to the States from
Brazil, as a matter of just luck,

00:06:29.360 --> 00:06:34.320
I then got involved with this
small crew of pain patients.

00:06:34.320 --> 00:06:39.500
It stimulated me because, in
some ways, it's a simple problem.

00:06:39.500 --> 00:06:41.480
"Here, let me give you a pill.

00:06:41.480 --> 00:06:43.560
Here, let me give you a treatment."

00:06:43.560 --> 00:06:48.500
And the patient feels relief.

00:06:48.500 --> 00:06:53.781
Patients typically would report that
treatment with adequate pain medicine

00:06:53.781 --> 00:06:54.905
gave them their lives back.

00:07:10.998 --> 00:07:14.456
(CLASSICAL PIANO MUSIC)

00:07:22.854 --> 00:07:23.842
-I love this piece.

00:07:31.760 --> 00:07:34.290
I was diagnosed with neuropathic pain.

00:07:36.390 --> 00:07:40.320
It's above my right eye, and
it's about the size of a pin.

00:07:40.320 --> 00:07:41.720
It feels like a brain freeze.

00:07:41.720 --> 00:07:46.860
If you eat something cold,
you get that brain freeze.

00:07:46.860 --> 00:07:50.025
And that's what it feels
like, only it never goes away.

00:07:53.480 --> 00:07:58.770
I had three babies, and I said,
I would rather deliver a baby

00:07:58.770 --> 00:08:03.620
than have this pain all the time.

00:08:03.620 --> 00:08:05.470
-Most people have some experience of pain.

00:08:05.470 --> 00:08:07.280
They stub a toe, they have a toothache.

00:08:07.280 --> 00:08:12.140
And those pains tend to resolve as
the body heals from the acute injury,

00:08:12.140 --> 00:08:14.627
or it gets fixed in some way.

00:08:14.627 --> 00:08:15.710
Chronic pain is different.

00:08:15.710 --> 00:08:20.810
Chronic pain is pain that lasts
at least three months or more

00:08:20.810 --> 00:08:25.541
and often involves nerve
injury of some sort.

00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:32.190
It's the most common reason
patients come to see doctors.

00:08:34.730 --> 00:08:40.757
So the doctor has real power to
either provide relief or deny relief.

00:08:43.730 --> 00:08:47.970
-I really thought that maybe
I am doing this to myself.

00:08:47.970 --> 00:08:51.740
Doctors told me I was doing
this. "It's all in your head."

00:08:51.740 --> 00:08:53.015
It's just...

00:08:53.015 --> 00:08:55.350
"You're not really having pain."

00:08:55.350 --> 00:08:59.410
-The big problem for the doctor
is, of all the things we can do --

00:08:59.410 --> 00:09:04.800
we can do MRIs and CAT scans and
find all kinds of diseases --

00:09:04.800 --> 00:09:11.120
we have never come up with a test that tells
you whether somebody is in pain or not.

00:09:11.120 --> 00:09:15.040
-A patient comes to you, and you give
them a scale -- zero being no pain at all,

00:09:15.040 --> 00:09:17.560
10 being the worst pain you could imagine.

00:09:17.560 --> 00:09:20.940
I always say, like you were run over by
a truck -- where everything's broken,

00:09:20.940 --> 00:09:24.300
you're in so much pain,
all you can do is cry.

00:09:24.300 --> 00:09:26.730
I would love to have a little
scanner that says, "Oh, yes.

00:09:26.730 --> 00:09:28.430
You're really in a lot of pain.

00:09:28.430 --> 00:09:30.500
There are synapses snapping
all over the place,

00:09:30.500 --> 00:09:33.530
saying that yes, you should have this pain."

00:09:33.530 --> 00:09:37.680
Until there's that, you have to
believe what the patient tells you.

00:09:37.680 --> 00:09:41.013
If you don't believe what the patient
tells you, you're not going to treat them.

00:09:43.380 --> 00:09:46.900
-I can imagine how hard it
must be to be a patient who

00:09:46.900 --> 00:09:53.660
goes to a doctor complaining of chronic
pain, worried that the doctor is

00:09:53.660 --> 00:09:57.400
going to reject you or disbelieve you.

00:09:57.400 --> 00:09:59.710
I know I wouldn't want to
be treated in that way.

00:10:02.250 --> 00:10:05.860
-I was to the point where I
wasn't getting what I needed

00:10:05.860 --> 00:10:07.848
and I told my husband, do something.

00:10:12.630 --> 00:10:16.120
-It was suggested by a doctor.

00:10:16.120 --> 00:10:21.710
"You can go and have your brain
operated on and restarted,

00:10:21.710 --> 00:10:26.026
and hopefully the pain that you
are experiencing would go away."

00:10:27.960 --> 00:10:30.170
After the surgery, she couldn't talk.

00:10:30.170 --> 00:10:30.980
She couldn't walk.

00:10:30.980 --> 00:10:34.070
She had to relearn everything.

00:10:34.070 --> 00:10:40.230
And when her brain started unfreezing
and finally relearning things,

00:10:40.230 --> 00:10:42.960
the pain was still there.

00:10:42.960 --> 00:10:43.580
Didn't work.

00:10:43.580 --> 00:10:44.210
-Didn't work.

00:10:46.300 --> 00:10:47.870
I was bedridden.

00:10:47.870 --> 00:10:49.850
I was wearing diapers.

00:10:49.850 --> 00:10:52.100
My husband had to change my diapers.

00:10:52.100 --> 00:10:56.755
And I lived on cottage
cheese, a pear with cheese.

00:10:56.755 --> 00:10:58.870
And that's all I ate for five years.

00:10:58.870 --> 00:11:01.350
-And Coca-Colas.

00:11:01.350 --> 00:11:01.850
-Oh, yeah.

00:11:01.850 --> 00:11:02.350
Coca-Colas.

00:11:05.780 --> 00:11:11.190
-She just never had any
real quality of life.

00:11:11.190 --> 00:11:15.150
She was doing her best to live
with it, but she just couldn't.

00:11:15.150 --> 00:11:16.150
She just couldn't do it.

00:11:41.994 --> 00:11:46.467
-Once this was a poppy growing
in Italy or some other hot land.

00:11:46.467 --> 00:11:50.940
The dried juice of this plant
produces opium, a powerful drug.

00:11:54.916 --> 00:12:03.365
Contained in opium is morphine, used
by doctors to relieve severe pain.

00:12:03.365 --> 00:12:07.130
These and other derivatives form
the group of drugs called opiates.

00:12:09.590 --> 00:12:13.150
-Opiates are just amazing pain relievers.

00:12:13.150 --> 00:12:20.350
People almost universally and with rare
exception experience a decrease in pain.

00:12:20.350 --> 00:12:26.170
Heroin was marketed by the Bayer
pharmaceutical company alongside aspirin

00:12:26.170 --> 00:12:32.600
in the early 1900s, but very quickly there
was a sub-population of folks who initially

00:12:32.600 --> 00:12:35.570
received it from their doctors
and then became addicted to it --

00:12:35.570 --> 00:12:40.450
causing an epidemic over the last century
or so that was referred to as "narcomania."

00:12:40.450 --> 00:12:44.610
-While under the influence of
this drug, he acts almost human.

00:12:44.610 --> 00:12:47.070
Without it, he becomes a
desperate, tortured animal.

00:12:49.500 --> 00:12:53.110
-What then ensued was a kind of
an opioid phobia, where it then

00:12:53.110 --> 00:13:00.320
became illegal to prescribe opioids except
under certain very extreme conditions.

00:13:00.320 --> 00:13:02.950
-When I started my practice,
I would have patients

00:13:02.950 --> 00:13:05.500
that I would dread to
see come to the office.

00:13:05.500 --> 00:13:07.230
They were in chronic pain.

00:13:07.230 --> 00:13:09.510
I couldn't do anything about it, I thought.

00:13:12.390 --> 00:13:16.880
'Cause I was taught in medical
school if you prescribe opioids,

00:13:16.880 --> 00:13:20.380
you can treat pain for one or
two days in a post-op patient.

00:13:20.380 --> 00:13:24.870
You can treat pain if the patient is
sure to die in two or three weeks.

00:13:24.870 --> 00:13:27.150
But anybody who is going
to go on living, you

00:13:27.150 --> 00:13:30.460
can't treat him because you'll
turn him into an addict.

00:13:30.460 --> 00:13:36.140
-Drug addiction leads to a
degrading life of prostitution.

00:13:36.140 --> 00:13:41.540
-There's been, at this point, almost
100 years of propaganda against drugs.

00:13:41.540 --> 00:13:43.170
-Alcohol must go!

00:13:44.210 --> 00:13:48.625
-Marijuana, the burning
weed with its roots in Hell.

00:13:51.600 --> 00:13:53.190
-OK, last time.

00:13:53.190 --> 00:13:55.580
This is drugs.

00:13:55.580 --> 00:13:59.940
-The notion that drugs are bad -- I
mean, that's pervasive in the public

00:13:59.940 --> 00:14:00.910
consciousness.

00:14:00.910 --> 00:14:05.942
And it's easy to mischaracterize
patients as addicts.

00:14:08.153 --> 00:14:11.051
(SOUNDS OF NATURE AND WILDLIFE)

00:14:18.800 --> 00:14:22.320
-It's like a roller coaster ride.

00:14:22.320 --> 00:14:28.940
You never know how you're going
to feel from one day to the next.

00:14:28.940 --> 00:14:36.130
I had posterior anterior spinal
fusion from a fall off a roof.

00:14:36.130 --> 00:14:41.715
They had missed two compression fractures,
and I was not being medicated properly.

00:14:44.550 --> 00:14:48.010
I would sit and cry.

00:14:48.010 --> 00:14:51.140
I've sat on the side of the
bed with a pistol in my mouth

00:14:51.140 --> 00:14:54.740
before, ready to blow my brains out.

00:14:54.740 --> 00:14:57.950
I couldn't do it.

00:14:57.950 --> 00:15:02.053
Yeah, it was really... it was rock bottom.

00:15:02.053 --> 00:15:02.636
It really was.

00:15:06.630 --> 00:15:10.660
But then, a doctor saw
the misery that I was in.

00:15:10.660 --> 00:15:16.130
And he looked at me and said, "Bret, there
is a light at the end of the tunnel."

00:15:22.810 --> 00:15:28.840
-In the early 80s, we started to learn
that a lot of the stuff we were taught just

00:15:28.840 --> 00:15:30.740
wasn't so.

00:15:30.740 --> 00:15:34.370
-So Portenoy's paper came
out in the mid-1980s.

00:15:34.370 --> 00:15:36.750
It said, "We looked at these 38 patients.

00:15:36.750 --> 00:15:40.600
They did really well when we
used opioids for chronic pain.

00:15:40.600 --> 00:15:43.060
Isn't that great?"

00:15:43.060 --> 00:15:46.930
-You could use medications that
we thought you couldn't use.

00:15:46.930 --> 00:15:52.332
We learned you don't make addicts
by giving them the drug too long.

00:15:52.332 --> 00:15:59.660
And the literature told us that addicts
are more born than they are made.

00:15:59.660 --> 00:16:03.590
There's something in the
wiring of 1 out of 20 of us

00:16:03.590 --> 00:16:10.330
that makes certain chemicals affect
us differently from everyone else.

00:16:10.330 --> 00:16:13.820
-And the other thing is -- and this was
another important piece of his study --

00:16:13.820 --> 00:16:16.640
is no dose is too high.

00:16:16.640 --> 00:16:18.170
So this is really key.

00:16:18.170 --> 00:16:24.410
The idea that, if it works for a while,
and then it stops working, just go up.

