People all across this great nation are in pain. They have hard lives. Are you still sore? I can't work here no more. I'll be all right. And we have the cure. This new miracle drug. Oxycon, That's a clip from the Trailer for Dope Sick, the Emmy award-winning series that dives deep into one of the most devastating crises of our time, the opioid epidemic. The show pulls back the curtain on Purdue Pharma. The company that aggressively marketed Oxycontin fueling addiction across America. It's gripping television based on real events and real people. Today on Grieving Out Loud, I'm honored to be joined by two of those real life heroes. When I was first contacted by Danny Strong, the writer, director, showrunner for Dopesick the creator basically of Dopesick. Um, and I sat down with him in, uh, he came and, saw me in Roanoke, Virginia, I think in 2019. And I told him upfront, the only reason I'm talking to you is because I wanna make sure that you portray the investigation accurately and factually. Rick Mount Castle is the inspiration behind one of the main characters in Season one, portrayed by actor Peter sars guard. His real life story is every bit as compelling as the show suggests. Though he didn't hold a top position within the Department of Justice, Mount Kessel was among the first to take on the powerful Purdue Pharma. so We started the investigation. Now, what was interesting is that nobody else was doing it in the country, and there Right. a ton of. Of headlines about Oxycontin overdoses and, and Oxycontin overdose deaths. And we, we reached out to the FBI of course, and they said, no, we don't wanna have anything to do with you. out to the DEA and it was like a, well, we'll give you a couple of guys to come down once a month to serve subpoenas. So basically, basically worthless. Also joining me today is Ed b, whose story inspired characters in dope sick, and raising Lazarus after losing his teenage son to an Oxycontin overdose. At the very beginning of the epidemic, ed refused to stay silent. Long before most people even knew the name Oxycontin, he was sounding the alarm, raising awareness about the drug's, dangers, and taking on Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family when few others would. After years of heartbreak and hard work, ed says it's finally starting to feel like justice is within reach. Everyone, Just about everyone knows the name Sackler, and they associate it with greed and death. even. knows the name. Oxycontin Fentanyl. I call Fentanyl Oxycontin's grandchild Well, Rick and Ed, thank you so much for joining me on grieving Out Loud. Ed, welcome back. We've had you on before and the story of your son, Eddie. Who died at 18 after taking Oxycontin. And we'll put a, a link in our show notes so people can go back and listen to that full episode. But today we are really here to talk about the work that was done to really, I would say bring down Purdue Pharma, um, to where we are to today. And I'm so grateful to be joined by you as well, Rick, because. When I watched Dope Sick, I have to say that I was completely inspired by your character as a longtime investigative reporter. You're kind, you were the underdog, uh, played by Peter  Sarsgaard, and that was just an incredible performance, first of all. But also you really felt, um, you know, for, for what you had done back then, the, the uphill battle that you had to climb. Um, so welcome to Grieving Out Loud, and I'm so glad you that you're here to share a little insight. Thank you for having me, Angela. It's a pleasure to meet you and to be here and to, to be back, uh, at least, uh, virtually with my friend Ed. Rick is a decorated former federal prosecutor whose lifelong dedication to protecting vulnerable communities has earned him national recogni. First in the courtroom, and now as a docuseries producer. We'll talk later about his new expose now streaming on Amazon. But first, let's go back to where it all began. When Rick found himself on the front lines in one of the first places, hit hard by the opioid epidemic. You were an underdog. You really were. yes. So here's the thing, like. Uh, first of all, the US Attorney's office I. Western District of Virginia is one of the smallest offices in the country. Okay. And then on top of that, I was in a, uh, me and Randy Ramsey, my co-counsel on that case. We were located in a satellite office in Abingdon, Virginia, where there were a total of three. Uh, attorneys. So we were in the, we were at the, the very bottom, basically of the Department of Justice hierarchy. But what we saw, because we were in that region that Purdue Tar targeted initially, rural regions with a lot of working class and, uh, people that were not economically advantaged, who did hard labor and got hurt. With, you know, and, and needed pain medicines, that's who they targeted. Uh, and we started seeing things happening in our community. And, and it's a very, you know, as you can imagine, even though we were feds, we are part of the community because it's a very small community, we saw that all of a sudden this new drug called Oxycontin was everywhere. That there was a huge spike