[Unknown Member]

Purdue just filed for bankruptcy

pieces of sheet got rich off of creating an addict population now their trying to walk

[ruszja]

Same scam as the tobacco settlement.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Uh, you mean the companies denials that their product is addicting?
 
 

[kayla.meyer_144]

For your edification & education:
 
[link=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tobacco-and-oil-industries-used-same-researchers-to-sway-public1/]https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tobacco-and-oil-industries-used-same-researchers-to-sway-public1/[/link]

[19462008]

Agree, sue them, sue the distributors as well. Educate physicians and pain management specialists on drugs of this caliber. 

[kayla.meyer_144]

Follow the money!

[ruszja]

We physicians knew that opiates are addictive. Patients knew opiates are addictive. It was be new specialty of ‘pain medicine’ that told us that what we knew was wrong and that were evil people for witholding the benefits of opiates from our patients.

[kayla.meyer_144]

Uh, it’s still a “follow the money” thing.

[Unknown Member]

Its more than pain medicine

Its unscrupulous drug companies and the pill mill pay for prescriptions that many quack doctors ran

Basically you pay 75$ they write you a month worth of OxyContin

Those doctors should be in jail

[btomba_77]

[link=https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/6/21167803/joe-biden-opioid-epidemic-plan-drug-overdoses]Joe Bidens new plan to end the opioid epidemic is the most ambitious in the field[/link]

Vice President Joe Biden this week released a [link=https://joebiden.com/opioidcrisis/]plan[/link] to combat the [link=https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/8/3/16079772/opioid-epidemic-drug-overdoses]opioid epidemic[/link], the deadliest drug overdose crisis in US history.
 
The plan is the most detailed and expansive proposal on the opioid crisis released by any of the presidential campaigns, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, Bidens current Democratic rival in the primary, or by President Donald Trump.
 
It would put $125 billion over 10 years the largest funding commitment of any 2020 campaign to scaling up drug addiction treatment and other prevention and recovery programs, paid for with higher taxes on pharmaceutical companies profits. It would also take steps to stop the overprescription of opioid painkillers while encouraging better care for chronic pain, and it would try to slow the flow of illicit drugs from China and Mexico. It would also take steps to reform the criminal justice system so that no one is incarcerated for drug use alone.
 
…

Bidens plan is [link=https://joebiden.com/opioidcrisis/]quite long and detailed[/link], but it effectively breaks down a response to the opioid crisis into five categories: boosting treatment, combating overprescription, holding drug companies accountable, reducing the flow of illicit drugs from other countries, and reforming the criminal justice system to stop incarcerating people for drug use.
[/QUOTE]

[btomba_77]

Quote from kpack123

Purdue just filed for bankruptcy

pieces of sheet got rich off of creating an addict population now their trying to walk

 
I’m sure that the family’s $ billion of wire transfers to Swiss bank accounts just ahead of the bankruptcy filing was totally coincidence too 

[Unknown Member]

Yes I saw that too

[btomba_77]

[link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/12/22/walmart-opioid-crisis-lawsuit/]Justice Department sues [b]Walmart[/b], alleging it helped fuel [b]opioid[/b] crisis

[/link]

The Justice Department is [link=https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-files-nationwide-lawsuit-against-walmart-inc-controlled-substances-act]suing Walmart[/link], alleging that the nations largest retailer knowingly filled thousands of problematic prescriptions that helped fuel the opioid crisis.
 
A lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Delaware contends that Walmart failed to properly screen prescriptions, and prioritized speed and profit over patient well-being at its 5,000 pharmacies.
 
As one of the largest pharmacy chains and wholesale drug distributors in the country, Walmart had the responsibility and the means to help prevent the diversion of prescription opioids, Jeffrey Bossert Clark, acting assistant attorney general for the civil division, said in a statement. Instead, for years, it did the opposite filling thousands of invalid prescriptions at its pharmacies and failing to report suspicious orders of opioids and other drugs placed by those pharmacies.
[/QUOTE]
 

[clickpenguin_460]

I dont know the answer to this so I’m curious about thoughts…

Let’s say heroin and prescription opioids were not punished with jail time. Would more or less people die? Does jail prevent people from overdosing and/or help people get clean?

If so, perhaps there should be “drug jail” where there is forced incarceration in a facility designed to help addiction and a person cant leave the facility until they meet a minimum time + have a physician recommendation. Wouldnt that yield better success than just letting everyone take drugs on the street?

Or is success not measured by stopping opioid deaths but measured by liberal gold stars and donor dollars?

Something to think about.

[kaldridgewv2211]

Lets see what happens in Washington state.

[clickpenguin_460]

My guess is more crime and more deaths but less people in jail.

[btomba_77]

The Portuguese experience with heroin decriminalization and the coinciding roll-out of a holistic approach to opioid addiction and treatment is probably the best thing to look at.
 