00:16:24.410 --> 00:16:25.750
Don't be afraid.

00:16:25.750 --> 00:16:27.551
Don't have opioid phobia.

00:16:30.780 --> 00:16:35.290
So the mavericks were docs who
really came out like, "You know what?

00:16:35.290 --> 00:16:37.480
We're not doing enough to help these people.

00:16:37.480 --> 00:16:41.640
We really need to more
liberally use opioids for people

00:16:41.640 --> 00:16:45.940
who have these terrible,
devastating pain conditions."

00:16:45.940 --> 00:16:48.740
-When I read those
developments, I thought, oh boy.

00:16:48.740 --> 00:16:51.850
This is a new era.

00:16:51.850 --> 00:16:52.990
But I was wrong.

00:16:58.560 --> 00:17:03.230
Most of the other doctors still didn't
want to treat, for whatever reasons.

00:17:03.230 --> 00:17:08.339
They were afraid, or they hadn't read
the literature, or I suspect some of them

00:17:08.339 --> 00:17:10.717
just never had had pain
themselves and thought

00:17:10.717 --> 00:17:12.300
everybody ought to take a little pain.

00:17:14.988 --> 00:17:19.753
And then I became aware of
doctors like Dr. Hurwitz.

00:17:19.753 --> 00:17:23.599
-Well, Dr. Talley and I had actually
shared some patients way back when.

00:17:23.599 --> 00:17:28.349
He was dealing with the same
issues that I was dealing with.

00:17:28.349 --> 00:17:31.680
A typical story was that a
patient with chronic pain

00:17:31.680 --> 00:17:38.080
would find that the doctors were willing
to treat them to a certain extent,

00:17:38.080 --> 00:17:42.300
but then got intimidated and either
wouldn't adjust the dose adequately

00:17:42.300 --> 00:17:44.400
or just decided that they
were at too much risk

00:17:44.400 --> 00:17:46.825
for continuing to provide
opioid medications.

00:17:46.825 --> 00:17:49.320
And that story repeated
itself over and over again.

00:17:59.757 --> 00:18:06.860
(SOUND OF SEWING MACHINE OPERATING)

00:18:06.860 --> 00:18:09.420
-My name is Laura Cooper.

00:18:09.420 --> 00:18:11.950
I'm an attorney.

00:18:11.950 --> 00:18:19.390
I was diagnosed with an acute fulminating
version of multiple sclerosis,

00:18:19.390 --> 00:18:24.200
and within six weeks I was
needing to use a wheelchair.

00:18:24.200 --> 00:18:28.270
I had respiratory distress
that, frankly, was disbelieved.

00:18:28.270 --> 00:18:33.750
The doctors just didn't... they had never
seen that with MS. They didn't believe it.

00:18:33.750 --> 00:18:39.290
I was having blowouts with my
treating staff at Georgetown.

00:18:39.290 --> 00:18:43.750
What they were doing was more or less
treating me like a head case, rather than

00:18:43.750 --> 00:18:45.914
the neurological case I really was.

00:18:48.870 --> 00:18:52.130
Everybody I talked to said,
"Billy not only is brilliant,

00:18:52.130 --> 00:18:56.610
but he is the only one in the country
that can solve some of these problems."

00:18:56.610 --> 00:18:59.400
-In the circumstance that I was
in, there were almost nobody

00:18:59.400 --> 00:19:05.650
who was willing or able to take care of the
patients who I was managing, because I was

00:19:05.650 --> 00:19:12.980
using the medicines in ways
that were, let's say, innovative

00:19:12.980 --> 00:19:16.695
and beyond most doctors' current experience.

00:19:18.870 --> 00:19:24.150
-I remember him spending hours and
hours and hours sitting by my bedside,

00:19:24.150 --> 00:19:29.100
just observing me and talking to
me, poring through old records.

00:19:29.100 --> 00:19:33.895
He would give me injections
of opioids at the right time.

00:19:33.895 --> 00:19:36.170
And I got better.

00:19:36.170 --> 00:19:40.570
-There is no easy way to predict how a given
patient is going to respond to a given dose

00:19:40.570 --> 00:19:47.550
of a particular medicine, so I followed
the general strategy of something called

00:19:47.550 --> 00:19:51.530
"titration to effect" -- meaning,
adjust the dose until it works.

00:19:56.340 --> 00:20:01.750
Tolerance proceeds in a
geometric progression.

00:20:01.750 --> 00:20:04.150
That is, if a given dose
didn't work, you'd need

00:20:04.150 --> 00:20:08.906
to double the dose to have a
significant incremental improvement.

00:20:08.906 --> 00:20:11.990
If that didn't work, and people
became tolerant of that dose,

00:20:11.990 --> 00:20:13.245
you'd need to double it again.

00:20:15.920 --> 00:20:19.280
Following the logic of this
geometric progression of dosing

00:20:19.280 --> 00:20:23.578
goes against the cautiousness of
conventional medical practice.

00:20:29.540 --> 00:20:34.770
-Dr. Hurwitz wanted to make sure
that your pain was controlled.

00:20:34.770 --> 00:20:38.520
I felt that I could open
up and share with him.

00:20:38.520 --> 00:20:40.510
He seemed to be...

00:20:40.510 --> 00:20:41.830
should I say, in acceptance.

00:20:44.830 --> 00:20:48.560
He was prescribing a large
amount of medication.

00:20:48.560 --> 00:20:52.500
I was going in and
getting four prescriptions

00:20:52.500 --> 00:20:56.690
of 400 80-milligram Oxycontin.

00:20:56.690 --> 00:21:05.150
I was also getting 10 bottles of
the Oxyfast liquid, Dilaudid K 4 --

00:21:05.150 --> 00:21:10.850
and it was 800 of those,
400 in each prescription.

00:21:10.850 --> 00:21:13.575
It just numbed me, and I could feel normal.

00:21:16.540 --> 00:21:18.160
Well, I thought, this is great.

00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:19.020
Can I get more?

00:21:21.660 --> 00:21:26.010
-The number pills that I prescribed in
numerous instances were really quite high.

00:21:26.010 --> 00:21:29.920
And I think the median dose in my practice
was somewhere between two and three grams

00:21:29.920 --> 00:21:31.510
a day of morphine.

00:21:31.510 --> 00:21:37.150
If one is taking that in 30-milligram
pills, that's 70 pills a day.

00:21:37.150 --> 00:21:41.473
-I can remember, right to this day,
getting in the parking garage and saying,

00:21:41.473 --> 00:21:43.590
oh, this is unreal.

00:21:43.590 --> 00:21:46.320
This guy is... he's really it.

00:21:46.320 --> 00:21:49.080
I hit the fucking jackpot.

00:21:49.080 --> 00:21:52.650
-A drug wholesaler reported to the
Drug Enforcement Administration

00:21:52.650 --> 00:21:59.070
that this family-run pharmacy was ordering
unusually large quantities of narcotics.

00:21:59.070 --> 00:22:03.170
And when DEA agents went there,
they found that the pharmacist

00:22:03.170 --> 00:22:07.960
was filling 80% of Dr. Hurwitz's
narcotics prescription.

00:22:07.960 --> 00:22:11.370
The Virginia Medical Board
has suspended his license,

00:22:11.370 --> 00:22:15.830
claiming excessive prescribing of
narcotics may have caused two deaths

00:22:15.830 --> 00:22:19.880
and poses a threat of drug
overdose to his other patients.

00:22:19.880 --> 00:22:23.160
Dr. Hurwitz claims the
woman committed suicide,

00:22:23.160 --> 00:22:25.181
and that the man died of internal bleeding.

00:22:28.620 --> 00:22:31.330
-There were deaths
associated with my practice,

00:22:31.330 --> 00:22:35.280
and the way in which I was
prescribing was unconventional.

00:22:35.280 --> 00:22:38.186
And for a lot of people,
"death" and "unconventionality"

00:22:38.186 --> 00:22:42.300
are itself words that suggest
that I should have been condemned.

00:22:42.300 --> 00:22:44.580
-Narcotics are a crutch.

00:22:44.580 --> 00:22:47.130
They don't really get to
the problem of the pain.

00:22:47.130 --> 00:22:51.600
-One patient, 24,690 pills over 12 months.

00:22:51.600 --> 00:22:57.160
Another patient, 81,584
pills over 19 months.

00:22:57.160 --> 00:22:59.428
That sounds like enough
drugs to sedate an army.

00:23:02.300 --> 00:23:05.500
-I remember I came home, and I was...

00:23:05.500 --> 00:23:07.560
I think I was 11, maybe.

00:23:07.560 --> 00:23:12.070
And it was the first time I saw him not
doing something, and it was so weird.

00:23:12.070 --> 00:23:14.019
He was laid out right there.

00:23:14.019 --> 00:23:16.560
And he was napping, and it was
the middle of the fucking day.

00:23:16.560 --> 00:23:18.080
It was, like, 3:00 in the fucking afternoon.

00:23:18.080 --> 00:23:19.954
He was just laying there,
not doing anything.

00:23:19.954 --> 00:23:26.145
So weird -- not a phone call,
not a beeper, just laying there.

00:23:26.145 --> 00:23:28.600
I remember thinking, well, this is not good.

00:23:28.600 --> 00:23:31.360
This outlook -- not good.

00:23:31.360 --> 00:23:33.860
This is the beginning of something bad.

00:23:33.860 --> 00:23:34.530
And it was.

00:23:44.190 --> 00:23:47.640
-I was aware that this was a
controversial area, and in fact have...

00:23:47.640 --> 00:23:52.880
-To those of us that were his patients,
that was not just a licensure issue.

00:23:52.880 --> 00:23:57.310
That was a matter of life or death,
because Billy was not replaceable.

00:23:57.310 --> 00:23:59.850
So I got involved.

00:23:59.850 --> 00:24:05.340
-One of the people I contacted was David
Kovilian, who was a former police officer.

00:24:05.340 --> 00:24:07.260
I believe it was New York state.

00:24:07.260 --> 00:24:11.930
And we had, maybe between 5
and 10 phone conversations

00:24:11.930 --> 00:24:15.780
where we talked about this
whole range of issues.

00:24:15.780 --> 00:24:19.870
And then one day, I got
a videotape in the mail

00:24:19.870 --> 00:24:23.390
that was sent to me from David Kovilian.

00:24:23.390 --> 00:24:27.840
-...because of the Virginia
and Washington D.C.

00:24:27.840 --> 00:24:35.950
medical boards and the DEA and their
conspiracy to see that no one --

00:24:35.950 --> 00:24:41.170
whether they need it or not -- has access
to any kind of narcotic painkillers,

00:24:41.170 --> 00:24:47.890
because they think people who
have been injured, as I have,

00:24:47.890 --> 00:24:50.450
are drug addicts or junkies.

00:24:50.450 --> 00:24:51.375
Period.

00:24:51.375 --> 00:24:57.702
-It was just a rant telling all about
the problems with getting treatment.

00:24:57.702 --> 00:24:59.660
-It's pretty damn stupid
that the only person

00:24:59.660 --> 00:25:07.510
I can get to help to me, they turn around
and take his license away from him.

00:25:07.510 --> 00:25:11.010
No, Dr. Hurwitz isn't the
only doctor that can help.

00:25:11.010 --> 00:25:14.836
He's the only doctor that will
help, because all the rest of them

00:25:14.836 --> 00:25:18.292
are a bunch of scared wimps.

00:25:18.292 --> 00:25:20.777
-And it turned out it was a...

00:25:26.134 --> 00:25:28.082
it was a suicide tape.

00:25:33.439 --> 00:25:36.490
I didn't know him well.

00:25:36.490 --> 00:25:38.360
I was acquainted with him.