in overdoses and overdose deaths related to Oxycontin. Uh, crime was, was skyrocketed, rocketing, just property crimes. Most of it, according to the local law enforcement, being caused by people who were addicted to Oxycontin and needing to get money, you know, and steal things in order to, to buy Oxycontin. we knew, and we heard it was on the street being sold for a dollar a milligram. And we heard that Purdue sales reps were going into pharmacies and, and pressuring almost to the point of threatening. And there is some, um, you know, there that, that's portrayed in dope sick. And that actually happened to the point of threatening pharmacists if they didn't fill Oxycontin prescriptions. And so we're sitting down there and saying. Basically, the conversation that Randy and I had was, Hey, we owe it to our community to look into this and see what's going on because it is having such a devastating on the community. so we started the investigation. Now, what was interesting is that nobody else was doing it in the country, and there Right. a ton of. Of headlines about Oxycontin overdoses and, and Oxycontin overdose deaths. And we, we reached out to the FBI of course, and they said, no, we don't wanna have anything to do with you. out to the DEA and it was like a, well, we'll give you a couple of guys to come down once a month to serve subpoenas. So basically, basically worthless. So at the time. thought, well that's because we're in such an out of the way place and they don't care about us. But as I look back and look at things that, you know, dope sick actually has these things, uh, that were going on right before we started our investigation. All the political play up in DC and with DEA it now comes makes sense after in hindsight, that. was a political push on the feds, the, the major, the FBI and the DEA to not do anything, and that's why they wouldn't help us. So we had to go and we, we kind of pulled together, uh, a ragtag group of investigators from different places. Like the Virginia Attorney General's, uh, Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Health and Human Services, office of Inspector General Depart, uh, defense, criminal Investigative Service, department of Labor. We were just like pulling these, these together a group. And that's, and that's how we kind of started on the five-year journey of that case. Because Purdue had all of the money, all of the power, the politicians in their back pockets, that kind of thing. And even when you did go to court and the case where Ed and the parents showed up, they still weren't stopped at that point. That was what just floored me in, in this entire story. And if they would've been stopped. We, we may not have gotten to the Fentanyl crisis. Now I say may because, you know, we don't know how and, and maybe our children, my children and the those who died after Eddie would be alive. And, and that's what kind I. weighs on me to this day. And, and so, so here's, you know, the political power play that happened was we finished our investigation in 2006 I started writing what is a standard document in those kinds of cases, A prosecution memorandum. lays out all the evidence and identifies the documents and the witnesses that we would present at a trial, and we, our recommendation, of course, was to prosecute not only the company, but the three highest corporate officials that we could hold responsible based on the evidence. were those three? The CEO, the general counsel and the medical director. we, our recommendation was to prosecute everybody for felonies, for serious felonies. Of course, went up to the Department of Justice for review and there were meetings up there. Now we had, we had gotten, I knew how, kind of, how the power play worked.'cause I worked in DC for about nine years before I went down to Virginia. But we had gotten our US attorney on board, John Brownley, and so he was the one that we, that we needed to carry the water, so to speak, at the Department of Justice. And there were meetings, uh, at DOJ with the Deputy Attorney General and the Assistant Attorney General for the criminal division, which are, they're pretty high ranking officials and they're political appointees, of course. Uh, and they met with Purdue's counsel. Uh, they met with them first, which is a little bit unusual gave them as much time as they needed. they met with our team, the US attorney, myself and Randy, and a couple of attorneys, uh, line attorneys from the Department of Justice, and we got an hour to make our presentation. Okay. And so I remember standing out in the hallway afterwards. the, uh, assistant Attorney general for criminal wanted to talk to Brownley, the US attorney, you know, in a, in their own meeting. And so we were, all US worker bees were waiting outside in the hallway and Brownley comes out, all flustered, red faced angry and basically says in this crowded hallway with people walking around. And I say that because. It wasn't a confidential communication, not an attorney client because of the location and the people that were there. He says they're not gonna let us prosecute them, the, the individuals. so