[HN Gopher] DOJ Seeks To Block Purdue Pharma Bankruptcy Deal
___________________________________________________________________
DOJ Seeks To Block Purdue Pharma Bankruptcy Deal
Author : randycupertino
Score : 220 points
Date : 2021-09-16 17:33 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| javajosh wrote:
| That deal "avoids costly litigation", so say various "states'
| attorney generals". It's funny how those same AGs strong-arm the
| little people every single day, put them in jail before trial,
| and then offer them a choice: plead guilty, get time served, and
| go on your way. Or, plead not guilty, make bail, if you can, and
| get your ass handed to you because you can't afford a competent
| attorney and our judges and cops collude to make it impossible to
| get justice. If you can't make bail, then you will rot in jail
| until your first hearing, weeks from now, and you'll get an
| overworked public defender and get the same result. What do you
| choose?
|
| The Sacklers need that kind of choice.
|
| EDIT: The DoJ needs to confiscate their assets under current DEA
| assert forfeiture law, the same one the local cops use to steal
| from ordinary people without cause. Then arrest them. Let's see
| how long the litigation draws out under those circumstances.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| The Sacklers are going to the same special hell where Tobacco
| executives end up.
| azemetre wrote:
| I don't want them to go to hell, I want them in prison.
| spoonjim wrote:
| The right prison is a good approximation of hell. Not
| federal prison, but state prisons certainly
| [deleted]
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| Is that the equivalent of a country club jail?
| vkou wrote:
| Which is what, exactly? A Miami Beach penthouse condo, with a
| 500-acre manor in Hawai'i for the winter months?
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Or use their office for nonstarter political suits to rile up
| their base.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Which specific crimes were committed by which specific
| Sacklers? I'm sympathetic to the idea that they might have done
| something wrong, but the impulse to throw people we don't like
| in jail now and figure out what they did wrong later is very
| dangerous, and even if other people are treated that way it
| isn't an excuse to further indulge it.
| javajosh wrote:
| The wealthy should suffer no more, or less, than ordinary
| folk. Our justice system is broken, and yet that breakage
| does not touch the Saklers. Maybe if it did, there'd be a cry
| for change from the people who can afford to spend the
| dollars needed to change the system.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I think this comment clearly illustrates the danger I
| mentioned; "they must have committed some crime" inevitably
| and often immediately turns into "it doesn't matter whether
| they committed any specific crime". If we turn the justice
| system into a purely political exercise, not even aspiring
| to the ideal of punishing people for specific crimes
| they've committed, what would the basis of a cry for change
| be?
| javajosh wrote:
| They knew Oxycontin was addictive and claimed that it
| wasn't. They knew the deadly impact their drug was having
| on large groups of people, and yet did nothing to
| mitigate the impact.
|
| These are very serious crimes. Indeed, even if they were
| not, harming society in this way should be criminalized.
|
| I say this despite being pro-legalization. The issue
| isn't the drug itself, it's the lying, the undermining
| use of institutions like your family doctor, the FDA, to
| push this drug as if it were harmless, and to sit back
| and watch it take its toll, rolling in dough. It hurts.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| From everything I've read - which is a lot - I think the
| criminal case under the law is less clear than say John
| Kapoor & Insys (who are in jail). But it seems the civil
| cases are much stronger, which is why this settlement is so
| shocking.
|
| the Sacklers have tight control and micro managed decisions
| it's their intention & action. But Purdue was smart enough
| not to make spreadsheets tracking doctor bribe ROIs ...
|
| I'm interested in why there isn't more info/investigation on
| the revelation in Gibney's doc that a Purdue exec sat in a
| motel room with the regulator in charge to write the original
| oxycontin label, which was then approved with very very
| questionable language. That potentially less addictive
| language was the entire lynchpin of their (minimally moral)
| crimes. Especially with any future revolving doors or
| benefits.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Completely agreed in that regard.
| avgDev wrote:
| https://www.judgeforyourselves.com/info/
| gruez wrote:
| >3 john oliver videos
|
| >8 hour video deposition
|
| pass
|
| >"transcripts of calls to the bankruptcy court from those
| impacted by the opiod crisis"
|
| People calling in and saying that oxycotin ruined their
| lives doesn't really count as a "specific crime".