00:25:38.360 --> 00:25:39.770
But he was a human being.

00:25:43.130 --> 00:25:46.230
And he killed himself because
he couldn't get treatment.

00:25:51.380 --> 00:25:58.226
-There were six or seven suicides of
patients of mine with chronic pain.

00:26:04.610 --> 00:26:08.460
I was stunned that the
people who were enforcing

00:26:08.460 --> 00:26:13.470
this particular aspect of medical
practice knew as little as they knew.

00:26:13.470 --> 00:26:18.120
-I don't think it takes a rocket scientist
to figure out that that's very excessive.

00:26:18.120 --> 00:26:21.640
-I mean, the typical statement
was, "If I took that, I'd be dead."

00:26:21.640 --> 00:26:23.431
And that's no doubt true.

00:26:23.431 --> 00:26:26.430
If you take a high enough dose, and
you're not tolerant of the medicine,

00:26:26.430 --> 00:26:28.050
it would kill you.

00:26:28.050 --> 00:26:30.890
But again, patients who are
on consistent high doses

00:26:30.890 --> 00:26:35.030
were protected because they
already had high tolerance.

00:26:35.030 --> 00:26:39.490
-Some of the nation's most prominent pain
specialists say Dr. Hurwitz is right.

00:26:39.490 --> 00:26:42.450
-No physician, or government
agent, or anybody else

00:26:42.450 --> 00:26:46.230
can simply look at the number
of pills a patient is taking

00:26:46.230 --> 00:26:51.632
and come to a conclusion about whether or
not that dose of medication is excessive.

00:26:54.410 --> 00:26:58.380
-There is something definitely
risky about opioid medicine,

00:26:58.380 --> 00:27:01.260
but for somebody with a
chronic illness these drugs

00:27:01.260 --> 00:27:04.970
are a lesser risk than the risk
of being disabled by chronic pain.

00:27:32.415 --> 00:27:36.407
My office was in an apartment
building in McLean, Virginia.

00:27:39.920 --> 00:27:46.197
-I saw his advertisement for
an office manager in the paper.

00:27:46.197 --> 00:27:55.340
And one of the first questions that he asked
me was, how do I feel about pain patients,

00:27:55.340 --> 00:28:04.510
and how important it is it to make pain
patients comfortable with their pain.

00:28:04.510 --> 00:28:08.700
-When I resumed practice, it was
subject to a memorandum of understanding

00:28:08.700 --> 00:28:12.210
with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

00:28:12.210 --> 00:28:16.476
I developed a consent
form for treatment that

00:28:16.476 --> 00:28:19.655
described many of the risks
associated with the treatment.

00:28:22.786 --> 00:28:28.760
-Patients had to be screened -- just
asking them about their background,

00:28:28.760 --> 00:28:32.150
what pain they have, what
medicines they've been on...

00:28:32.150 --> 00:28:35.810
just about everything about
their medical history.

00:28:37.960 --> 00:28:41.000
-Dr. Hurwitz never took a
patient into the practice

00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:47.060
that he did not feel truly had
adequate reason to be in chronic pain,

00:28:47.060 --> 00:28:52.190
and documentation that proved that there
was adequate reason for them to be in pain.

00:28:56.180 --> 00:29:02.530
-The DEA required that I report to them
the names, addresses, and medications

00:29:02.530 --> 00:29:05.350
provided to all of my patients.

00:29:05.350 --> 00:29:08.520
And in fact, I faithfully
reported on a quarterly basis.

00:29:08.520 --> 00:29:12.130
I had a computer medical record
system, and it generated the list

00:29:12.130 --> 00:29:15.370
of all the prescriptions I had written.

00:29:15.370 --> 00:29:17.410
I thought that would protect me.

00:29:17.410 --> 00:29:20.785
-Imagine living every
day in excruciating pain.

00:29:20.785 --> 00:29:23.410
Then imagine there was a simple
treatment to relieve that pain,

00:29:23.410 --> 00:29:25.640
but your doctor wouldn't give it to you.

00:29:25.640 --> 00:29:30.940
-Around this time, this issue of
painkillers came to national attention.

00:29:30.940 --> 00:29:36.310
And 60 Minutes approached me and asked me if
I'd be willing to appear on their program.

00:29:36.310 --> 00:29:41.390
-Let's talk about the number of
pills you prescribe to some patients.

00:29:41.390 --> 00:29:44.800
For over a two-year period,
you prescribed to one patient

00:29:44.800 --> 00:29:48.290
more than 90,000 narcotic pills.

00:29:48.290 --> 00:29:49.790
-The dose is irrelevant.

00:29:49.790 --> 00:29:54.230
The right dose is whatever works that
doesn't... that produces tolerable side

00:29:54.230 --> 00:29:54.870
effects.

00:29:54.870 --> 00:29:58.530
-What do you say to someone who's sitting
out there who says, "Come on, doctor --

00:29:58.530 --> 00:30:00.505
90,000 pills?"

00:30:01.780 --> 00:30:06.750
-If it takes 100 pills a day or 200
pills a day to relieve the pain,

00:30:06.750 --> 00:30:07.960
that's what it takes.

00:30:07.960 --> 00:30:11.962
There's just no way for me to
say, let's under-treat them.

00:30:11.962 --> 00:30:12.920
Let's make them suffer.

00:30:15.110 --> 00:30:18.350
After that program I started
receiving telephone calls from people

00:30:18.350 --> 00:30:23.040
all over the country who were
frustrated by their inability

00:30:23.040 --> 00:30:26.200
to get effective pain relief, and
my practice expanded dramatically.

00:30:28.380 --> 00:30:31.452
-We had emails coming in
from all over the country.

00:30:31.452 --> 00:30:35.140
-They traveled from all
states to get to Dr. Hurwitz.

00:30:41.664 --> 00:30:44.490
(ELEVATOR DINGS)

00:30:46.380 --> 00:30:50.840
-Dr. Hurwitz was the name that
my husband found on the internet.

00:30:50.840 --> 00:30:52.140
He warned my husband.

00:30:52.140 --> 00:30:54.490
-He said, "I already beat
the Virginia Medical Board,

00:30:54.490 --> 00:30:58.510
but it's only a matter of time before
they find some way of getting my license."

00:30:58.510 --> 00:30:59.410
-Yeah.

00:30:59.410 --> 00:31:01.700
-And so I said, well, I don't care.

00:31:10.070 --> 00:31:13.960
And so I sent her medical records to
him, and he looked them over thoroughly

00:31:13.960 --> 00:31:19.370
and said, "Well, looks like she's done
everything she can, except for this.

00:31:19.370 --> 00:31:22.640
So we'll try it."

00:31:22.640 --> 00:31:24.478
And so we tried her on a course of Dilaudid.

00:31:27.550 --> 00:31:31.820
-I remember we were riding
around in Washington D.C.,

00:31:31.820 --> 00:31:34.594
and I was leaning against a tree, and...

00:31:34.594 --> 00:31:35.510
-She started crying...

00:31:35.510 --> 00:31:35.830
-Yeah.

00:31:35.830 --> 00:31:36.840
-And I thought, oh my gosh.

00:31:36.840 --> 00:31:37.435
The pain is back.

00:31:37.435 --> 00:31:37.540
-Yeah.

00:31:37.540 --> 00:31:39.430
He said, "Honey, what's... it's... it's..."

00:31:39.430 --> 00:31:40.740
-Why are you crying?

00:31:40.740 --> 00:31:43.090
-I was -- I said, because my pain is gone.

00:31:43.090 --> 00:31:44.910
-She was crying because she had no pain.

00:31:44.910 --> 00:31:45.870
-No pain.

00:31:45.870 --> 00:31:48.798
(BIRDS CHIRPING)

00:31:58.150 --> 00:32:04.100
-I became a police officer when
I was 21 and got into drugs

00:32:04.100 --> 00:32:06.775
on the right side of the law, I would say.

00:32:12.070 --> 00:32:21.960
In September of 2000 I went up to a car,
noticed two guys snorting a white substance

00:32:21.960 --> 00:32:24.040
off the dashboard.

00:32:24.040 --> 00:32:28.996
Based on my training and experience at
the time, I believe it to be cocaine.

00:32:28.996 --> 00:32:36.812
I found out it was a father and a
son snorting this substance together

00:32:36.812 --> 00:32:40.230
and did our field test while
we were there, and it was not

00:32:40.230 --> 00:32:43.310
coming up positive for cocaine.

00:32:43.310 --> 00:32:45.310
I was in that mindset so much.

00:32:45.310 --> 00:32:46.990
That's what we were used to.

00:32:46.990 --> 00:32:48.782
I couldn't figure it out.

00:32:48.782 --> 00:32:52.856
I talked with the kid for a
while, the younger of the two.

00:32:52.856 --> 00:32:55.430
He told me that they had
lost their house, they

00:32:55.430 --> 00:33:00.420
had lost everything because
they were addicted to Oxycontin.

00:33:00.420 --> 00:33:04.000
They had got addicted to painkillers.

00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:04.850
It intrigued me.

00:33:04.850 --> 00:33:06.030
It was different.

00:33:06.030 --> 00:33:11.310
But the fact that it was an entire family
involved together kind of got me thinking,

00:33:11.310 --> 00:33:13.580
there's something not right here.

00:33:13.580 --> 00:33:17.320
I had no idea what
Oxycontin was before that.

00:33:17.320 --> 00:33:22.140
-Tonight, a war on drugs -- and it's one
that extends well beyond county lines.

00:33:22.140 --> 00:33:25.590
It doesn't discriminate, either,
against race or economic background.

00:33:25.590 --> 00:33:28.380
We're talking about the
Oxycontin epidemic in Virginia.

00:33:28.380 --> 00:33:31.290
-This morning's "Eye on America"
focuses on a drug epidemic

00:33:31.290 --> 00:33:34.280
ravaging rural Virginia,
abuse of what's supposed to be

00:33:34.280 --> 00:33:36.760
a tightly controlled synthetic painkiller.

00:33:36.760 --> 00:33:41.860
-Officials say drug abusers crush the
pills into powder, snorting or injecting

00:33:41.860 --> 00:33:45.696
the drug to get a high
similar to that of heroin.

00:33:48.186 --> 00:33:51.094
-They had coined the
term "hillbilly heroin."

00:33:56.064 --> 00:34:02.830
By January of that year, I believe we had
four robberies of pharmacies in one month.

00:34:05.500 --> 00:34:07.340
They weren't stealing money.

00:34:07.340 --> 00:34:08.220
They're taking pills.

00:34:12.060 --> 00:34:15.420
-It seemed like people were
just going crazy and doing

00:34:15.420 --> 00:34:18.539
stuff that didn't make sense over Oxy.

00:34:18.539 --> 00:34:22.100
If you think you're getting something
that's going to help your pain get better,

00:34:22.100 --> 00:34:26.024
you're creating a monkey -- an
addiction that's so horrible.

00:34:28.929 --> 00:34:31.920
Nothing would stop me from
going after that pill.

00:34:31.920 --> 00:34:33.530
It didn't matter.

00:34:33.530 --> 00:34:38.370
I can recall, literally, a blanket
covering me up, shivering and shaking,

00:34:38.370 --> 00:34:42.719
trying to get somewhere to get an Oxy.

00:34:42.719 --> 00:34:48.350
-I was used to arresting bad
guys for doing bad things.

00:34:48.350 --> 00:34:52.580
And then all of a sudden I was getting
involved with entire families who,

00:34:52.580 --> 00:34:56.760
a year earlier, were upstanding citizens.

00:34:56.760 --> 00:35:01.290
These were good people, and they
still are, but their life now

00:35:01.290 --> 00:35:04.680
revolves around getting their next pill.