that was, you know, kind of a, a slap in the face Yeah. us Devastating. to the victims, Yeah. than any, anything. Right. Right. we, so the calculation that we had was we can prosecute these top three executives who report directly to the board of directors and Ed. We know who's on the board of directors. Of course it's the Sackler family. if they had been facing serious felony charges and or had been convicted of those charges. Our calculation is that one or more of them would agree to cooperate against their, the real people making the decisions 'cause that's the Hmm. ingredient we needed in order to go after the shot callers, the the people on the board of directors. Are you ready to protect the next generation from the dangers of substance use? Emily's Hope has created a comprehensive K through 12 substance use prevention curriculum designed to educate, empower, and equip students with the tools they need to make healthy choices are age appropriate lessons, starting kindergarten and build through high school using science, real stories and interactive learning to help kids understand their bodies, brains, and risk of drug use. We're already reaching thousands of students across multiple states, and we're just getting started. Visit emily's hope edu.org to learn more and share our curriculum with your school administrators and counselors. At Emily's Hope, we believe prevention begins with education. Let's work together to keep our kids safe. It was during that time that Rick and Ed first crossed paths, but they wouldn't truly get to know each other until years later., At the sentencing, the judge allowed, um, some of the family members to come in address the court and Purdue and the three executives at the sentencing. And I believe Ed was there, uh, along with several other. Uh, family members. Uh, so we crossed paths in the courtroom, although we didn't formally meet at that time, and I think we actually met dope sick is what kind of, uh, initiated our meeting at a screening in Richmond. Uh, in the fall of 2021 is when we first met face-to-face. And Beth Macy, who founder of Relative Against Purdue Pharmawrote the book, dope Sick, introduced me to Rick. uh, we shook hands and hugged and, uh, talked a little Since then, the two have gotten to know each other well and have become powerful voices and holding Purdue Pharma accountable while raising awareness about the opioid crisis. Their portrayals in dope sick also help bring national attention to Purdue's role in the epidemic. A portrayal that Rick says is largely accurate. when I was first contacted by Danny Strong, the writer, director, showrunner for Dopesick, the creator basically of Dopesick Um, and I sat down with him in, uh, he came and, saw me in Roanoke, Virginia, I think in 2019. And I told him upfront, the only reason I'm talking to you is because I wanna make sure that you portray the investigation accurately and factually. And he did that in terms of the, the underlying conduct, the foundational conduct that Purdue did, which sometimes if you look at it, you say, they couldn't have done that and gotten away with it. Right. And he, he portrayed that accurately. Now what? Of course it's, it's fictional, it's fiction based on fact. So the, some of the conversations and the people involved and, those details, like, you know, I was never, I, I was never a Virginia Tech fan and I think there's a portrayal of me with, you You, you don't wanna be on record as a Virginia Tech fan. Okay? no, I don't But, was not, but but you were, you were. You were. were a little embellished, of course, but the underlying facts of, uh, of what we found very accurately portrayed in dope sick. What, what strikes me, Rick, is that so much of that, I mean, you did such hard work and such good work to bring the case, you know, before a court at all in the first place, right? Um, but to not get the criminal prosecutions of the Sackler families or the, uh, top executives. I know that's been a, a disappointment that you had to live with and the fallout from that, but I don't think they, I think Purdue would still be in business today if you hadn't done that initial investigation. Yeah, and I hadn't thought of it that way. Angela and I, I appreciate you raising that because one else. Wanted to do the case, Right, right. You think about, and I look back and I said, wow, you know, this little, this little band of people in the middle of nowhere in Virginia, we did that case and we did, you know, what we did was we were able to salvage and at the time it was like, you know, we've gotta shine a spotlight for the country, for the public on what these guys are, do, have done. And are doing. And so, you know, we were able through negotiation to salvage at least the misdemeanor guilty pleas of the top three executives. else that almost never been done in all the pharmaceutical fraud cases. of them criminal, uh, a lot of them, a lot of them criminal and civil. And some of 'em may be just civil, but what is rarely done in those kinds of cases is to go after the responsible corporate officials, Right. It's usually just the corporation itself, right? Not