April 24, 2025

The Opioid Crisis – It Impacts Us All

Opioids, including prescription painkillers, heroin, and fentanyl, kill someone in the United States every 11 minutes – and at least 5 people every day in Florida alone. The odds of dying by accidental opioid overdose are now greater than dying in a car crash. This is the story of how one community is challenging the statistics and fighting back against the opioid epidemic that is tearing through communities across the country. These are the victims, the heroes on the front lines, and the dedicated community partners doing everything they can to reduce and eliminate the devastating effects of opioids across Orange County, Florida.
April 24, 2025

Fentanyl: The Drug Deadlier than Heroin (VICE)

In 2015, close to 300 people died from fentanyl in Alberta. Many of these deaths were caused by bootlet, non-pharmaceutical pills. VICE presents an immersive and personal feature film about the fentanyl crisis in Canada, told from the perspective of a community of drug users. The struggles of one young man in this documentary is particularily important. He is an active drug user who continually attempts to seek support. In one scene, he goes to a publicly funded treatment center, expressing his urgent desire for help. However, he is told he cannot begin the program until he is sober for 5 days – he must find the ‘willpower’ to go through withdrawal, despite being homeless and alone. Later on in the video, he tries to find help again, but he is told the waitlist is going to be a few months. One of the last things he says is, “Honestly, if I can’t get clean at this point, I think I’ll just kill myself. I can’t do this any more.” His story is a very realistic depiction of how hard it is to receive help and is a testament to the fact that people struggling with addiction need support immediately, because many often shy away once told they must wait.
April 24, 2025

The Road to Recovery: 6 Personal Stories

This compelling documentary features six people who detail their poignant journey from addiction to recovery, including discussions of relapse. They discuss their childhood trauma and it is evident that these distressing experiences propelled their addictions. The emotional pain, too much to bare, led to their substance abuse because, as they describe, being intoxicated was a relief, a break, from their lives. They all hit their own personal rock bottoms and each found recovery through various treatment options.
April 24, 2025

Overdose Crisis on the US-Canada Border: Steel Town Down

Tens of thousands have died of an opioid overdose across the US and Canada in 2017, with the death count surpassing the peak of the AIDS epidemic. The weight of the crisis in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario falls on a handful of people struggling to keep their fellow community members alive, similar to countless towns in North America. Steel Town Down is an intimate portrait of the only harm reduction worker in town and a family desperate to save their son from becoming another victim of the crisis.
April 24, 2025

Methadone Mile: Inside Boston’s Drug Epidemic

In this story, we’ll peel back the layers, speaking to people from Harvard doctors to people selling crack, and from the addicts fighting for survival to those who have escaped their addiction and now work to help others. Furthermore, we aim to uncover the deeper question of how methadone mile came to be. As we unravel this mystery, we’ll reveal how a single failed infrastructure project may be a key factor behind the hundreds now living in the streets of Boston. This episode is sponsored by Better Help.
April 24, 2025

Flood: The Overdose Epidemic in Canada

This documentary travels across Canada to discuss the magnitude of the opioid crisis / overdose epidemic and the importance of harm reduction initiatives across communities. You’ll learn about what harm reduction entails and why it is essential to combating this crisis because “since 2016, more than 12,800 Canadians lost their lives due to fatal overdoses.”
April 23, 2025

Afghanistan: The Billion Dollar Drug War

Drug use in Afghanistan is at an all-time high. With NATO forces withdrawing and local law enforcement authorities having little to no funding, the poppy fields are thriving. In this documentary, 101 East investigates how Afghan authorities are fighting to regulate the return of poppy farming, the ramifications of the global war on drugs, and what the future holds for this vulnerable nation. Fortunately, there is one woman in Kabul who works endlessly to help addicts.
April 19, 2025

His Name Is Ray (Fentanyl Crisis Documentary)

HIS NAME IS RAY puts a face on the growing fentanyl and homeless crises’, not through statistics or sweeping generalizations, but through the eyes of a man whose life has spiralled out of control. Ray once had it all — serving in the Coast Guard, a father, a husband, a man with a purpose. But his addiction took it all away. Now, the former sailor lives on the streets of Toronto with an entire population that has fallen through the cracks. With a remarkably intimate lens, the audience follows Ray on his precarious journey to get off the streets and back on the water, where in the ultimate achievement of the oblivion he craves—he could just sail away from it all. After compelling audiences at TIFF and HOT DOCS, HIS NAME IS RAY has resonated across the globe, winning the Special Jury Prize at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival. [Taken from YT description]