00:35:12.930 --> 00:35:15.180
-My name is Paul Nye.

00:35:15.180 --> 00:35:18.090
My wife was Mary Nye.

00:35:18.090 --> 00:35:21.220
When I met her, she was full of energy.

00:35:21.220 --> 00:35:25.810
We did lots of things together --
camping, going to the beach, swimming.

00:35:25.810 --> 00:35:29.010
Our honeymoon was in Hawaii.

00:35:29.010 --> 00:35:30.740
This actually was a perfect marriage.

00:35:34.140 --> 00:35:37.770
Supposedly she'd fallen in the
Food Lion, in our grocery store.

00:35:37.770 --> 00:35:42.130
And as far as I know there was
no records of that, no x-rays

00:35:42.130 --> 00:35:47.410
or MRIs or any other conclusive
evidence that there was a problem.

00:35:47.410 --> 00:35:54.750
She expressed pain in her lower back,
and at times it was severe, as she said,

00:35:54.750 --> 00:35:56.820
and sometimes it was tolerable.

00:35:56.820 --> 00:35:59.913
It's hard to quantify somebody else's pain.

00:36:03.290 --> 00:36:08.310
She saw Dr. Hurwitz, and he gave
her an ungodly amount of Oxycontin

00:36:08.310 --> 00:36:09.850
on the first visit.

00:36:09.850 --> 00:36:13.830
I think he gave her 200 Oxycontins
the first day she saw him.

00:36:16.510 --> 00:36:20.930
Two weeks later, he ramped it
up to, probably, double that.

00:36:20.930 --> 00:36:24.800
Two weeks after that, it was
probably four times as much.

00:36:24.800 --> 00:36:29.780
Some time late in 2001, my human
resources department at work

00:36:29.780 --> 00:36:32.070
called me and Mary in for an interview.

00:36:32.070 --> 00:36:36.275
And what happened was the health
insurance people were just appalled

00:36:36.275 --> 00:36:41.430
at the cost and the quantity of the doses
that Hurwitz was prescribing to her.

00:36:44.636 --> 00:36:48.382
I called Dr. Hurwitz and voiced my concerns.

00:36:48.382 --> 00:36:53.320
And he was pretty adamant that
this is the way to cure the pain.

00:36:53.320 --> 00:36:55.934
The high opiate doses --
there's nothing wrong with that.

00:36:55.934 --> 00:36:57.184
Everything's going to be fine.

00:36:59.910 --> 00:37:01.870
I'd tell her, listen, we need to stop this.

00:37:01.870 --> 00:37:05.210
I don't believe this is really the problem.

00:37:05.210 --> 00:37:11.240
We can investigate surgeries, any other
thing that we can do to avoid this.

00:37:11.240 --> 00:37:12.650
She would not accept help.

00:37:12.650 --> 00:37:14.850
The only help she wanted
was from Dr. Hurwitz.

00:37:30.380 --> 00:37:34.025
-For most people, the doctor's judgment
has to decide "Is this good for you?

00:37:34.025 --> 00:37:36.920
If I don't think it's good
for you, you can't have it."

00:37:36.920 --> 00:37:42.070
So you have a dynamic that involves
the power of the doctor to determine

00:37:42.070 --> 00:37:46.410
what the solution is for the patient.

00:37:46.410 --> 00:37:48.820
My approach was really quite different.

00:37:48.820 --> 00:37:53.070
The trade-offs here are... are you going to
treat people as if you're their supervising

00:37:53.070 --> 00:37:57.365
nannies, or are you going
to respect their choices?

00:38:02.300 --> 00:38:06.266
With respect to Mary Nye -- my
impression was that she really had pain.

00:38:06.266 --> 00:38:07.890
I mean, that's the best I can tell you.

00:38:07.890 --> 00:38:09.890
And that's what she told me.

00:38:09.890 --> 00:38:16.030
At some point, one has to really
rely on the patient's report.

00:38:16.030 --> 00:38:18.460
-There were things out of
the house that were pawned.

00:38:18.460 --> 00:38:19.790
The savings was depleted.

00:38:22.030 --> 00:38:27.602
Any way that a person that needs drugs
can get the money to get them, they will.

00:38:27.602 --> 00:38:31.142
They'll steal from their mother,
their husband, their kids.

00:38:31.142 --> 00:38:33.706
It's a very sad state of affairs.

00:38:41.360 --> 00:38:44.275
-It was all over the map,
directly related to Oxycontin.

00:38:47.010 --> 00:38:49.698
Who do you blame for that?

00:38:49.698 --> 00:38:53.860
-It's the fastest growing
drug in America -- Oxycontin.

00:38:53.860 --> 00:38:58.780
-Since its introduction in 1996,
prescriptions have increased 20-fold.

00:38:58.780 --> 00:39:00.780
-There was this sea change.

00:39:00.780 --> 00:39:05.550
Pharmaceutical companies pushed to get
doctors to liberally prescribe opioids.

00:39:05.550 --> 00:39:10.450
-Some patients may be afraid because
they're perceived as addictive.

00:39:10.450 --> 00:39:14.330
But that is far from actual fact.

00:39:14.330 --> 00:39:19.470
-Big Pharma advertises to patients, these
wonderful commercials where you see people

00:39:19.470 --> 00:39:21.460
running across fields with butterflies.

00:39:21.460 --> 00:39:23.790
-See what it's like when
you're not in pain anymore.

00:39:23.790 --> 00:39:25.605
Take these medications.

00:39:25.605 --> 00:39:32.210
-Purdue Pharma sold $1.6 billion
worth of Oxycontin last year.

00:39:32.210 --> 00:39:35.240
-So think about it from the
pharmaceutical company perspective.

00:39:35.240 --> 00:39:38.300
What they really want is
to get doctors to prescribe

00:39:38.300 --> 00:39:40.942
more opioids for longer stretches of time.

00:39:43.870 --> 00:39:48.940
They co-opted Portenoy's study -- this
very small study that was then picked up

00:39:48.940 --> 00:39:55.090
and disseminated to physicians as evidence
that the risk of their patients becoming

00:39:55.090 --> 00:39:58.900
addicted was very, very low.

00:39:58.900 --> 00:40:03.410
So whereas previously you wouldn't
give opioids for, let's say,

00:40:03.410 --> 00:40:07.170
a wisdom tooth extraction,
now doctors were prescribing

00:40:07.170 --> 00:40:09.360
opioids for pretty minor conditions.

00:40:09.360 --> 00:40:11.320
And they were giving patients a lot of them.

00:40:11.320 --> 00:40:13.530
And then, that was just sort
of the standard of care.

00:40:13.530 --> 00:40:16.370
That's how you treated pain.

00:40:16.370 --> 00:40:21.980
It was a catastrophe, because we essentially
flooded the market with so many opioids.

00:40:21.980 --> 00:40:25.120
Opioids in everybody's medicine cabinet.

00:40:25.120 --> 00:40:29.390
It just got really easy to get, and
you didn't have to go to a drug dealer

00:40:29.390 --> 00:40:33.220
or go to some neighborhood where
you were scared for your life.

00:40:33.220 --> 00:40:38.996
So the accessibility is what
really drove the epidemic.

00:40:38.996 --> 00:40:41.870
-The manufacturers are making money,
the pharmacies are making money,

00:40:41.870 --> 00:40:45.148
the doctors are making money
with these drugs going out.

00:40:49.200 --> 00:40:52.120
-I wasn't really raking in money.

00:40:52.120 --> 00:40:55.350
In fact, my sense of
devotion of patients was such

00:40:55.350 --> 00:40:59.360
that, even when patients couldn't
pay, I wouldn't cut them off.

00:40:59.360 --> 00:41:03.010
Drug reps would come to my office,
and I discussed what my preferences

00:41:03.010 --> 00:41:06.100
were based on the response of my patients.

00:41:06.100 --> 00:41:09.180
I don't think that anything
the drug rep ever said to me

00:41:09.180 --> 00:41:13.110
determined how I prescribe
medications, other than the fact

00:41:13.110 --> 00:41:16.630
that a specific medicine
may have been available.

00:41:16.630 --> 00:41:19.950
The issue is, how effective was
I in treating the patients who

00:41:19.950 --> 00:41:22.250
came to me with severe pain?

00:41:22.250 --> 00:41:27.970
And I was more effective in treating
those patients than other doctors.

00:41:27.970 --> 00:41:30.110
-I'm not going to debate a doctor.

00:41:30.110 --> 00:41:32.040
I have not been to medical school.

00:41:32.040 --> 00:41:37.160
But I did see the violent crimes and
the things going on on the street,

00:41:37.160 --> 00:41:38.606
because I was a street-level cop.

00:41:41.730 --> 00:41:44.920
I was on a case with a partner of mine.

00:41:44.920 --> 00:41:49.930
And I'm not a young man, but one of
the prettiest girls at this place

00:41:49.930 --> 00:41:56.440
walked over and asked what we had.

00:41:56.440 --> 00:41:58.435
And I said, all I have is my medicine.

00:42:00.760 --> 00:42:06.370
She saw it, and she began
to offer me things that I

00:42:06.370 --> 00:42:10.030
couldn't imagine for one of those pills.

00:42:10.030 --> 00:42:12.430
It's like...

00:42:12.430 --> 00:42:17.580
that really upset me, really
upset me, having daughters.

00:42:17.580 --> 00:42:20.940
I was pretty furious at that.

00:42:20.940 --> 00:42:22.716
But that's the path that this takes.

00:42:27.763 --> 00:42:30.709
(CHILDREN TALKING)

00:42:42.010 --> 00:42:48.438
-My husband Rob had gotten
involved with the whole drug scene,

00:42:49.770 --> 00:42:52.170
probably around the age of 12.

00:42:52.170 --> 00:42:55.850
He had an addictive personality.

00:42:55.850 --> 00:42:59.470
In his 20s, he was addicted to drugs.

00:42:59.470 --> 00:43:00.750
He was selling drugs.

00:43:00.750 --> 00:43:01.735
Bad dude.

00:43:01.735 --> 00:43:02.880
Majorly bad dude.

00:43:02.880 --> 00:43:04.530
Wouldn't touch him with a 10-foot pole.

00:43:07.430 --> 00:43:11.390
But when I met him, it was after
he had straightened his life out,

00:43:11.390 --> 00:43:16.170
stopped doing all the bad stuff that he'd
been doing that he had told me about.

00:43:16.170 --> 00:43:21.130
He was living for his son that he
had just recently gotten custody of,

00:43:21.130 --> 00:43:23.072
and I was living for my girls.

00:43:23.072 --> 00:43:28.660
So we weren't looking for anybody,
but it just kind of meshed.

00:43:28.660 --> 00:43:32.620
I was the cute little church
mouse, and he's the wild child.

00:43:32.620 --> 00:43:35.770
So we just kind of... you know, that
whole "opposites attract" thing.

00:43:35.770 --> 00:43:37.610
So, yeah.

00:43:37.610 --> 00:43:38.660
It was pretty awesome.

00:43:42.130 --> 00:43:44.852
He had hurt his back --
a work- related injury.

00:43:44.852 --> 00:43:51.115
He had started going to Hurwitz, and he gave
him Oxycontin, Dilaudid, liquids and pills

00:43:51.115 --> 00:43:52.710
and you name it.

00:43:58.370 --> 00:44:02.120
The amount of money that
Rob had to have in order

00:44:02.120 --> 00:44:08.320
to get the amount of medication
that was filled was insane.

00:44:08.320 --> 00:44:16.330
He said that on a six month span, he
had accrued $30,000 worth of medication

00:44:16.330 --> 00:44:17.321
from Hurwitz alone.