the, not the people, and they can write off a corporation, go to the law office and pull down another corporation, keep doing the same right. And it's the cost of doing business to write a check. Behavior doesn't change as long as they're making money. And you know, we had gone into that case at the beginning the understanding and the goal that we needed to hold the individuals, the executives that were responsible for, for this conduct at we needed to hold the ones we could prove at the highest level accountable. Otherwise, this is just gonna be another one of those. corporate guilty pleas. The Department of Justice has a big press release, puts on some theater about, look at all we're doing and we're taking down these, these companies and making'em write big checks and then everybody goes home and it's business as usual. So we had at least thought, well, at least we salvaged those corporate executives, you know, ma at least making 'em plead guilty to a crime. yet it could have been so much more. Right. And so this was 2006, and I know Ed, you've done so much advocacy work with your group and you, uh, just continued to, to really beat this drum that it wasn't enough, um, that, that that justice had really not been served even though there was, there was something had happened with the case, but Purdue continued to operate. Exactly. So what happened was, and we, day in the courtroom, the parents felt we had a moral victory because at the time, Purdue was given a record, $600 million fine, and the executives were given separate. 34.5 million fine. And, uh, we, we weren't happy that we begged that judge. We all wrote letters. We begged him to give jail time and the judge was apologetic that day, and I'm paraphrasing, but he said out loud in the courtroom something to the effect that I wish I could give them jail time. But I have to go by the sentencing guidelines. he never saw Rick's 120 page memo detailing felony crimes. US parents had no clue we might have rioted if we known about this 120 page memo and it was sat on as it when I got to speak, I spoke and I got so emotional I tensed up. Walking off the stand, I stared down Michael Friedman, the CEO of Purdue Pharma, so much that two of his private security guards got up and followed me. And that's how tense it was. Uh, but we thought it was an emotional victory as it turns out. Record fine. Purdue Pharma made $2 billion that year, and Yeah. three months they hired a hundred more sales reps and went from 2 billion a year to selling 3 billion a year. Yeah. went on that way until finally Massachusetts sued the Sackler family proper. Which led to Purdue bankruptcy, I'll give you a quick update where we stand on this, this, this started six years ago, five or six years ago. So I called that a bankruptcy scam from the beginning because when I first read about it, I've read that the Sackler family insisting on something called third party immunity. In other words, they were not going bankrupt. Purdue Pharma was going bankrupt, but they wanted all the protections of bankruptcy without going bankruptcy. Can I just clarify for people that what it meant was, was that, um, the family itself, their money was protected. They couldn't face civil lawsuits from people like you who've lost children. Yeah, and more outrageous. It was proven that they were shipping money offseas. They were offshoring literally$11 billion, or 11 billion. I, for, they know the exact number and they know where it went. But because of international laws, it was almost untouchable. uh, you, you know, so we fought that all the way to the Supreme Court and on the day that the arguments were made outside of the Supreme Court. I was in the Supreme Court courtroom and when the Sackler lawyers started speaking their bs, I stood up and walked out I walked out and we were outside yelling for justice. And another thing that happened after 2007, we held two rallies outside the DOJ. Rick spoke at both rallies. actually attended the second rally. We're calling for the DOJ to do their job, and now I don't expect anything to happen. But there's been a rumor forever that the DOJ, if they're going to do anything, would not do it until a, after the bankruptcy. And guess what? The bankruptcy is wrapping up in early 2026. It's going to be done. They're voting on it right now. It will be approved. uh, besides victims getting a vote, CVS pharmacy gets a vote. the pharmacies, all the insurance companies, every, every victim who hired a lawyer, their lawyer saying, look, this is the best deal we can get. And, remind people about a year ago, the Supreme Court basically ruled that the Sacklers could be held liable. Yes, so that's the good news. So in 2026, once the bankruptcy ends, there was like 2,500 lawsuits put on hold. a lot of these lawsuits will go away because they got involved in the bankruptcy. once the, once the bankruptcy ends, Nassau County, New York for one, has sworn that they are going to take the Sacklers to trial, which I'm looking forward to 'cause more evidence will get out. like you, you reminded me and Rick, even though we didn't get real justice, no one went to jail. Just