| throwdecro wrote:
| > That deal "avoids costly litigation"
|
| I guess it would be worse if this were criminal litigation and
| not civil litigation, but it's still kind of incredible to see
| such a naked admission that if you can outspend the attorney
| general's office, you'll get special treatment.
| wefarrell wrote:
| State/local prosecutors would rather go against an overworked
| overworked public defender than a well funded legal team from a
| firm that can eventually offer them a job.
|
| Fortunately, federal prosecutors love going after high profile
| individuals and aren't scared of their lawyers.
| YinLuck- wrote:
| The Sacklers would all have received a bullet to the head had
| this saga unfolded in China.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Any idea why a state prosecutor hasn't tried to get a felony
| criminal charge on some of the Sacklers? At least tried to get
| them in jail? Seems like it would be low risk. If you succeeded
| you're a hero and if you failed nobody would be surprised.
| wpietri wrote:
| And either way, you end up a lifelong target of these specific
| billionaires. Plus any other billionaires who don't like the
| idea of accountability. Plus their minions, fellow travelers,
| and all the people who believe billionairehood is their true
| destiny.
| gruez wrote:
| Lack of evidence?
| spoonjim wrote:
| How do you know until you indict and do discovery?
| gruez wrote:
| 1. you need to evidence to convince a grand jury to indict
| them
|
| 2. discovery doesn't exist for criminal cases. you can't
| ask the accused to turn up relevant evidence.
|
| 3. they probably have all the relevant evidence, from the
| case against perdue pharma (the company)
|
| 4. the juicy evidence that proves their guilt is probably
| destroyed by now, or at least stored with a privileged
| party (eg. their laywers).
| mesk wrote:
| US legal system is really fascinating. How can bankruptcy of one
| legal entity (Purdue Pharma) immunize other legal entities, that
| are not direct part of that bankruptcy deal (Sackler family
| members), from being sued (no matter if they are guilty or not).
| Very fascinating...
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| It's not clear that it _can_ immunize other legal entities.
| That 's precisely what the dispute referenced in the source
| article is about - the Justice Department believes that it
| can't.
| gruez wrote:
| That's what a bankruptcy is? It "immunize" you against past
| liabilities.
| loeg wrote:
| > That's what a bankruptcy is? It "immunize" you against past
| liabilities.
|
| Usually _financial_ liabilities. Also, "you" is different
| here -- Purdue Pharma is the bankrupt entity, but the Sackler
| family is shielded. Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers are
| distinct legal entities.
| gruez wrote:
| > Also, "you" is different here -- Purdue Pharma is the
| bankrupt entity, but the Sackler family is shielded. Purdue
| Pharma and the Sacklers are distinct legal entities.
|
| Can you link the docket?
| kelnos wrote:
| I think the question the parent is asking is how should the
| bankruptcy of one entity (Purdue Pharma) be allowed to
| protect individual members of the Sackler family?
|
| The answer is, of course, that prosecutors have quite a bit
| of leeway in coming up with deals that will get the best
| outcome that they think they can get. But I agree that it
| doesn't feel right, that the Sacklers can further use their
| corporate structure to protect them from their actions.
| gruez wrote:
| > I think the question the parent is asking is how should
| the bankruptcy of one entity (Purdue Pharma) be allowed to
| protect individual members of the Sackler family?
|
| I thought the settlement was between the government and the
| Sacklers directly?
|
| >Under a separate civil settlement, individual members of
| the Sackler family will pay the United States $225 million
| arising from the alleged conduct of Dr. Richard Sackler,
| David Sackler, Mortimer D.A. Sackler, Dr. Kathe Sackler,
| and Jonathan Sackler (the Named Sacklers).
|
| https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-
| announces-...
| bb611 wrote:
| These are different cases.
|
| Purdue and the Sacklers faced federal suits from DOJ and
| its offices, which were tentatively resolved by the
| settlements you linked.
|
| Separately, Purdue is now in bankruptcy proceedings, to
| which the federal, state, and local governments are party
| because of their suits.