00:44:20.030 --> 00:44:22.710
He started selling them.

00:44:22.710 --> 00:44:30.640
He was one of the biggest Oxycontin
dealers on the east coast.

00:44:30.640 --> 00:44:33.640
Hurwitz kept him with an open supply.

00:44:33.640 --> 00:44:35.470
Most doctors would say, "That's enough.

00:44:35.470 --> 00:44:35.970
I'm done.

00:44:35.970 --> 00:44:38.780
I'm not going to work with you anymore."

00:44:38.780 --> 00:44:43.010
-Woodson had, early in the
course of my accepting him

00:44:43.010 --> 00:44:48.430
as a patient, been accused
of robbing a pharmacy.

00:44:48.430 --> 00:44:51.880
And that accusation turned out to be false.

00:44:51.880 --> 00:44:55.940
So in a funny way, I was sympathetic for
him because he'd been falsely accused

00:44:55.940 --> 00:44:57.580
of that particular crime.

00:45:03.440 --> 00:45:04.190
-I...

00:45:04.190 --> 00:45:07.760
well, certainly I didn't know during
the course of my treating him.

00:45:07.760 --> 00:45:14.540
But also, I didn't think that was a valid
basis for choosing or rejecting patients.

00:45:14.540 --> 00:45:18.640
The status of the potential
criminal drug dealer or drug addict

00:45:18.640 --> 00:45:21.380
shouldn't determine a medical relationship.

00:45:21.380 --> 00:45:25.210
For somebody who you believe actually
has pain, to say, "I'm sorry.

00:45:25.210 --> 00:45:29.670
You broke some rule, I'm not going
to treat you any more, go suffer" --

00:45:29.670 --> 00:45:35.800
seems to me an abuse of power,
an abuse of medical power.

00:45:35.800 --> 00:45:37.850
One should condemn the
sin, but not the sinner.

00:45:45.030 --> 00:45:49.790
-With the amounts that he was giving,
there's no way a man without an income

00:45:49.790 --> 00:45:52.030
can afford that.

00:45:52.030 --> 00:45:56.005
So you find yourself doing illegal things.

00:46:01.930 --> 00:46:11.770
At the time, 300 Oxycontin were
somewhere in the range of $2,000.

00:46:11.770 --> 00:46:17.700
Once word got on the street,
people just started coming to me.

00:46:17.700 --> 00:46:23.120
It got to the point where I wouldn't
leave the house for less than $1,000.

00:46:23.120 --> 00:46:30.180
I would say that, at any given time, there
would be from anywhere to $2,000 to $20,000

00:46:30.180 --> 00:46:35.490
in cash -- so much cash that I would
have to have it in a fanny pack.

00:46:35.490 --> 00:46:37.050
It would not fit in my pocket.

00:46:37.050 --> 00:46:41.310
And you could actually smell the money.

00:46:41.310 --> 00:46:44.560
-We asked, how are we going
to stop this flow of pills

00:46:44.560 --> 00:46:47.516
and what it's doing all
the way down the line?

00:46:47.516 --> 00:46:51.450
And that's when we pretty much
got a green light to address this.

00:46:56.782 --> 00:47:00.160
-This was a very joint investigation.

00:47:00.160 --> 00:47:02.560
We would get information from
the local law enforcement

00:47:02.560 --> 00:47:05.970
officers who would tell us that
these were the primary dealers.

00:47:05.970 --> 00:47:10.130
We would target them with
undercover purchases.

00:47:10.130 --> 00:47:16.000
We spoke to those dealers, who then
turned us on to their sources of supply.

00:47:16.000 --> 00:47:19.810
They had a prescription that said it was
theirs, and it was issued by a doctor.

00:47:21.810 --> 00:47:22.810
-Go, go, go!

00:47:22.810 --> 00:47:23.810
-Police!

00:47:23.810 --> 00:47:24.310
-Police!

00:47:24.310 --> 00:47:25.310
Hands up!

00:47:25.310 --> 00:47:28.000
-There have always been problems
with people abusing drugs.

00:47:28.000 --> 00:47:29.790
There always will be problems.

00:47:29.790 --> 00:47:32.260
There's always one drug that
is the great drug menace,

00:47:32.260 --> 00:47:36.240
that journalists and police want
to always build up one drug.

00:47:36.240 --> 00:47:40.050
And pain killers and Oxycontin
-- opioids, as they're known --

00:47:40.050 --> 00:47:43.090
had become the great scourge of America.

00:47:43.090 --> 00:47:46.340
The DEA and prosecutors were
under pressure to do something.

00:47:46.340 --> 00:47:49.434
So they started going after
doctors who prescribed painkillers.

00:47:49.434 --> 00:47:50.327
-Open the door!

00:47:50.327 --> 00:47:50.826
Police!

00:47:50.826 --> 00:47:53.150
(SHOUTING)

00:47:53.150 --> 00:47:57.790
-Doctors accused of writing a flood of
prescriptions for powerful painkillers...

00:47:57.790 --> 00:48:00.960
-...increasingly zeroing in
on supposedly legit doctors,

00:48:00.960 --> 00:48:02.860
who prescribe in high volume.

00:48:02.860 --> 00:48:06.805
-This particular drug, when in the
wrong hands, it is an agent of death

00:48:06.805 --> 00:48:08.860
and an agent of addiction.

00:48:08.860 --> 00:48:10.857
-Everyone wants to have a scapegoat.

00:48:10.857 --> 00:48:13.690
People want to blame the drug dealer,
they want to blame the doctor,

00:48:13.690 --> 00:48:16.420
they want to blame someone else.

00:48:16.420 --> 00:48:18.650
-The DEA gave us this rule.

00:48:18.650 --> 00:48:23.550
"Give the opioids to
whoever needs them for pain.

00:48:23.550 --> 00:48:28.050
Do not -- on penalty of your head -- give
them to somebody who's going to party with

00:48:28.050 --> 00:48:29.970
them or sell them."

00:48:29.970 --> 00:48:32.160
No way to tell which is which.

00:48:32.160 --> 00:48:36.090
And nobody becomes more skilled
at expressing their pain

00:48:36.090 --> 00:48:38.358
than a drug diverter who doesn't have it.

00:48:41.430 --> 00:48:46.930
-We had discussions about the patients
that we would label "problem patients,"

00:48:46.930 --> 00:48:51.010
that had a time when they would have
prescriptions that went missing,

00:48:51.010 --> 00:48:58.590
or they would run out of pills markedly
early -- not just a little bit.

00:48:58.590 --> 00:49:05.160
-It was the type of excuses they would make
-- like maybe they lost their medicines,

00:49:05.160 --> 00:49:10.120
their dog chewed up the prescription.

00:49:10.120 --> 00:49:12.680
-All of those were red
flagged, and Dr. Hurwitz

00:49:12.680 --> 00:49:18.860
would have long discussions with
them about what is going on.

00:49:18.860 --> 00:49:25.380
-I came in one day, and he asked
me was I selling his pills.

00:49:25.380 --> 00:49:29.600
And I just looked at him and
stared at him and said, oh, no.

00:49:31.680 --> 00:49:34.500
I could prove no income.

00:49:34.500 --> 00:49:39.600
He definitely knew what the medications
cost, so it was pretty obvious.

00:49:42.580 --> 00:49:47.000
-He trusts everybody, and
I think that's what did it.

00:49:47.000 --> 00:49:53.740
I think he could not see the bad in anyone.

00:49:53.740 --> 00:50:00.470
-He has plenty of common sense, but he
had the street smarts of an opossum.

00:50:00.470 --> 00:50:04.510
-I knew exactly the patients who were lying.

00:50:04.510 --> 00:50:07.236
You would, too.

00:50:07.236 --> 00:50:09.010
You walk to that office.

00:50:09.010 --> 00:50:13.920
You see somebody falling asleep
there, tattoos here, tattoos here,

00:50:13.920 --> 00:50:19.210
earrings here, earrings here,
falling asleep, smell of alcohol,

00:50:19.210 --> 00:50:22.200
smells of cigarette.

00:50:22.200 --> 00:50:23.807
And this is a pain patient?

00:50:26.610 --> 00:50:31.100
This guy gets up from his chair
with his cane, and I said,

00:50:31.100 --> 00:50:34.900
I know that guy is a liar.

00:50:34.900 --> 00:50:38.142
I followed him.

00:50:38.142 --> 00:50:42.465
And he's limping, limping one block.

00:50:42.465 --> 00:50:44.650
He turns around.

00:50:44.650 --> 00:50:45.520
There's some bushes.

00:50:45.520 --> 00:50:46.900
He limps less.

00:50:46.900 --> 00:50:48.580
He's getting to his van.

00:50:48.580 --> 00:50:51.780
As he gets close to the van,
the limping disappeared.

00:50:51.780 --> 00:50:58.810
Opens the van, throws his cane,
walks around, sits down, and drives.

00:50:58.810 --> 00:50:59.310
Yeah.

00:51:02.190 --> 00:51:05.210
I told Billy.

00:51:05.210 --> 00:51:10.100
He said to me, "You
belong to the Inquisition.

00:51:10.100 --> 00:51:10.800
Who are you?

00:51:10.800 --> 00:51:12.800
That guy has pain."

00:51:14.180 --> 00:51:21.110
Some people can be just so naive
and blind about everything.

00:51:21.110 --> 00:51:23.655
And that's Billy.

00:51:23.655 --> 00:51:25.780
Did he... did you admit,
Billy, doing wrong things?

00:51:31.060 --> 00:51:31.750
What do you say?

00:51:31.750 --> 00:51:33.290
You acknowledged you made...

00:51:33.290 --> 00:51:35.662
you acknowledged that you made a mistake?

00:51:35.662 --> 00:51:36.870
-It doesn't mean that they...

00:51:36.870 --> 00:51:40.170
-But Billy, your wrote in your
protocol -- "You cheat, you lie,

00:51:40.170 --> 00:51:43.140
your urine is not clear, you're out."

00:51:43.140 --> 00:51:45.340
Why didn't you follow that protocol?

00:51:45.340 --> 00:51:46.160
Why did you let...

00:51:46.160 --> 00:51:46.660
-I don't...

00:51:46.660 --> 00:51:47.650
-...people fool you?

00:51:47.650 --> 00:51:48.150
Fooler.

00:51:48.150 --> 00:51:48.350
Fooler.

00:51:48.350 --> 00:51:49.520
-I... hold... hold...

00:51:49.520 --> 00:51:51.720
You're misconstruing the issue, as I see it.

00:51:51.720 --> 00:51:53.030
The issue wasn't...

00:51:53.030 --> 00:51:58.130
I mean on those people who failed
their urine drug test, for example,

00:51:58.130 --> 00:52:00.180
and I knew that they were cheating.

00:52:00.180 --> 00:52:03.130
-And they had marks in their
arms, I mean, it was obvious.

00:52:03.130 --> 00:52:07.020
-There are people who I responded
to by imposing different controls

00:52:07.020 --> 00:52:11.560
or by changing the dose of medication
or trying to taper them off medicine.

00:52:11.560 --> 00:52:14.080
But the point is I was still
treating them as patients

00:52:14.080 --> 00:52:20.306
to be helped, in some sense, not as somebody
with power and the ability to punish them.

00:52:22.690 --> 00:52:26.449
The virtue of that approach
was that I could be a doctor,

00:52:26.449 --> 00:52:27.740
and the police could be police.

00:52:32.350 --> 00:52:38.584
-Had he just followed his protocol,
he wouldn't have any problems.

