What do you expect? This is how white color criminals are treated in this country. $6B settlement for a family who 5 years ago was worth as much has $35B+.
I’d be happy to grant them if they hand over every single dollar they’ve ever made directly or indirectly from the wreckless sale of opioids and that that money goes directly to funding addiction treatment (And that’s a very small price to pay considering the heinous numbers of overdose victims and peoples whose lives have been utterly destroyed). But we all know that’s not what will happen.
But how about all those in government who was supposed to be overseeing the production, distribution, and sales of OxyContin? How about the fact Perdue was repeatedly provided patent extensions so that they would be the exclusive manufacturer in the US? Why aren’t these people- who are either corrupt or morons, also being held to account?
And there’s still plenty of doctors and pharmacists out there who are just as much responsible that have never and never will face any consequences. Maybe they weren’t running an explicit pill mill, but they were more than happy to push massive amounts of this through their practices knowing they were feeding addictions. But this is what happens when an entire state has 2-3 drug control agents for hundreds of pharmacies and medical practices.
And then there are the drug wholesalers who supply the pharmacies. They have all the data to see that X pharmacy is ordering 1000x the expected opioid drugs and do nothing. Hint: they’re supposed to report it.
I’m reminded of a case probably less than 10 years ago in Alaska. A pharmacy was ordering obscene amounts of opioids, the wholesaler actually did the right thing, said this is not right, barred the pharmacy from ordering opioids, and reported them. The pharmacy sued the wholesaler and won, requiring their orders be fulfilled.
In 2010 (very much into the era of rampant opioid addiction and the issues being well known) I was in pharmacy school, I had an internship at a chain pharmacy in a small affluent town in CT. There was this “family doctor” down the street- literally every single patient had 2 scripts- one for an opioid, one for a benzodiazepine (extremely dangerous btw). Ironically his son had died from an overdose. I rarely worked at this pharmacy but eventually asked the pharmacist what was up with all these narcotics coming from a family doctor. The pharmacist just shrugged and said I don’t know but it’s not good. I asked if she should report this. She said she had brought it up to the pharmacy’s corporate dept multiple times (presumably they would investigate, compile evidence, and talk to the state drug control) but they (corporate) apparently refused to do anything.
As someone intimately and simultaneously involved in both the pharma and addiction treatment fields, what was allowed to happen and happen for so long is inexcusable. And the fact so little has gone into holding people criminally liable is just a joke.
amp.cnn.com