|
| The Sackler immunity request is part of the bankruptcy
| proceeding, not the DOJ settlement.
| gruez wrote:
| >Separately, Purdue is now in bankruptcy proceedings, to
| which the federal, state, and local governments are party
| because of their suits.
|
| My guess is still the same. It's referred to "the perdue
| pharma bankrupcy" by the media, but technically the
| defendants involve the sacklers as well.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Prosecutors in the US are given leeway to make deals under the
| law that benefit the people. I am not sure of the details, but
| it often happens that companies indemnify executives (i.e.
| promise to pay legal expenses incurred defending behavior
| associated with working at the company). That means that suing
| the Sackler heirs (especially if unsuccessful) might diminish
| the funds available to recover from Purdue, since Purdue would
| be paying the Sackler legal fees. If the prosecutors believe
| that probability of a successful suit against the Sacklers is
| low enough, they may do an expected value calculation where
| they value the private contributions of funds from the Sacklers
| under the settlement more highly than what they expect to
| recover in the event of a lawsuit against the Sacklers.
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Nothing will happen. Nothing ever does with the Chickenshit Club
| [0]. In my opinion the entire family should be publicly hanged
| for their egregious crimes. Something like that would at least be
| burned into other's minds and hopefully influence them for the
| better. At the very least, it'd be a brief moment of catharsis
| and reckoning for those who had problems struggling with opiate
| addictions.
|
| [0] https://www.amazon.com/Chickenshit-Club-Department-
| Prosecute...
| dboreham wrote:
| Probably because very large swathes of the economy ultimately
| depend on exploiting humans' poor impulse control.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Very large and _very expendable_ swathes.
| imglorp wrote:
| The Purdue (et al) dosing schedule was engineered for maximal
| addiction similar to how cigarettes chemistry was. We used to
| dose these things on 4 hour intervals and the move to 12 hour
| was done for business reasons: neurology gets more addicted
| that way.
|
| must read: https://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1
| sneak wrote:
| Cigarettes are still available without a prescription, and
| kill 7x as many people in the US each day/month/year as
| opiates.
|
| Tobacco is a large, legitimate, and continuing industry in
| the US. If you wish this to end, that may not be the
| comparison you wish to invoke.
| randycupertino wrote:
| Given the recent post and discussion on this post
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28547864) yesterday
| regarding the FDA oversight of the opiate epidemic, found this
| article relevant and a small encouraging sign.
|
| The bankruptcy proceedings have been absurd in this case
| particularly due to the litigation shield for the Sacklers so a
| renegotiation would be huge.
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-01/sackler-f...
| nickff wrote:
| Do you think the evidence supports piercing the corporate veil?
| I am not sure that it does, and think that if this deal is
| blocked, the Sacklers may not end up putting any private money
| in.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil#Un...
| BrianOnHN wrote:
| They can keep their "earnings" as long as they can't spend it
| in jail.
|
| The precedence that we will not tolerate crimes as a path to
| unimaginable wealth is worth more than they could bankroll.
| nickff wrote:
| I would assume that if they are found guilty of criminal
| negligence, fraud, or something else that would land them
| in jail, they would also likely lose a civil suit with a
| related cause of action.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Yeah, a civil case is easy enough once the prosecutor has
| collected all of the evidence you need in the first
| place.
| ddoolin wrote:
| Hopefully prison, not jail, and they can spend it all they
| want on commissary. That little TV won't make you forget
| you're there, believe me.
|
| Just my opinion, but the only justice here is to take their
| wealth away. A prison sentence is pretty meaningless unless
| they're in for life, which of course we all know a few
| years is the more likely reality (and I'm not advocating
| for life either).
| BrianOnHN wrote:
| I agree with you. However unlikely, I simply see a prison
| sentence as the most likely "real" punishment.
|
| The reason I say "real" is because even if we _meant_ to
| take "all" of their wealth, what are the chances we
| actually get all of it? And without getting all of it, a
| seemingly negligible amount of cash, like 10MM which is
| <0.1% relative to >10,000MM, can still make the crime
| "worth it."
| barkingcat wrote:
| With money, their external representatives can purchase the
| jail/prison and thus turn the jail into a kind of holiday
| resort for the rich. It'd be like house arrest.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| That doesn't actually happen in the US.
| stefan_ wrote:
| As usual, you can't make a criminal case if you don't use the
| tools we give prosecutors to make cases. Where are the home
| searches? The wiretaps?
|
| You can't just go "maybe discovery in this civil case will
| reveal the criminal conspiracy" and then go "eh, guess not".