00:52:42.940 --> 00:52:47.540
-He said, "Well, my wife said that you and
I are going to get our asses locked up,

00:52:47.540 --> 00:52:51.842
and you're going to cause
me to get my ass locked up."

00:52:51.842 --> 00:52:53.050
And I'm thinking, this is it.

00:52:53.050 --> 00:52:54.090
I'm getting kicked out.

00:52:54.090 --> 00:52:56.210
He's brought this up.

00:52:56.210 --> 00:53:00.620
Well, hell, he loads me down with pills
again, and I leave with another 1,600 --

00:53:00.620 --> 00:53:03.650
four prescriptions for 400 each.

00:53:03.650 --> 00:53:06.470
He was a very, very smart guy.

00:53:06.470 --> 00:53:09.720
He knew I was lying, and
he didn't give a damn.

00:53:16.900 --> 00:53:22.860
-We built our information network
and worked our way up the ladder.

00:53:22.860 --> 00:53:26.260
-We arrested about three
dozen dealers, which

00:53:26.260 --> 00:53:29.810
eventually led us back to
prescriptions and prescription bottles

00:53:29.810 --> 00:53:31.849
with Dr. Hurwitz's name.

00:53:31.849 --> 00:53:33.140
It was all on the prescription.

00:53:35.860 --> 00:53:44.460
In a span of a period from 1998 to 2002,
he amassed a patient base of 500 patients

00:53:44.460 --> 00:53:47.160
in 39 states.

00:53:47.160 --> 00:53:50.470
-The people coming and
going from the clinic,

00:53:50.470 --> 00:53:54.370
it seemed like a party
getting ready to get started.

00:53:54.370 --> 00:53:58.380
-The initial patient
evaluation was $1,250 in cash.

00:53:58.380 --> 00:54:03.640
Follow up monthly appointments
or visits were $250 in cash.

00:54:03.640 --> 00:54:06.950
-In my opinion, it was a pill mill.

00:54:06.950 --> 00:54:09.550
There was a lot of pills
coming out of there.

00:54:09.550 --> 00:54:13.630
Do you... well, I've got
some numbers here, but...

00:54:19.180 --> 00:54:21.630
I looked at things as right or wrong.

00:54:21.630 --> 00:54:23.700
That seemed wrong to me.

00:54:23.700 --> 00:54:29.380
The intent didn't seem to be there,
the good intent to fix this person.

00:54:31.960 --> 00:54:36.110
-I came in one day, and
he did the blood work.

00:54:36.110 --> 00:54:39.660
And he came out holding a paper.

00:54:39.660 --> 00:54:45.540
And he said, "200 nanograms
is a lethal dose."

00:54:45.540 --> 00:54:49.600
And he said, "That means
you're 10 times dead on a slab

00:54:49.600 --> 00:54:55.450
because you have 1,200 nanograms
of Oxycodone in your system."

00:54:55.450 --> 00:55:00.950
And he was actually laughing,
as if I was a lab rat

00:55:00.950 --> 00:55:06.280
and he could prove to them that these
large amounts of medication didn't kill me.

00:55:06.280 --> 00:55:07.910
I was still able to walk around.

00:55:14.070 --> 00:55:18.592
They come on June the 3rd of 2002.

00:55:18.592 --> 00:55:24.640
And it was four days before
my son's seventh birthday.

00:55:24.640 --> 00:55:29.820
My son was standing there crying his eyes
out, hollering, "Don't take my daddy!

00:55:29.820 --> 00:55:32.330
Don't take my daddy!"

00:55:32.330 --> 00:55:33.098
And ...

00:55:33.098 --> 00:55:35.438
(EXHALES SHARPLY)

00:55:38.214 --> 00:55:39.755
...I knew it was the end of the road.

00:55:39.755 --> 00:55:42.716
I knew it was time to pay for what I'd done.

00:55:45.930 --> 00:55:50.433
-In meeting these people, at first
it seemed like a lot of them --

00:55:50.433 --> 00:55:55.020
they were kind of slow, talked slow.

00:55:55.020 --> 00:56:00.211
They were just nodding off because they were
under the influence of these painkillers.

00:56:02.920 --> 00:56:07.680
Rob Woodson, I met him when he was arrested
in Prince William County for distribution.

00:56:07.680 --> 00:56:12.650
His name had come up on several of
our debriefs as being a distributor.

00:56:12.650 --> 00:56:18.380
Rob, as many people say while
they're in jail, was willing to help.

00:56:18.380 --> 00:56:24.180
When you'd let them know they're starting
out at five-year minimum mandatory --

00:56:24.180 --> 00:56:26.600
let's talk.

00:56:26.600 --> 00:56:29.786
He ended up going back into the
doctor's office at our direction.

00:56:31.920 --> 00:56:36.246
-Rob hadn't seen him for,
I'd say, a good eight months.

00:56:36.246 --> 00:56:38.000
He'd dropped off the face of the Earth.

00:56:38.000 --> 00:56:40.350
Then all of a sudden, "Hey, man.

00:56:40.350 --> 00:56:42.180
Can I come see you?" "Yeah, sure.

00:56:42.180 --> 00:56:43.250
No problem."

00:56:43.250 --> 00:56:44.352
No questions asked.

00:56:48.050 --> 00:56:53.710
-There was much made on this case
about the quantities of medications.

00:56:53.710 --> 00:57:00.180
And they certainly were astounding, and
like nothing I've ever seen before or since.

00:57:00.180 --> 00:57:02.560
But the case wasn't just
about the quantities.

00:57:02.560 --> 00:57:06.680
It was about the knowledge that the
doctor had about what was going on

00:57:06.680 --> 00:57:10.410
with these patients and
the recordings, to me, were

00:57:10.410 --> 00:57:15.140
very telling that he was aware of all
these things going on in their lives

00:57:15.140 --> 00:57:19.100
but yet continued to prescribe
enormous quantities of these pills

00:57:19.100 --> 00:57:20.680
in light of those circumstances.

00:57:28.000 --> 00:57:31.060
-He was talking about these
other patients with Mr. Woodson.

00:57:40.165 --> 00:57:43.860
-He knew that they were testing positive for
cocaine, because he administered the tests.

00:57:51.260 --> 00:57:54.940
He knew that they had been arrested
for distribution of prescription drugs

00:57:54.940 --> 00:57:59.050
and/or cocaine, either in the past or while
they were patients because they told him.

00:58:14.380 --> 00:58:19.070
On one occasion, he joked that the patient
was going to end up in a very bad prison.

00:58:37.220 --> 00:58:39.590
-I think he got his rocks off.

00:58:39.590 --> 00:58:44.880
I think he lived vicariously through
Rob with the whole drug dealer issue.

00:58:44.880 --> 00:58:47.860
I think he enjoyed talking
to him about those things.

00:59:05.686 --> 00:59:09.570
-Billy always told us,
"Nothing is going to happen.

00:59:09.570 --> 00:59:11.140
I'm not doing anything wrong.

00:59:11.140 --> 00:59:12.090
Everything is open.

00:59:12.090 --> 00:59:12.964
They have everything.

00:59:12.964 --> 00:59:15.744
If they want, they can
go after the patients."

00:59:17.540 --> 00:59:22.447
-There was always this awareness
of what he was doing --

00:59:22.447 --> 00:59:25.780
tension in the family because my mother
didn't want him to, and he insisted upon

00:59:25.780 --> 00:59:26.280
it.

00:59:28.250 --> 00:59:32.910
And also, a sense, for me, of having
to choose between the both of them.

00:59:32.910 --> 00:59:38.980
And then also, always wondering when
the bottom was just going to fall out.

00:59:38.980 --> 00:59:45.330
-We are here together this afternoon
to announce the indictment and arrest

00:59:45.330 --> 00:59:49.790
of Dr. William E. Hurwitz
of McLean, Virginia,

00:59:49.790 --> 00:59:55.090
on charges of large-scale
drug trafficking of Oxycontin

00:59:55.090 --> 00:59:58.770
and other powerful prescription medications.

00:59:58.770 --> 01:00:04.650
The allegations against Dr. Hurwitz tell
a story of a major and deadly drug dealer.

01:00:12.105 --> 01:00:15.087
(BIRDS CHIRPING)

01:00:19.570 --> 01:00:25.430
-In August of 2002, Dr. Hurwitz
prescribed Mary 200 Oxycontin,

01:00:25.430 --> 01:00:29.462
several hundred methadone, and 30 Valium.

01:00:29.462 --> 01:00:33.124
And so I'm sure she had
enough for maybe a month.

01:00:33.124 --> 01:00:36.123
And then stuff runs out, and then
you're just going through withdrawals.

01:00:40.560 --> 01:00:45.350
Mary died on October 4th, 2002.

01:00:45.350 --> 01:00:49.470
She died of acute and chronic pancreatitis.

01:00:49.470 --> 01:00:52.560
That is a very painful
disease, from my understanding.

01:00:52.560 --> 01:00:59.650
The withdrawal must have masked the acute
part that actually killed her in the end.

01:00:59.650 --> 01:01:02.890
If the point where she had
not been on withdrawal,

01:01:02.890 --> 01:01:06.538
I'm sure she would have noticed
that something was wrong

01:01:06.538 --> 01:01:09.750
and would have had to have gone
to the doctor for acute pain.

01:01:17.260 --> 01:01:18.540
Absolutely.

01:01:18.540 --> 01:01:19.210
Absolutely.

01:01:19.210 --> 01:01:22.430
I mean, Mary became an addict.

01:01:22.430 --> 01:01:25.680
Without the addict, there is no...

01:01:25.680 --> 01:01:28.320
Hurwitz has no place to do anything.

01:01:28.320 --> 01:01:30.290
So it takes two.

01:01:30.290 --> 01:01:32.900
But Hurwitz is the guy
that gave her the method.

01:01:32.900 --> 01:01:34.970
He gave her the road, he gave her the drugs.

01:01:34.970 --> 01:01:40.540
Without Hurwitz, would she have found
somebody else to prescribe that many pills?

01:01:40.540 --> 01:01:43.090
I doubt it.

01:01:43.090 --> 01:01:44.970
So yes, I blame Hurwitz 100%.

01:01:54.790 --> 01:01:58.670
-I attended Hurwitz's trial, and the
prosecution threw everything they could

01:01:58.670 --> 01:02:03.000
at it -- the head of the
DEA, this Karen Tandy,

01:02:03.000 --> 01:02:08.850
who ridiculously held up this bag of 1,600
pills announcing that the DEA had saved

01:02:08.850 --> 01:02:14.590
America from this horrible
drug kingpin, Dr. Hurwitz.

01:02:14.590 --> 01:02:17.995
-Their model is, if these patients
are bad then I'm the source.

01:02:17.995 --> 01:02:20.480
So it's as if I'm the Medellin cartel.

01:02:20.480 --> 01:02:21.708
I'm the drug dealer.

01:02:24.340 --> 01:02:29.126
I think they were zealous and true
to themselves in prosecuting me.

01:02:29.126 --> 01:02:30.459
I just think that they're wrong.

01:02:45.440 --> 01:02:48.000
Given that I was 60 years
old, chances are that would

01:02:48.000 --> 01:02:49.750
have been my home for the rest of my life.

01:02:57.944 --> 01:03:02.250
"Here I stay another day,
locked up for many years.

01:03:02.250 --> 01:03:04.900
I'm all alone, so far from home.

01:03:04.900 --> 01:03:07.970
For this, I shed my tears.

01:03:07.970 --> 01:03:09.910
I feel remorse, oppressive force.

01:03:09.910 --> 01:03:11.690
I can't undo what's done.

01:03:11.690 --> 01:03:17.110
My heart's not stone, I will
atone until forgiveness won."

