Weekend Whats

What to Review: “In exchange for a $6 billion dollar payment from the Sacklers, the arrangement would block future opioid lawsuits targeting them.” The Supreme Court has temporarily blocked a deal that would have limited future damages to the family behind the deadly opiate crisis. So this is a good time to refresh your understanding of just how damaging that family business has been. The latest show on the topic is a Netflix series starring Matthew Broderick and called PainKiller. And some great reads on this topic include: Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain (the definitive work on the Sacklers and an amazing history of how drug marketing started and thrives). John Temple’s American Pain: How a Young Felon and His Ring of Doctors Unleashed America’s Deadliest Drug Epidemic. And Eric Eyre’s Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight against the Drug Companies That Delivered the Opioid Epidemic. Of course, all the content and lawsuits in the world don’t seem to be able to make a dent in the problem. My hometown is like your hometown. Marin overdoses become leading cause of death for 55 and younger.

+ What to Watch: Win or lose, we booze. That was one of the takeaways from the Netflix doc on Johnny Football. There are many others. The story is as much a look at fandom and college sports as it is a look at one guy’s downfall.

+ What to Doc: Rodriguez, the singer-songwriter whose unlikely career was the subject of Oscar-winning documentary Searching for Sugar Man, has died at 81. That news makes this a good weekend to re-watch the excellent doc Searching for Sugarman, which is streaming on Max. If you haven’t seen it before, lucky you.