The United States of America should be renamed the United States of Addiction according to director Chris Bell, whose new documentary, Prescription Thugs, constructs a feature-length thesis statement against Big Pharma by examining the lives of over a dozen people who've become addicted to prescription pills. Bell implicitly thinks, like contemporaries Michael Moore, Morgan Spurlock, and recent, self-anointed political constituent Russell Brand, that the most effective means for exposing conspiratorial big business is to linger with several cases of abuse, as each new face introduces a familiar story of perceived normalcy, a gradual turn to dependency, and an often tragic aftermath.

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