01:03:24.300 --> 01:03:27.516
-I have all his letters that he
wrote me from jail, every single one.

01:03:27.516 --> 01:03:28.962
He wrote a lot of those.

01:03:28.962 --> 01:03:33.010
I remember the first few times I would go to
see him, he would just kind of break down.

01:03:33.010 --> 01:03:35.550
He'd be upset when you
saw him, and then when

01:03:35.550 --> 01:03:39.080
he would leave you would think,
when am I going to see him again?

01:03:39.080 --> 01:03:40.060
Is he going to be OK?

01:03:40.060 --> 01:03:41.210
Are they going to move him?

01:03:41.210 --> 01:03:44.540
What's it going to be like?

01:03:44.540 --> 01:03:45.040
What...

01:03:47.920 --> 01:03:49.780
is this going to be forever?

01:03:49.780 --> 01:03:54.070
Is this my life now, visiting
my dad in this crap place

01:03:54.070 --> 01:03:57.660
and feeling like if I say or do
anything wrong, or hug him too long,

01:03:57.660 --> 01:04:01.640
he's going to get punished, or
the visit's going to be over?

01:04:10.320 --> 01:04:13.840
-On the one hand, I really did
feel that my actions were not

01:04:13.840 --> 01:04:17.060
criminal in their fundamental nature.

01:04:17.060 --> 01:04:21.970
At the same time, I had
a wife, I had children.

01:04:21.970 --> 01:04:26.170
And I hadn't followed their
advice and intuitions.

01:04:26.170 --> 01:04:30.340
And maybe I was overly
self-confident or just stubborn.

01:04:33.790 --> 01:04:37.612
-To me, Billy is Gimpel the Fool.

01:04:37.612 --> 01:04:42.765
Gimpel is a guy who can see truth in
front of his face, but he doesn't see it.

01:04:42.765 --> 01:04:44.600
He just cannot see it.

01:04:44.600 --> 01:04:47.880
-It's a story that my mom
sort of analogizes to my dad.

01:04:47.880 --> 01:04:52.410
I categorically reject that,
because you're not a fool.

01:04:52.410 --> 01:04:55.360
Does that resonate with you, really?

01:04:55.360 --> 01:05:02.570
-So Gimpel is a baker, and
marries a prostitute in town.

01:05:02.570 --> 01:05:05.110
And she's chronically unfaithful to him.

01:05:05.110 --> 01:05:12.080
She bears him numerous children through the
course of their marriage from other men.

01:05:12.080 --> 01:05:16.580
At some point she confesses,
and the issue for Gimpel

01:05:16.580 --> 01:05:19.919
is, "so what do I do with that information?"

01:05:21.340 --> 01:05:23.310
So there are two dreams.

01:05:23.310 --> 01:05:27.490
One dream, the devil comes to him
and tells him that the world is evil,

01:05:27.490 --> 01:05:29.680
and he has to fight evil with evil.

01:05:29.680 --> 01:05:34.240
And the devil suggests that he put urine in
the bread and sell it to the people in town

01:05:34.240 --> 01:05:35.930
to get even with them.

01:05:35.930 --> 01:05:39.516
And then the other, an angel,
comes to him and says the opposite.

01:05:42.312 --> 01:05:47.660
And he ends up on the side of the angels
by feeling that what people do, they do,

01:05:47.660 --> 01:05:51.790
and that he's still going
to be a mensch and not

01:05:51.790 --> 01:05:55.905
allow the corruption of the
world around him to corrupt him.

01:05:59.010 --> 01:06:00.680
Let me make the analogy with medicine.

01:06:00.680 --> 01:06:06.540
I mean the rules of the game would be that
I should, in effect, judge people in ways

01:06:06.540 --> 01:06:09.200
that condemn them for their frailties.

01:06:09.200 --> 01:06:12.008
And that doesn't strike me as
the right way to be a doctor.

01:06:12.008 --> 01:06:12.508
-I mean...

01:06:16.510 --> 01:06:20.779
did you really not know things?

01:06:20.779 --> 01:06:23.570
Or what does it mean to know.. what
does it mean to know something?

01:06:23.570 --> 01:06:26.840
I mean surely on some level, at least
in this story, Gimpel probably knows,

01:06:26.840 --> 01:06:27.530
can figure...

01:06:27.530 --> 01:06:30.488
I mean, obviously can figure out his
wife is probably being unfaithful.

01:06:30.488 --> 01:06:34.140
But he makes a decision, at some point,
to say that knowledge isn't relevant.

01:06:34.140 --> 01:06:34.640
-Yeah.

01:06:34.640 --> 01:06:37.140
I think in that sense, I am...

01:06:37.140 --> 01:06:41.750
with respect to my patients, I may have
acknowledged their dishonesty or their drug

01:06:41.750 --> 01:06:46.020
use or some other bad things
about them, but somehow

01:06:46.020 --> 01:06:52.675
put it into a framework in which this
was a manifestation of some pathology

01:06:52.675 --> 01:06:54.050
that I could help them deal with.

01:06:54.050 --> 01:06:54.550
-Yeah, sure.

01:06:54.550 --> 01:06:57.830
Right, because the assumption is people
don't do things because they're bad.

01:06:57.830 --> 01:07:02.080
People do things because they struggle, or
they don't have the things that they need.

01:07:02.080 --> 01:07:03.660
I mean, it's not that we're bad.

01:07:03.660 --> 01:07:06.060
It's that we're flawed.

01:07:06.060 --> 01:07:08.315
And because we're flawed, we're redeemable.

01:07:11.580 --> 01:07:17.010
-I think that having a kind of black
and white moralism and judgementalism

01:07:17.010 --> 01:07:22.360
in medicine is counterproductive
for the purposes of being a doctor.

01:07:22.360 --> 01:07:26.594
And I would say it's part of my
soul to think of it like that.

01:07:39.140 --> 01:07:41.980
-Billy was tried before I ever met him.

01:07:41.980 --> 01:07:47.020
I knew about the case just as a
reader of the Washington Post.

01:07:47.020 --> 01:07:54.060
It was a case that got a fair amount of
coverage in the Washington D.C. area.

01:07:54.060 --> 01:08:02.160
And I was convinced pretty quickly that his
first trial had been an absolute shambles.

01:08:02.160 --> 01:08:06.030
It's not one of those cases where
the doctor is making more money

01:08:06.030 --> 01:08:11.520
as he prescribes more medicine or,
in some cases, trading sex for drugs

01:08:11.520 --> 01:08:16.540
and all kinds of really horrible behavior.

01:08:16.540 --> 01:08:19.140
None of that.

01:08:19.140 --> 01:08:26.300
There was enough legal error in one trial to
have actually gotten five cases overturned.

01:08:40.250 --> 01:08:42.660
-I did think it was a hard case.

01:08:42.660 --> 01:08:46.830
I did think there was
really problematic evidence

01:08:46.830 --> 01:08:53.630
that would be very easy
for a jury to convict on.

01:08:53.630 --> 01:09:01.100
I mean, you can't look at this evidence
and not think he has blind spots.

01:09:01.100 --> 01:09:05.084
I mean, the tapes that were made by
the patients who were wearing a wire...

01:09:11.300 --> 01:09:15.590
Also, they had all these
cooperating witnesses

01:09:15.590 --> 01:09:19.870
whom they had offered
incredible sweetheart deals to.

01:09:19.870 --> 01:09:24.120
-One of the most outrageous aspects of
this case is that the people who knowingly

01:09:24.120 --> 01:09:27.220
conned him, got these pills,
sold them illegally --

01:09:27.220 --> 01:09:29.310
all knowing that they
were committing a crime --

01:09:29.310 --> 01:09:32.079
they spent less time in
prison than Dr. Hurwitz.

01:09:41.779 --> 01:09:48.200
-When you're facing a 20-year sentence,
and you have a six or seven-year-old boy

01:09:48.200 --> 01:09:53.270
outside, you're going to pretty
much tell them what they ask you --

01:09:53.270 --> 01:09:55.750
providing it's the truth.

01:09:55.750 --> 01:10:00.010
I told about Hurwitz ignoring
the track marks on people's arms.

01:10:00.010 --> 01:10:03.180
I told them how I used to
rub mulch dirt on my arms

01:10:03.180 --> 01:10:06.612
like it was make-up to cover them up.

01:10:06.612 --> 01:10:10.400
I told them about how he
told me that his wife said

01:10:10.400 --> 01:10:14.540
that I was going to get his ass locked up.

01:10:14.540 --> 01:10:19.080
I still, in my mind, didn't want to see
Dr. Hurwitz spend the rest of his life

01:10:19.080 --> 01:10:21.700
at his age in the penitentiary.

01:10:21.700 --> 01:10:23.070
But it wasn't up to me then.

01:10:23.070 --> 01:10:24.030
It was out of my hands.

01:10:27.930 --> 01:10:30.260
-The tapes were played at trial.

01:10:30.260 --> 01:10:34.080
The cooperating drug-dealing
patients had tried

01:10:34.080 --> 01:10:38.190
to draw Billy into incriminating
comments, but I didn't think,

01:10:38.190 --> 01:10:46.460
by and large, the government got
terrible statements on these tapes.

01:10:46.460 --> 01:10:50.640
I mean, you don't get comments on the
tapes like, "Let's split the profits,"

01:10:50.640 --> 01:10:51.390
or, "Let's do it."

01:10:51.390 --> 01:10:54.510
I mean, there was none of that.

01:10:54.510 --> 01:10:57.640
Our central defense was, "Billy is a doctor.

01:10:57.640 --> 01:10:59.780
He is not a drug dealer.

01:10:59.780 --> 01:11:07.030
And we are going to show you exactly
what his medical practice looked like."

01:11:07.030 --> 01:11:15.450
To do that, we put on more of
his patients who were helped,

01:11:15.450 --> 01:11:19.800
whose lives were really
saved by Billy Hurwitz.

01:11:19.800 --> 01:11:25.890
-I just explained my
pain and how bad it was.

01:11:25.890 --> 01:11:31.772
One doctor told me that if I kept going
like this, in two years, I would be dead.

01:11:31.772 --> 01:11:39.110
So here I am after years of being
on opioids, and I'm not dead.

01:11:39.110 --> 01:11:40.440
I have my life back.

01:11:40.440 --> 01:11:41.290
I'm not in bed.

01:11:41.290 --> 01:11:42.790
I'm moving again.

01:11:45.418 --> 01:11:48.286
I remember the lawyer for the DEA.

01:11:48.286 --> 01:11:51.150
The guy was saying, "You drive.

01:11:51.150 --> 01:11:53.290
You drive with that medication?"

01:11:53.290 --> 01:11:55.790
And I said, yes, I do.

01:11:55.790 --> 01:11:57.480
Because it takes away my pain.

01:11:57.480 --> 01:11:59.100
I didn't ever get high from it.

01:11:59.100 --> 01:12:02.807
It just... it took my pain
away, so I could do things.

01:12:05.490 --> 01:12:08.370
I could see that the jury was in tears.

01:12:08.370 --> 01:12:14.170
And some of the people in the stands, they
were in tears because of my testimony.

01:12:14.170 --> 01:12:21.030
-I would say, across Billy's full
roster of patients, approximately 10%

01:12:21.030 --> 01:12:23.670
fell into the category of
what the government would

01:12:23.670 --> 01:12:29.000
call "drug dealers" or "drug
seekers" or "drug abusers."

01:12:29.000 --> 01:12:35.010
And we were able to show that
Billy is the same doctor using

01:12:35.010 --> 01:12:42.490
the same methodology, the same
approach, for all of his patients.

