Deadlier Than Covid, A Film Proposal

Annamaria on Monday

I have long-since been done with repetitive, predictable movies where the bad guys are drug lords who look like this:

The drug lords in my movie will look more like this:

Images: Shutterstock

And they work not in places that look like this:

But more like this:

So what's my story?

Opening Scene: Set in a leafy suburb inhabited by the wealthy and ultra wealthy.  A well-to-do couple, elegant pillars of the community, meet with their pastor in the manse of the local Episcopal church, alternately raging and weeping over the recent death of their only child.  Just 24, their carefully nurtured and beautifully educated son was a sweet boy, always perfectly well-behaved, never in any trouble until, just after college graduation, he became addicted to drugs in the aftermath of dental surgery for impacted wisdom teeth.  His parents had tried all the best addiction therapy that money could buy.  Nothing worked.  And now their Harry is gone forever.

Desperate to soothe them, their pastor suggests that they direct their grief toward finding justice for the many who have died in similar circumstances and finding better cures for those who live with chronic, debilitating opioid addiction.  Given the number of extremely well-connected lawyers and political figures in their circle of acquaintance, they begin to collect first-hand knowledge of efforts to deal with the nation-wide crisis. This film follows their findings.

Plot Summary:

The characters in the drama begin with the attorney general of the state where Harry grew up and the AG's team of detectives, and also investigative reporting teams working for the New York Times and the Boston Globe. While nationwide, more and more investigations yield a trend of vast proportions, this story focuses on one reporter - Lily Miranda and one investigator - James Joffre, who are determined to follow the money.

Meanwhile, in the boardroom of the largest opioid producer, the world's most prestigious consulting firm recommends to the company owners ways to "turbocharge" sales.  

Eventually, as public interest in the tragic consequences begins to mount, it becomes clear that doctors are over-prescribing the drugs.  That means that major pharmaceutical retailers might be at risk of law suits.

Joffre and Miranda dig up information on that very manufacturer, a family renowned for their generous donations to arts institutions, some of which bear their name.

In the consulting company's headquarters in a series of one-to-one meetings, consultants consider the best strategy for dealing with the bad opioid publicity. They never give serious consideration to slowing the addiction and death rate by making known the dangers and reducing sales and profits.  Instead, to make sure their client's profits remain high, the consultants develop an incentive program to allow retailers to keep up their sales, despite the risks. One member of the consulting team is appalled by the immorality of the strategy and secretly decides to blow the whistle.

Back in their client's boardroom, the consultants use a glib, impressive series of data images to present their recommendation.  To preserve their profitability, the manufacturer can "protect" the retailers from losses. They have calculated how much to offer the retailers as protection money. Their formula involves estimating the cost of risk insurance, probable number of lawsuits agains the retailer, likelihood of lawsuit settlement costs, and concomitant retailer legal expenses.  The consultants propose that the manufacturer pay retailers a rebate of $14,810 for each of their customers who dies of an overdose.  

The ex-employee of consulting company approaches Joffre and Miranda and reveals his former bosses' role in ramping up sales  through "turbocharging" and the hideous calculation of the cost per overdose.

With attorney generals all over the USA up in arms and the legal writing on the wall, the manufacturer follows the advice of their attorneys and the corporation pleads guilty and "deeply regrets and accepts responsibility" for its misconduct.

Though I have, as I said at the outset here, long-since sworn off watching movies about drug lords,  I would watch a movie about this story.  It would begin, as so many films do, with the words "Based on a True Story."  Here is that true story, written by Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe in the New York Times.   Just in case you don't read the whole Times article, I want to make sure you see this, from the 27 November 2020 edition:

"This is the banality of evil, M.B.A. edition,” Anand Giridharadas, 

a former McKinsey consultant who reviewed the documents,

 said of the firm’s work with Purdue. “They knew what was going on.

 And they found a way to look past it, through it, around it, so as to answer

 the only questions they cared about: how to make the client money and,

 when the walls closed in, how to protect themselves.”

Total dead as of today:

273,007

450,128