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Prosecutors do have those tools, though? I mean, in the
| specific case of wire taps, we probably wouldn't even have
| that word it the corresponding investigative tool did not
| exist.
|
| But we also have laws around when they can and can't be
| applied. There are standards of evidence and suspicion that
| must be reached. Due process exists even for billionaires.
| Also, prosecutors or investigators might not use those
| tools if they doubt useful evidence would be uncovered.
| mrDmrTmrJ wrote:
| Civil suits and criminal cases have different standards
| of evidence. It maybe that the Sacklers could not be
| convicted of a felony crime but *may be convicted in a
| series of massive civil suits.
|
| Certainly this sounds weird, but there's very clear
| president. OJ Simpson was both acquitted in criminal
| court and convicted in a civil suit: https://en.wikipedia
| .org/wiki/O._J._Simpson_murder_case#Civi...
| nosackler2 wrote:
| >> As usual, you can't make a criminal case if you don't
| use the tools we give prosecutors to make cases. Where are
| the home searches? The wiretaps?
|
| Those tools (and criminal proceedings) are usually reserved
| for persons of color. For everyone else, we have white
| glove treatment. The best hope we have to prosecute the
| Sacklers properly is if one of them converts to Islam, then
| you'll see the gears of justice turn.
| nickff wrote:
| What kind of evidence are you expecting to be discovered?
| Teleconferences where they discuss intentionally killing
| people by causing overdoses?
|
| I am almost certain that the Sacklers thought they were
| producing drugs which would relieve pain and help end-users
| live happier and more productive lives. This may have been
| self-deception, but I don't have the knowledge to do a
| cost-benefit analysis of this situation (though I'd be
| interested to see one on opiods).
| elliekelly wrote:
| Purdue, the company, has pleaded guilty to two crimes.
| Presumably there is plenty of evidence of criminal
| activity. The question is whether and to what extent the
| family members, as individuals, might be criminally (or
| civilly) responsible.
| gruez wrote:
| >Purdue, the company, has pleaded guilty to two crimes.
| Presumably there is plenty of evidence of criminal
| activity.
|
| It's much easier to convict the corporation than its
| members.
| jasonlaramburu wrote:
| >What kind of evidence are you expecting to be
| discovered? Teleconferences where they discuss
| intentionally killing people by causing overdoses?
|
| I am not a lawyer, but I don't think the state needs to
| prove intent to kill. It could have been negligence, eg
| they knew people were getting addicted but declined to
| change their aggressive marketing tactics.