Purdue Pharma finally going out. Business. Everyone, just about everyone knows the name Sackler, and they associate it with greed and death. even. knows the name. Oxycontin Fentanyl. I call Fentanyl Oxycontin's grandchild with, you know, without Oxycontin what the Sacklers did. Then we'll talk about it later. When Rick brings up his new documentary. There's so many similarities. Well, and we know that the Oxycontin created A new wave. There have been several opioid crisis crises in this country, but it created a new wave and that eventually, that demand for the drug eventually led to the fentanyl and the fentanyl crisis that we've seen over the last decade. But Rick, was your work done after 2006 or did you continue. Yeah, and the case was, um. I, I guess, finally wrapped up in 2007, you know, with the investigate. It took like a year after the investigation was done to resolve everything. Uh, and we had that court hearing, so my work on Purdue was done and of course, went on to other things. Um, you know, I think the next case we did is teased in the, dope sick episode eight is, uh, Abbott Laboratories. Which was marketing, um, an anti-epileptic drug as a, basically a chemical restraint for elderly dementia patients in nursing homes. So, so greed, um, you know, knows no boundaries, especially in the pharmaceutical industry. so my, you know, my, my work actually on opioids ended then now I'm just, I've just been looking and seeing the second case that was filed in 2020. In which Purdue, the company pled guilty to even more serious crimes. And that Department of Justice, the 2020 Department of Justice didn't even lift a finger to even try to prosecute any of the responsible corporate officers. And if you look at all of the filings have been made in, in that criminal case. And in the two civil settlements, one with the Sackler family, there is plenty of evidence there to show the Sackler family's hand directly on Purdue when it commits those three serious felonies that involve not only healthcare fraud, but actual drug distribution. If you read the, the factual statements. And so that shows to me that there is a clear, policy the Department of Justice, not to hold anybody accountable, uh, that has an association with Purdue. And that is really what Ed is talking about when it comes to these rallies and trying to get them to do something, um, is that they have all the evidence, they have, you know, your memo that you wrote, a, you know, 2006, they have that case from 2020. Yet no individual, no member of the Sackler family has been held they, accountable. of that. Yes. And now you have a, a, basically a recidivist. This is a, a a a two time now drug dealing felon. What would the, uh, prosecutors do to, know, your average person on the Right, that was a second time felon. right, right. but for these guys that have billions, they let 'em walk and do. to me, that's the outrage It is outrageous and because the billions speak louder than anything else, right? So they use their, their money and their influence to, to protect themselves and it, it, it is a travesty of justice really. Yeah. And I will add one thing. I I think on top of that, if in the Supreme Court's decision, uh, which sent the case back to the bankruptcy court, they talk, they go through the facts and the facts they recite about the Sacklers and the billions that they laundered out of. Uh, Purdue from 2008 to 2016, they described facts that equal money laundering the federal money laundering statute. And so the Department of Justice could very easily have done a money, money laundering case against the Sackler family, either criminal or civil, and brought those billions or put them on the hook for those billions of dollars. And yet, you know, as time goes forward and statute of limitations become an issue, it becomes less likely that anything else is gonna be done. And so the government's gonna collect the money, the checks in, whatever they're gonna do, you know, and, and that's the concern. Yes, that's a whole other issue. What's gonna happen with all these opioid settlement dollars? And we watch that very closely at our organization. We've received some opioid settlement dollars for some of our programs, which, you know, we're just the little guy and we receive a small, very small amount of money compared to the billions that are being doled out across the United States. But, um, yeah, what's gonna happen to that money? We just had our, um, attorney general in my state call for that money not to set in an endowment fund, but to go. Directly to help with addiction treatment. But this is a whole other chapter I think, of this saga. Yes. because really the people are the people who need this money and who should be getting the treatment and is the prevention and is all that really going to happen? So we don't ever face this kind of thing again. And so we can eliminate, , this crisis that we're facing now with fentanyl and other overdoses. As one of the nation's strongest financial organizations, first Premier Bank and Premier Bank Card have the strength to do good. We support nearly 700 organizations and nonprofits. Our