Doc Review: How to Fix a Drug Scandal (Netflix Docuseries)

Stop what you’re doing. Put Tiger King aside for a second and dial up How to Fix a Drug Scandal on your Netflix queue, the new Erin Lee Carr docuseries. It’s not quite as compelling as Tiger King but easily one of the best docuseries any streaming service has put out this year. Watch as two drug lab chemists in Massachusetts get busted within a year of one another (Sonja Farak for using the drugs, Annie Dookhan for dry-labbing and being a total weirdo) and the ensuing cover-up that follows.

Winners: Luke Ryan

Both perps messed up thousands of cases during their tenures as drug lab chemists, and it was Ryan who discovered the depth of Farak’s malfeasance (cough, cough, cover-up). He’s the star of the doc…and it looks like he can hoop a little bit, too.

Runner up: All the folks who were freed from prison.

Losers: Addiction

This doc goes to show you that addiction doesn’t discriminate. Farak was the valedictorian of her class and an important cog in the criminal justice process. Yet, that didn’t stop her from heading down the dark path of addiction. Like so many, it was a progressive decline. She didn’t start smoking crack in her drug lab…but she wound up there.

Runner up: Kris Foster. Foster’s failure to turn over evidence to the defense attorneys is an unfortunate turn. Sometimes, people think they’re getting a fair trial, but people like Foster make that impossible.

Grade: 3.5/4.0