Documentary maker Louis Theroux has warned Australia to brace itself for the consequences of next year’s ban on over-the-counter codeine.
In his upcoming documentary, Heroin Town, Theroux spent time in Huntington, West Virginia, in the US where there was widespread addiction to opioid painkillers and the fatal overdose rate was 13 times the national average.
He said a subsequent crackdown on their over-prescription, pushed many to turn to heroin.
In his upcoming documentary, Heroin Town, Theroux (left) spent time in Huntington, West Virginia, in the US where there was widespread addiction to opioid painkillers
Next year, Australians will have prescription-only access to painkillers containing the opioid codeine following a report that the number of accidental deaths from opioid-related overdoses had doubled since 2007.
‘People just need to be poised and maybe this (documentary) is helpful that we’ll get the word out there that there can be unintended consequences to the most well-meaning social policies,’ Theroux told AAP.
‘It’s not as though it’s easy from a policy position to solve these sort of slow-moving social phenomena. Everyone in America now knows what’s going on and they know that Big Pharma caused rampant addiction and that once they clamped down on it the people involved migrated to heroin, but even with that knowledge it doesn’t become totally clear what the best way forward is.’
While the US is trying to come up with ways to deal with the problem, how Australia will fare once the ban comes in is unknown.
In his upcoming documentary, Heroin Town, Theroux (left) spent time in Huntington, West Virginia, in the US where there was widespread addiction to opioid painkillers
‘People just need to be poised and maybe this (documentary) is helpful that we’ll get the word out there that there can be unintended consequences to the most well-meaning social policies,’ Theroux told AAP
‘I think you just have to slightly kind of brace yourself for the impact and express tolerance,’ Theroux said
‘I think you just have to slightly kind of brace yourself for the impact and express tolerance and also, in the kind of micro level, it’s about not enabling addiction in your own immediate circle,’ he said.
Theroux, who has been making documentaries for almost 20 years, has grown from a wide-eyed young documentary maker to a man who bravely tackles complicated subjects, from paedophilia to scientology.
He’s recently relocated from the UK to the US with his family, a place that’s proving to be fertile ground for his documentary work.
‘West Virginia is prime Trump terrain,’ he said.
Heroin Town is part of a three-part US documentary series Theroux has made called Dark States in which he also examines sex trafficking and a murder In Milwaukee. But he’s already thinking about his next project with President Trump in his sights.
Louis Theroux features wide-spread heroin addiction in his upcoming documentary
‘I think you just have to slightly kind of brace yourself for the impact and express tolerance and also, in the kind of micro level, it’s about not enabling addiction in your own immediate circle,’ he said
‘America is an endless source of stories,’ he said.
‘With Trump in the White House no one quite knows what’s going to happen from one day to the next. What I’d love to do is make a theatrical release, a 90-minute documentary, somehow about Trump and Trump’s supporters but that’s still something that we’re developing.’
Heroin Town will be released in participating Australian cinemas through Sharmill Films from October 13 and will also screen as part of the new season of Louis Theroux documentaries on BBC Knowledge from November 21.