| aurizon wrote:
| AH, Just the person I have in mind for my Florida
| waterfront property. Only 6 feet deep at the shore at low
| tide..... I say that because of your belief in the
| humanitarian nature of the sacklers. The sacklers wove a
| web of fraud and arm's length de-facto murder that they
| need to be tried, one at a time for them, with no trial
| bail allowed. I fully expect the sacklers to run for it
| one day to a place they can not be extradited from, or
| even vanish off shore if it looks like they will ever get
| called on to pay for their crimes. Without their actions
| perhaps 400,000 to 450,000 of their victims might be
| alive. They were, for the most parts, people led down a
| garden path of inexorable addiction and death. There are
| a few million, who were damaged, but lived. (why do you
| think the sacklers want immunity forever?)The toll of
| human suffering and death that leads directly to their
| front door - that is what the Justice Department knows
| and pursues. They were not criminals - at the start, they
| followed the $$, to our cost. Some people can resist
| addiction - cold turkey people, like me. I had flesh
| eating disease after my legs being crushed in a car
| accident. (pix available, PM me, I still have persistent
| muscle loss areas) They used, on me, a cocktail of
| antibiotics fed by an auto-pump, that also created
| intense pain. The infection was defeated, and the pain
| was suppressed by oxy-contin. After the infection
| subsided and the pain left, the oxy-contin was cut off by
| the doctors. It was then that I felt what addiction was
| like - intense fidgets(but no more pain), twitch,
| sleeplessness, etc. I was one of those who are capable of
| cutting it off, cold turkey, which is what I did. After 2
| weeks it was gone. I still have some of the pills left -
| in case the pain returned. Apparently a high % of people
| can not self cold turkey like I can. I also do not drink
| at all, never liked booze in any form. I could never
| understand alcoholics either? If I have 8 drinks, I get
| woozy, lose co-ordination etc - it is pleasant, being
| drunk, but I can take it it leave it. I suspect that
| alcohol and oxy-contin addicts must get a supreme
| pleasure - I pleasure I do not get. It is possible that
| if I got the intense addict's pleasure that I would also
| be unable to resist it as well, I am lucky to be in that
| segment of mankind that does not get this intense
| pleasure - if only we could bottle it and end
| addictions??. Sorry for the rant, but I hate to see the
| sacklers skate free with their billions, which others
| suffered and suffer on. sackler = lower case, they are
| low grade people in all respects.
| gruez wrote:
| >Where are the home searches? The wiretaps?
|
| what are you expecting to turn up? Documents/recordings
| that say "yep we totally knew that oxycotin was addictive
| and we're moving profits out with the goal of hiding them
| from creditors"?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Given how many people have been caught being exactly that
| stupid, why not? It's at least worth a shot.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| "[W]hat do you think is going on in all of these
| courtrooms right now? We're rich? For how long? Until
| which suits get through to the family? I think [the
| investment banker's] advice was just violated in a
| Virginia courtroom. My thought is to lever up where we
| can, and try to generate some additional income. We may
| well need it. . . . Even if we have to keep it in cash,
| it's better to have the leverage now while we can get it
| than thinking it will be there for us when we get
| sued."[1]
|
| [1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-
| release/file/1329736/downl...
| gruez wrote:
| If that's really the best quote the prosecution can come
| up with, I can see why the state settled. I suppose you
| can see this as the smoking gun, _if you were already
| convinced of it_ , but from a skeptical reading it's
| really not that obvious. Are they talking about hiding
| money from creditors? Or just finding other ways of
| making money now that their previous money-maker (perdue
| pharma) is going under? Is the state going to convince
| the jury of that better than the defense?
| [deleted]
| nosackler2 wrote:
| >> what are you expecting to turn up?
| Documents/recordings that say "yep we totally knew that
| oxycotin was addictive and we're moving profits out with
| the goal of hiding them from creditors"?
|
| Just like with tons of other cases, the actual thing
| people trip on are entirely ancillary -- tax evasion,
| wire fraud, embarrassing emails, obstruction of justice.
| I'll bet there are a dozen obstruction of justice charges
| that can be levied if you search thru emails.
|
| Again, they are getting white-glove treatment, so we
| havent bothered to look for the stuff that will force a
| more reasonable settlement for the millions of innocent
| victims.
| gruez wrote:
| >Again, they are getting white-glove treatment
|
| And the response to that is that they're well funded to
| resist those attacks by the government, so it will end up
| being a drain on resources on both sides. legal MAD, if
| you will.
| [deleted]
| alistairSH wrote:
| Legally, I'm not sure.
|
| Morally, absolutely. The Sacklers cannot be allowed to walk
| away with billions AND immunity from future suits.
| nickff wrote:
| I believe that the Justice Department is supposed to act in
| the legal realm, not the moral one.
| r00fus wrote:
| The concept of "justice" and "law" are based on morality.
| gruez wrote:
| Based on, but not the same as. "these guys did a bad
| thing but technically didn't break any laws, let's punish
| them anyways" might be moral, but is against the rule of
| law.
| arcticbull wrote:
| It gets a little tricky here because in the US (and
| Canada) ex post facto laws are only forbidden in criminal
| matters. Laws may be applied retroactively in civil
| matters (Calder v. Bull).
