Andrew Jay Kolodny

San Francisco's Department of Public Health says it's more powerful than morphine, and it now knows it was in the system of a man who died of an overdose earlier this year.

Dr. Andrew Kolodny is with Kaiser Permanente's Institute for Health Policy.

He says some take this for wellness or to relieve pain.

What happens, though, if they do it on a daily basis, very quickly they'll need more and more.

For years, the public has been told that opioids actually make pain worse, that there's a condition called opioid-induced hyperalgesia, or OIH, where the very medicine that is meant to relieve your pain somehow turns against you.

You've heard it from the same people who built today's anti-opioid movement, Andrew Kolodny, Anna Lemke, Jane Valentine, and Don Stater.

They've said it in media outlets, webinars, and state hearings.

They even said it during a question and answer panel for films like Anonymous Sister.

So this first clip I'm going to play for you is Dr. Andrew Kolodny.

He was an advisor on this film, Anonymous Sister.

One

So actually, you know, the chronic pain problems that you were experiencing could have been, if not caused by the opioids, certainly exacerbated by the opioids.

Minister

Andrew Kolodny commits suicide.

And in one of those tragic moments on the council floor, the husband of the young minister, Dorcas Didion, takes his own life.

That part was brutal.