01:12:42.490 --> 01:12:46.070
He's seeing a so-called "good"
patient at 10:00 in the morning

01:12:46.070 --> 01:12:48.640
and then, maybe at noon,
he's seeing somebody

01:12:48.640 --> 01:12:53.190
that the government regards as one of
the bad patients, the drug dealers.

01:12:53.190 --> 01:12:56.990
But the fact is, Dr. Hurwitz
is approaching his patients

01:12:56.990 --> 01:13:00.690
the same way from minute to minute.

01:13:00.690 --> 01:13:02.830
-Dr. Hurwitz might have been gullible.

01:13:02.830 --> 01:13:04.940
He might have been sloppy in some cases.

01:13:04.940 --> 01:13:06.890
And he attracted some scam artists.

01:13:06.890 --> 01:13:10.354
But that's an unfair
burden to ask of a doctor,

01:13:10.354 --> 01:13:12.020
to figure out if his patients are lying.

01:13:12.020 --> 01:13:13.950
That's the job of the DEA.

01:13:13.950 --> 01:13:18.480
And he told the DEA, he gave them a list
of all the people he prescribed drugs to.

01:13:18.480 --> 01:13:19.980
I mean, what more could a doctor do?

01:13:19.980 --> 01:13:21.997
He says, "Here are the patients.

01:13:21.997 --> 01:13:24.330
If they're reselling them,
tell me, and I'll drop them."

01:13:24.330 --> 01:13:29.290
And instead, the DEA just collects
the names and then prosecutes him.

01:13:29.290 --> 01:13:34.130
-If you want to call a doctor a criminal,
if you want to call him a drug dealer,

01:13:34.130 --> 01:13:40.490
it isn't enough that he practices outside
the conventional boundaries of what

01:13:40.490 --> 01:13:43.340
most doctors would do.

01:13:43.340 --> 01:13:50.650
There had to be a clear distinction between
medical malpractice on the one hand,

01:13:50.650 --> 01:13:56.090
and criminalizing the practice
of medicine on the other.

01:13:56.090 --> 01:14:01.776
This case actually tested that boundary
like none other that I'm aware of.

01:14:41.330 --> 01:14:44.830
-I've been thrown out
of every emergency room.

01:14:44.830 --> 01:14:48.360
And they didn't like my husband,
because he said, "I'm not leaving here

01:14:48.360 --> 01:14:51.792
until you take care of my wife's pain."

01:14:51.792 --> 01:14:55.380
As we walk in, I could see
the nurse tell the doctor,

01:14:55.380 --> 01:14:56.949
"She was just here the other day."

01:14:56.949 --> 01:14:59.240
And my husband said, "Yeah,
she was here the other day,

01:14:59.240 --> 01:15:01.982
and she still has the same pain."

01:15:09.400 --> 01:15:13.560
-Prescription drug use is the
nation's fastest growing drug problem.

01:15:13.560 --> 01:15:18.930
-Since 1999, prescription opioid-related
overdose deaths quadrupled.

01:15:18.930 --> 01:15:23.230
-And many who first abuse
prescription opioids turn to heroin.

01:15:23.230 --> 01:15:27.070
-There's a surge in use among
women, among whites, and also

01:15:27.070 --> 01:15:29.050
in higher socioeconomic groups.

01:15:29.050 --> 01:15:32.900
-High school students, college
athletes, teachers, and professionals...

01:15:32.900 --> 01:15:37.430
-The real gateway behind this -- the real
gateway drug -- is prescription opioid.

01:15:37.430 --> 01:15:42.350
-Entire clinics have now shut
down, doctors being put in jail...

01:15:42.350 --> 01:15:44.710
-The prosecution alleges
that this doctor was

01:15:44.710 --> 01:15:47.710
so reckless in prescribing
narcotic drugs that she's

01:15:47.710 --> 01:15:50.710
guilty of murder in the second degree.

01:15:50.710 --> 01:15:54.630
-Even Dr. Portenoy now
admits that they grossly

01:15:54.630 --> 01:15:57.660
underestimated the risk of addiction.

01:15:57.660 --> 01:16:01.210
Now we know that the potential
for just your average patient,

01:16:01.210 --> 01:16:07.360
with no history of addiction, is as high as
30% -- some studies showing as high as 50%.

01:16:07.360 --> 01:16:08.700
So there's been a shift.

01:16:08.700 --> 01:16:12.750
And now, doctors are terrified
to prescribe opioids.

01:16:17.080 --> 01:16:20.526
A pain doctor coined this
term, "opioid refugees."

01:16:20.526 --> 01:16:26.250
It's like, "Hey, all through the 80s and
90s you guys gave me tons of opioids.

01:16:26.250 --> 01:16:29.190
Before you thought this was the
right treatment, and now you don't?

01:16:29.190 --> 01:16:31.796
Help me understand that."

01:16:31.796 --> 01:16:35.973
-If Dr. Hurwitz was in practice
again we would be gratefully...

01:16:35.973 --> 01:16:36.700
-Yeah.

01:16:36.700 --> 01:16:37.885
-...absolutely at his door.

01:16:37.885 --> 01:16:38.384
-Yeah.

01:16:38.384 --> 01:16:39.797
-Because he is the finest.

01:16:39.797 --> 01:16:41.130
-He was the best of all of them.

01:16:45.960 --> 01:16:48.972
-It continues to be very
problematic and very complicated.

01:16:48.972 --> 01:16:52.180
First of all, there are still lots of
doctors out there prescribing high dose

01:16:52.180 --> 01:16:54.939
opioids -- probably who shouldn't be.

01:16:54.939 --> 01:16:56.980
At the same time, you've
got doctors saying, "I'm

01:16:56.980 --> 01:16:59.570
not going to prescribe these ever again."

01:16:59.570 --> 01:17:04.290
It's this sort of haphazard,
desperate response to a problem

01:17:04.290 --> 01:17:07.330
that we really haven't
figured out how to solve yet.

01:17:07.330 --> 01:17:11.390
How can we be compassionate
doctors and try to help

01:17:11.390 --> 01:17:17.490
these individuals experience less pain,
while also not creating addiction?

01:17:17.490 --> 01:17:19.170
-There it is.

01:17:19.170 --> 01:17:20.510
Good to go.

01:17:20.510 --> 01:17:23.630
I got to get my goggles right there.

01:17:23.630 --> 01:17:24.150
It'll start.

01:17:26.520 --> 01:17:30.790
(MOTOR STARTS)

01:17:30.790 --> 01:17:37.120
I recently got off it about,
I would say 55, 60 days ago.

01:17:37.120 --> 01:17:40.500
And it really has been a big difference.

01:17:40.500 --> 01:17:42.360
I have a lot more energy.

01:17:42.360 --> 01:17:49.060
I'm overall, mentally,
much more stable than ever.

01:17:49.060 --> 01:17:52.790
And I still hurt, but that's OK.

01:17:52.790 --> 01:17:56.060
We can all live with a little bit
of pain after you get used to it.

01:18:00.530 --> 01:18:02.610
Yeah, this is it.

01:18:02.610 --> 01:18:10.460
My son Evan, he's feeling a lot
of anger, animosity towards me.

01:18:10.460 --> 01:18:12.280
He's living elsewhere now.

01:18:12.280 --> 01:18:16.320
But I think in time that he'll
see, and he'll come around

01:18:16.320 --> 01:18:18.840
and say, "Hey, Dad's doing really well."

01:18:18.840 --> 01:18:23.430
And I think him and I will do
real well together in the future.

01:18:23.430 --> 01:18:24.950
And I sure hope so.

01:18:24.950 --> 01:18:25.450
Yeah.

01:18:25.450 --> 01:18:27.344
Because I miss him, a lot.

01:18:31.550 --> 01:18:37.930
-I'm satisfied for some of these
families' lives that we did change.

01:18:37.930 --> 01:18:46.880
But I don't know if Dr. Hurwitz
realizes how many hundreds of lives

01:18:46.880 --> 01:18:49.376
he impacted negatively.

01:18:49.376 --> 01:18:50.774
-Where is he?

01:18:50.774 --> 01:18:51.976
Be careful.

01:18:51.976 --> 01:18:53.460
-Ah!

01:18:53.460 --> 01:18:53.960
Oh.

01:18:56.936 --> 01:18:57.928
-Pretty.

01:18:57.928 --> 01:19:01.896
-And then there's a guitar on the side,
because my Dad loved to play guitar.

01:19:09.832 --> 01:19:12.308
-Street.

01:19:12.308 --> 01:19:12.808
-Street.

01:19:16.300 --> 01:19:24.104
-It hurts every day, seeing what my children
have to go through without their Dad.

01:19:24.104 --> 01:19:25.520
And they're like, "It's OK, Mommy.

01:19:25.520 --> 01:19:27.810
You're Mommy and Daddy both, now."

01:19:27.810 --> 01:19:29.310
But...

01:19:29.310 --> 01:19:30.810
it's not OK.

01:19:40.318 --> 01:19:43.933
There's so much that people go through.

01:19:47.800 --> 01:19:50.520
They're not just drug dealers.

01:19:50.520 --> 01:19:53.510
They're not just mommies.

01:19:53.510 --> 01:20:00.260
It's a whole thing, all wrapped
up into a big bundle of mess.

01:20:00.260 --> 01:20:02.890
And that's what people's lives are.

01:20:02.890 --> 01:20:12.370
And that's one of the reasons why I had
to let things go with Hurwitz, because it

01:20:12.370 --> 01:20:14.063
wasn't black and white with him either.

01:20:19.835 --> 01:20:24.550
-There's no question that I made
mistakes in medical practice.

01:20:24.550 --> 01:20:28.870
I could replay numerous decisions
I made about specific patients

01:20:28.870 --> 01:20:32.130
or specific instances in which I
might have said, "No, this is enough.

01:20:32.130 --> 01:20:33.138
Goodbye."

01:20:35.890 --> 01:20:37.863
But I don't dwell on the past.

01:20:43.870 --> 01:20:50.360
My ex-wife and my daughter and I
have houses all on the same street.

01:20:50.360 --> 01:20:56.584
And my daily job now is to take a nap with
my 3 and 1/2 year old granddaughter, Anna.

01:21:00.540 --> 01:21:04.397
I like being a doctor, and I
like taking care of people.

01:21:04.397 --> 01:21:05.855
But there are always people around.

01:21:09.730 --> 01:21:17.480
-My father is deeply generous, but his
generosity doesn't make distinctions.

01:21:17.480 --> 01:21:19.250
It doesn't make distinctions.

01:21:19.250 --> 01:21:22.830
And that's sort of the
blessing and the curse of it.

01:21:28.572 --> 01:21:30.620
-We care for each other.

01:21:30.620 --> 01:21:33.970
He's here, and father of my children.

01:21:33.970 --> 01:21:40.020
And what am I going to
gain by being his enemy?

01:21:40.020 --> 01:21:41.895
No.

01:21:41.895 --> 01:21:43.380
What's done is done.

01:21:48.830 --> 01:21:51.880
-My ex-wife thinks that I'm
Gimpel the Fool and that I haven't

01:21:51.880 --> 01:21:55.260
learned from my mistakes, so to speak.

01:21:55.260 --> 01:22:00.110
But Gimpel, he's able to treat people
in ways that he sees as fair and just.

01:22:00.110 --> 01:22:01.478
And he's at peace with himself.

01:22:05.230 --> 01:22:13.020
Notwithstanding the stigma of having been
convicted and sentenced and gone to prison,

01:22:13.020 --> 01:22:15.753
I still feel that I've had a moral life.

01:22:15.753 --> 01:22:17.590
And I felt that I've done good in the world.

01:22:19.390 --> 01:22:24.240
And I think that's all I can say about it.