employees give more than 30,000 volunteer hours annually, and we are continually seeking ways to make South Dakota an even better place to live. It's the premier way, first Premier Bank and Premier Bank art. While my home state of South Dakota has distributed a small portion of its opioid settlement funds, attorney General Marty Jackley, and the mayors of Rapid City and Sioux Falls, the two largest cities in the state are now pushing for the release of millions more. If you're curious about how your own state is handling settlement money, you can visit. Opioid settlement tracker.com. And of course, we've provided a link in the show notes for you. And while you're there, we'd appreciate it if you just took a moment to rate and review this episode and share it with your friends and family. You can also watch the video version of this podcast on the grieving out loud YouTube channel. Just make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss the latest episodes. In my home state of New Jersey. This is some of the waste. They had two awareness concerts for fentanyl, right? Sounds like a good idea, right? They'll help bring awareness. They spent over $600,000 on just two concerts, Wow. part of the problem is every state is different, Yes. Mm-hmm. plan. Most of this money, in my opinion, should have went to free rehabs, but it didn't finally like you said, your attorney general's calling for it, but it should have been a national, it wasn't. So every state's different. Yeah. And um, Rick, Rick, you mentioned that this kind of corruption that we saw with Oxycontin with the drug company, Purdue is not an isolated case in, in medical devices with, um, other drugs there. Greed does seem to really speak in the pharmaceutical and maybe medical industry oftentimes, and you've uncovered other cases of that, including. What's happening in our nation's nursing homes, and this is something that is near and dear to my heart. It's a little off the subject of what I usually talk about on this podcast, but as an investigative reporter, I did many stories about elderly abuse and about bad nursing homes and, um, for example, the skyline. Chain of nursing home and Joseph Schwartz, who, who I think has finally been held accountable in the courts, but it, it's been years and years in the making. Tell me how you got involved with that, with the looking into, uh, nurse elderly care and nursing homes. So Angela, after, um, after the Purdue case, I did the Abbott Labs case that involved, um, the off-label marketing of an anti-Apple drug that they had that was, was going off patent and getting old, and they wanted to beef up the sales. They decided to off-label it to nursing homes to treat agitation in elderly dementia patients. In essence a form of chemical restraint. Um, because one of the side, main side effects of that drug was somnolence. So it kind of put people to sleep and of course when you're asleep, you're less agitated. And they were going in trying to replace the anti-psychotics that were get, becoming more and more scrutinized at the time. And, and were very blatant about that. And you know what? And then I also then prosecuted a nursing home owner who was out of state running a nursing home into the ground rural Virginia. But what kind of saw from all those cases is that these large companies and owners that had were wanted to make a lot of money, uh, were exploiting basically people who I would call were voiceless, Defenseless. Yeah. right voiceless and defenseless, and. That's one of the things why the work that you do is so important is because you give voice to you know, people who are, have opioid use disorder or a, or, or addiction and family members. give them voice because of the, and and try to reduce the stigma because of that stigma out there is is capitalized by. Those big companies say that, that, hey, don't listen to those people because you know, they're whatever label you wanna put on them. thing in nursing homes. Oh, those are just people with dementia. They don't, they don't know what's going on. They don't, you Yeah. really need to care about them. that's the pattern. That I see in with the, the exploitation, particularly in the healthcare industry, you know, and now you see more and more stories about big insurance companies denying coverage on people that need, All right. care. uh, it's important I think, to give voice to those victims who are perceived in our society to be voiceless and to take away the stigma that, and, and, and the bias against those victims. so that caused me, you know, through a series of unforeseen events, I got connected with a filmmaker in Los Angeles whose mother was being basically neglected and abused in a nursing home, and walked her through that process and explained to her that it was the system that what was happening was not just happening to her, but it was happening nationwide to many, many people because of the business model. was, was common in that industry. And you know, at the end of that ordeal when, and her mother ended up passing away in 2020, in the summer of 20, 22, 3 years ago, at the end of that ordeal, we were