Q&A: Daniel Schneider From Netflix’s ‘The Pharmacist’

In the docuseries “The Pharmacist,” Daniel Schneider’s story starts with the gut-wrenching search for his son’s killer. Through twists and turns, the story morphs into a picture of the current opioid crisis through the lens of a pharmacist near New Orleans, Louisiana.
Today, Schneider is an advocate for education and treatment for prescription drug addiction. He talked with MedPage Today about his story and the impact it’s had in just the little over a week since the explosive series’ release on Netflix. (The interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

What is it that you hope viewers take away from “The Pharmacist?”
Schneider: The main message is don’t turn a blind eye. Be alert. Pay attention to what’s wrong that’s going on around you and try to correct it. And for me, that was when I was a pharmacist seeing some of these prescription drugs. You knew something was wrong with the doctor, right? Young people taking high-powered opiates. You knew something was wrong with that. Yet most pharmacists are busy and they just turn ahead. And after my son’s death, I decided to step up and you might say I’ve become an advocate.
What should the medical community be doing in response to the opioid epidemic?
Schneider: Doctors have to be more on the alert. Pharmacists have to be on alert. And we actually have to try to motivate the politicians and all to step up and take action for treatment. We’ve got to remove the stigma that’s associated with [opioid addiction] so that we can treat these people as if it was a disease. So that’s a big part of what the medical community has to do, and the medical community is also busy and they have a tendency too to just do their job and not take that extra step. We’ve got to start taking some extra steps because we lost 400,000 people in this period of time that I’ve been working on this since my son died.
That docuseries documents the agony that my family went through. And a lot of people were shocked by that. And they give me great admiration for displaying that, but on the other hand, I want to point out that I represent only one family. There’s 400,000 families like me. And so we’ve all got to pitch in and do something. Medical community first, the general public after.

How would you say the opioid crisis has changed over time?
Schneider: Well, things have changed, as far as prescriptions and prescription deaths, opiate deaths. They are finally on the decline. The amount of opiate prescriptions written, by the way, is still a long way to go, and there are still pill-mill doctors out there, but it’s greatly reduced from what it was. They’re starting now to come down on doctors, in some cases prosecuting them, suspending their licenses. That’s happening more often. They’re more cautious to opiates in general. And so that’s a real, real plus.
But on the other hand, what about these people who have become addicts over the past 10 years with the opiate crisis? They’re drug addicts, and if they can’t get their prescription, they’re now turning to heroin. And then the heroin is laced with fentanyl. And that’s just as deadly.
And what I’d like to say about that is some people say, “oh, jeez, you battled to try to get the prescriptions reduced and now they’re doing heroin. Did you accomplish anything or did you get unintended consequences?” Well, I actually kinda knew that was going to happen. And it’s sad, OK, that they’re turning to heroin because it’s so cheap and easy to get. But what I say about that is the profit that filled up the basin was the prescription drug opiates. And once that filled up, now we have to work on that basin and we’ve got to have treatment. We’ve got to turn that faucet off, because if they keep refilling it, we’re going to have a constant supply of addicts that are eventually gonna turn to heroin.
What are your ideas for next steps in the fight against opioid addiction?

Schneider: I do believe we’ve got to focus a great deal on education. I’m an advocate for creating some sort of credit course in high school, maybe ninth grade, where we actually teach people about addiction and we teach people about social responsibility, personal responsibility, maybe bullying, and the effects that drugs can have on a family — give them a real education and actually test them on it. It’d be a credit course where if they don’t pass, they don’t graduate.
I want to be an advocate to try to get people to understand that this is not just the people that are addicted and the drug companies. This is not just the doctors. It’s all of us, public included. We need money directed at the problem. That means maybe even paying more taxes or devoting more resources.
[The opioid crisis] is costing us a fortune. This drug problem, it clogs up the hospitals with people with overdoses. Most of them don’t have insurance. Car insurance is more because there’s car accidents, homeowners’ insurance is more because houses burn down with these drug addicts in them. And so we are all paying for this.
What has changed for you since you appeared on “The Pharmacist?”
Schneider: For years I would talk about my son’s tragedy. That’s how I got into advocacy and education in the schools. I would even talk to politicians sometimes because when I mentioned my son died, everybody was willing to listen. But they also didn’t pay much attention. They saw a grieving father. They thought I was exaggerating the problem. So I didn’t really get the attention.

All that has changed this past week. I’ve been dealing with people calling me and wanting to know my opinion. And they actually listen to me, so instantaneously with this exposure and with this heartfelt story, I’m instantaneously some sort of expert, which I’m not a real expert, but I do have some ideas and at least I can get my ideas out there and maybe, maybe I can help affect greater change.
“The Pharmacist” is now available to stream on Netflix.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/opioids/84909