Their use rates dropped as did their downstream health effects from use  (HIV / hepatitis etc)
[link=https://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/portugal-heroin-decriminalization/]https://www.cbc.ca/news2/…oin-decriminalization/[/link]
 
[link=https://transformdrugs.org/drug-decriminalisation-in-portugal-setting-the-record-straight/]https://transformdrugs.or…g-the-record-straight/[/link]
 

removing criminal penalties for personal drug possession did not cause an increase in levels of drug use. This tallies with a significant body of evidence from around the world that shows the enforcement of criminal drug laws has, at best, a marginal impact in deterring people from using drugs. There is essentially no relationship between the punitiveness of a countrys drug laws and its rates of drug use. Instead, drug use tends to rise and fall in line with broader cultural, social or economic trends.
 
….
 
 
[h3]Crime[/h3] Despite claims to the contrary,[sup]34[/sup] decriminalisation appears to have had a positive effect on crime. With its recategorisation of low-level drug possession as an administrative rather than criminal offence, decriminalisation inevitably produced a reduction in the number of people arrested and sent to criminal court for drug offences from over 14,000 in the year 2000, to around 5,500-6,000 per year once the policy had come into effect.[sup]35[/sup] The proportion of drug-related offenders (defined as those who committed offences under the influence of drugs and/or to fund drug consumption) in the Portuguese prison population also declined, from 44% in 1999, to just under 21% in 2012.[sup]36[/sup]
Additionally, decriminalisation does not appear to have caused an increase in crimes typically associated with drugs. While opportunistic thefts and robberies had gone up when measured in 2004, it has been suggested that this may have been because police were able to use the time saved by no longer arresting drug users to tackle (and record) other low-level crimes.[sup]37[/sup] Although difficult to test, this theory is perhaps supported by the fact that, during the same period, there was a reduction in recorded cases of other, more complex crimes typically committed by people who are dependent on drugs, such as thefts from homes and businesses.
Decriminalisation significantly reduced the Portuguese prison population and eased the burden on the criminal justice system
 
 

 

[ruszja]

The opioid crisis is over. Covid cured it.

[kayla.meyer_144]

According to some, COVID cured deaths of every cause including jumping out of a plane with a faulty parachute. Or getting run over by a bus.

[clickpenguin_460]

I’ll have to read more about that Portugal thing. It intuitively doesn’t make sense as it seems like that implies that more people were using it when it was illegal than legal. I’ll hold judgment though until I look into it because there are certainly things that turn out differently than you would intuitively think.

[btomba_77]

It makes sense if decriminalization is coupled with a national campaign aimed at addiction treatment.
 
If more people get off it while the same (or maybe fewer if there is a public health campaign on education) start, then total numbers goes down.
 
 

[clickpenguin_460]

I dont think we can get a national campaign like that to work here unless its mandatory and the people cant leave. Addiction treatment seems to not be working very well here. I’m not sold on hailing them but we need to fix the drug and homelessness problem in a cost effective way. At least it’s much more difficult to get prescription opioids and benzos now. That’s a good start.

[clickpenguin_460]

*jailing

Are we still jailing people who commit crimes while on drugs? It’s only drug possession crimes that are given a pass right?

[btomba_77]

Addiction treatment doesn’t work well in the US because it is a racket in which mostly private companies try to extract as many dollars out of the healthcare system (both patients and insurers) by providing sh*tty, poorly regulated, repeated inpatient treatment rather than actually focusing on long-term results.
 
 

[ruszja]

According to one of our more cynical paramedics, its the narcan that causes the ‘opioid crisis’.

[clickpenguin_460]

So what does good addiction treatment look like and how do you get people to do it?

[kayla.meyer_144]

Judge decides, how would drug companies know people are getting addicted? They were merely dispensing in good faith.
 
[link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/04/federal-judge-rules-against-hard-hit-west-virginia-community-opioid-trial/]https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/07/04/federal-judge-rules-against-hard-hit-west-virginia-community-opioid-trial/[/link]

In a blow to claims that drug companies fueled the opioid crisis, a federal judge ruled Monday that the nations three major drug distributors did not cause a public nuisance by shipping millions of addictive pain pills to a West Virginia community that was among the hardest hit.
 

In a legal win for AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson, Judge David A. Faber dismissed the argument made by Cabell County and its seat, Huntington, that the distributors bore responsibility for the consequences of an inundation of opioids, according to the judges order filed[b] [/b]in the U.S. District Court in West Virginia.
 

The distributors have denied wrongdoing and have said the painkillers they shipped were prescribed by licensed doctors and filled by pharmacies. They argued they had no way of telling that those prescriptions were not legitimate and that any of the drugs may have been funneled to the black market.
 

The arguments by lawyers for the distributors resonated with the judge, who ruled that the plaintiffs did not prove the conduct by the companies was unreasonable, a key element to establishing a public nuisance case. He found that the conduct of the companies could not be connected to the harm suffered by the communities. Finally, he ruled that the plaintiffs failed to devise a detailed abatement plan outlining how the communities would spend any money they received if they did prevail at trial.
 

The increase of pills going to West Virginia was due in part, he said, to good faith dispensing as well as the rise in product thresholds set by the Drug Enforcement Administration.