|
| Further, at least in Canada, parliament can institute ex
| post facto laws by invoking the nothwithstanding clause.
| Always a little hairy politically, but legal and
| compatible with the rule of law.
|
| [edit] I would further argue that ex post facto laws in
| general are immoral.
| [deleted]
| alistairSH wrote:
| Disagree. The JD is limited by the legal realm, but
| should strive for moral outcomes.
|
| In this case, is there a more moral solution that remains
| within the realm of legal? Perhaps not, but I'd like the
| JD to try, since the proposed solution strikes me as
| allowing the Sackler family to profit massively off
| immoral activities.
|
| IMO (as a layman, not a lawyer), I'm unclear on why a
| corporate bankruptcy settlement involves immunity for the
| Sacklers. If we are not allowed to pierce the corporate
| veil, it should go both ways. If they want to keep their
| fortunes, they should remain open to civil suits.
| Alternatively, they can forfeit the vast majority of
| their fortunes in return for immunity from future suits.
| spoonjim wrote:
| There are plenty of ways, strictly in the legal realm,
| where the Sacklers can go to jail. But I haven't seen any
| state try.
| etchalon wrote:
| I believe the DoJ should strive to find legal solutions
| to moral issues.
| abakker wrote:
| Morals change, laws need to keep pace but should not
| anticipate changes in morals. Laws look backward at what
| was previously legal or illegal.
| yunohn wrote:
| The problem here is not about laws "failing to keep up"
| with morals. It's legal structures being abused to get
| away with immoral activities. This isn't the first or
| last such case where that's happened.
| xxpor wrote:
| Which is why the Dept of Justice is part of the Executive
| branch, and the Attorney General is appointed by the
| elected president.
| randycupertino wrote:
| That's a really good question! I'm just a medical researcher
| who read Empire of Pain and I don't understand enough about
| bankruptcy law to give an informed opinion either way.
| However, I did hear a pretty amusing joke recently saying
| that Bankruptcy attorneys are the nephrologists of law, which
| means they're huge wonks & specialists in a very narrow
| section of their field.
|
| Interested to see other replies re: your comment!
| Glyptodon wrote:
| I think if it doesn't it would suggest that there ought to be
| legislation creating a much lower standard for doing so.
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| Respect for the law is already dead, but I'm sure no personal
| responsibility in this case would make it worse.
| [deleted]
| breck wrote:
| "get an audience for our patent infringement suits so that we are
| feared as a tiger with claws, teeth and balls, and build some
| excitement with prescribers that OxyContin Tablets is the way to
| go." - Richard Sackler, 1996 email
|
| Patents create an awful incentive structure. In medicine, a
| deadly one.
| humaniania wrote:
| Can they do anything about the judge who approved something so
| unfair? My understanding is that that judge has a history of
| allowing this type of thing.
| tims33 wrote:
| I hope the DoJ is successful. Taxpayers and families are bearing
| an incredible cost and toll from the damage they've done.
|
| It is also important that the government reflect on its on role
| in letting this get as bad as it did.
| sneak wrote:
| Is the cost that incredible?
|
| Tobacco kills 7x as many people as opiates in the USA every
| day/week/month.
|
| Is the loss of human life from the sale (without a
| prescription!) of tobacco in the usa a credible figure?
| tims33 wrote:
| It is a really fair question. I think there are two lenses.
| Tobacco does kill people in large numbers although it seems
| to largely cause issues at the end of their lives. Tobacco
| also reduces life expectancy, but not as much as opiod users.
| What I saw said a heavy smoker loses ~13 years and a heroin
| user ~18 years. Not sure about lighter smokers.
|
| The issue with oxycontin is it helped create a massive
| generation of addicts who have all sorts of other things
| associated with them like: rehab, homelessness, and crime. So
| I'm not sure of the total impact, but likely much higher per
| person.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| It's worth pointing out that tobacco use is currently
| declining. It kills a lot of people yes, but most of the
| deaths are distributed towards older populations. Combine
| these two factors, and you'd expect tobacco deaths to slide
| in the next few decades as we start running out of older
| smokers and newer generations smoke less on average than
| their parents did.