just talking and saying, how do we change the system? Because it's, it's horrible. It's, it's not only horrible to the, uh, residents of these facilities, it's, it's, it's a trauma to the family members. How do we change that system? And so. Again, it's giving voice to the voiceless through the media that the public consumes today. So we decided to make a documentary, which turned out to be a three-part docuseries, and it's now airing on Amazon Prime Video. And to be, uh, to expose this system, this exploiting system, uh, and, and to educate people about what's going on, to give voice to the voiceless. And to change attitudes that people have towards of nursing homes who are generally elderly and disabled. There are some young people there that are disabled Right. they are stigmatized. Just as you know, uh, people who are addicted to opioids are stigmatized unfairly and unjustly, and so we have to give them voice and to change the public's attitude towards those folks so that they care about them. Here's a quick sneak peek at the trailer for Rick's documentary. No Country for Old People, which you can now watch on Amazon Prime. When cash is the primary reason for doing something anywhere in the healthcare system, people suffer. There is the huge ethical issue within this industry is you are literally killing people to make more money. They're trying to make her. Die faster than she wants to. Do we care about the patients, the residents, or do we care about the finances of the healthcare industrial complex? And we have to look in the mirror and ask ourselves, as a country, what are we gonna do for our older adults, for our most vulnerable, for our loved ones? And I think that's why you're doing this documentary. Was that a big switch for you to become a producer of a documentary? I, I know you're an attorney and you know, with all that it must have been a little different world. It, it was a complete switch at the time, you know, and I had retired from being an attorney back in 2022, and so, okay. I, I, I'll, I'll help with this. and it turns out to be, you know, maybe that was the missing ingredient from the Purdue case, right? There was, did the case. I assumed, oh, I'll let the news pick it up and publicize it, but, but it maybe it wasn't publicized enough Maybe not. and maybe so, so I've had a complete turnaround. So it was a completely different, but it also fit into being an attorney and an advocate because. who go to court tell stories. That's what they do. And so that's what, you do in your podcast is you give life to people's stories. That's what the documentary does, and that resonates with people, right? That makes them empathize, that makes them feel like they're part of what's going on, and that's important. Yeah, I think it's kind of a natural fit for you to do something like that.'cause some of my best sources when I was working as an investigative reporter were attorneys. So some of my best stories and some of my best sources because really, um, oftentimes you join together fighting for the underdog if, if that's who the attorney is working for. Um, and in the case of when you're representing either. The victims in the opioid crisis or the victims, you know, in a nursing home. It's all, like you said, related and in some way connected. And Ed, um, you continue to do this work every day. I know you're retired from your night shift job right now, and now you put your focus sort of back on what's going on in the world, uh, with the overdose crisis. Yeah, I'm, I'm still calling for justice in the Purdue Pharma Sackler Saga. And like I said, I know it'll be a miracle, but we still have a chance and I support many Fentanyl groups. I think the more that we can all work together, the better. So I, I really appreciate the chance to meet you, Rick, and to see you again, ed. Really appreciate it. Um, look forward to future conversations as well, and we'll put in the show notes how to watch the documentary, your documentary that's out about abuse in the nursing home, and then problems with the nursing home industry And uh, I always remind everybody you have to watch Dopesick on Hulu. Yes. more about Rick? And, uh, one thing in that show that I know is true, Rick used to go in, in the middle of the night to the office just to fax something to Purdue to make them think they had a much bigger staff going after Good for you, Rick. so that's true. That's true. Yeah. that is true. Thank you so much and thank you, um, for sharing this. I really appreciate it. Yes. Thank you for all you do, Angela. Keep, keep giving voice to the voiceless. Thank you Angela and Rick. And thank you for taking the time to learn more about this really important topic. If you or someone you love is struggling with substance use disorder, please remember, help is out there and your life truly matters. Don't wait to feel better. You can find a list of resources on our website, Emily's Hope Charity. You can also find a link in this episode. Show notes. Thank you again for listening. Until next time, wishing you faith, hope, and courage. This podcast is produced by Casey Wallenberg, king and Kaylee Fitz.