BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD:

This documentary examines the complexity of the opioid crisis in America and how and why it has disproportionately impacted Native American communities. Over a five-year period, pharmacy chains like Walmart, Walgreens, and CVS and major drug distributors such as Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, and McKesson flooded Native American communities with opioid prescriptions at some of the highest rates in the United States, which had (and continues to have) catastrophic impacts on these communities.​

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The documentary explores the legal, social, cultural, historical, and economic barriers preventing tribal communities from overcoming the overdose epidemic and how some tribes were able to reach multimillion-dollar settlements with drug distributors and pharmacy chains for the exploitation of their communities.

 

The documentary also examines the US federal government’s crackdown on doctor-prescribed opioids in response to the illicit opioid overdose epidemic and the devastating impact this crackdown has had on chronic pain patients who rely on prescription opioids to function in their daily lives. Without proper medical pain management, some chronic pain patients are forced to seek other (sometimes dangerous) means of pain management, including turning to the streets to purchase opioids that are often laced with illicit and deadly drugs like heroin and fentanyl.

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