|
| On the other hand opiate addiction came out of nowhere, and
| surpassed vehicle related deaths before anyone noticed. It
| kills much more randomly, and the problem seems to be getting
| worse. Expecting opioid death numbers to get worse in the
| near future isn't unreasonable. It wouldn't surprise me if
| opioids end up killing more per capita than nicotine does in
| the near future.
|
| Also, there's a pretty stark difference between the impact on
| life of these two substances aside from the mortality risk.
| While smoking does reduce quality of life, not many people
| end up in jail or homeless because of their nicotine
| addiction.
| ddoolin wrote:
| I think you make a good point that is worth talking about but
| also it seems unfair to compare the two, in that manner at
| least. Both are awful but the way that opiates kill and
| really destroy lives, relationships, families, etc. is really
| on a different time span and level.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| From everything I've heard, Purdue Pharma knew about the
| street abuse and _at best_ did nothing, from their end, it
| probably drove up their sales too. People going through their
| legit Rx slightly faster because some of their pills were
| resold (yes, illegally) refilled sooner. Plus, let 's not
| forget Purdue Pharma marketed these as not as addictive -
| which likely created and sustained the street markets. Also,
| just because something else (tobacco) is more deadly doesn't
| mean we should turn a blind eye to everything to that is less
| deadly.
| sneak wrote:
| My point is that the tobacco companies did all of this
| stuff, too, including the marketing-via-doctors route.
|
| They're still around, operating, and legitimate, and
| causing 7x the destruction of human life of this so-called
| "epidemic".
|
| Either both are wrong, or neither are.
|
| Personally I have an extremely unpopular opinion regarding
| culpability for the damage here, but I'll be satisfied if
| we as a society can simply agree that both are wrong, or
| neither are, but if one is wrong, then so must the other
| be.
|
| If they're both wrong, we should be at least 7x as angry
| and actionable against big tobacco (but rationally, quite a
| bit more, as they have been killing people, including those
| nearby who don't choose to consume the drug, at a higher
| rate for a much longer period of time).
|
| If neither of them are wrong (and cigarettes should still
| be available for sale) then we should put down the Purdue
| pitchforks.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| I think you have a valid point - I guess you could argue
| that Big Tobacco, while still in existence and still a
| huge enterprise did have somewhat of a reckoning in the
| 1990s. With that in mind, Purdue Pharma did this _after_
| the legal boundaries had been tested and defined by prior
| caselaw. I also don 't believe cigarettes can kill you or
| make your life and the lives of those around horrible as
| fast as opiates can. There are many offramps for
| cigarettes. But, to your point, I don't know that that
| should make a difference.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Yes. I do think the cost is really incredible. even if we
| were to get their entire 11 billion immediately it wouldn't
| begin to cover the costs (pisses me off the most they get
| many years on this proposal to pay it, they'll likely make
| more profit from investments than they will pay back....)
|
| Opiates do kill too many people but there are more social
| externalities than tobacco. I think (hopefully) the 2nd hand
| smoking effects have diminished, though I'm sure kids in
| homes are still exposed.
|
| But opiates touch everyone that knows an addict or is related
| to one.
|
| And the cost of theft, homelessness, HIV/hep infections,
| blood infections, huge amount of overdose calls.
|
| But I agree the costs of tobacco are huge. And the costs of
| the oil & gas industry's behavior are even bigger than all of
| these combined.
| avgDev wrote:
| Tobacco addiction cannot be compared to something like
| opiates. The cost is often on the individual as smokers
| normally work. Opiates make people spiral out of control
| quickly and the dependency is so high they will literally do
| anything for the next pill. They often become homeless and
| without any health insurance. They overdose multiple times
| ending up in critical care/ICU.
|
| A better legal drug to compare could be alcohol, however,
| your doctor wasn't marketed to give you vodka for your back
| pain. There was a time were doctors were giving out opiates
| like candy, this opiate epidemic has been created by big
| pharma and doctors. I was prescribed opiates for muscle
| strains and the first few times you take them it feels so
| good. However, tolerance builds really quickly and people who
| have a tendency to abuse substances will instantly get
| hooked.
| davesque wrote:
| Maybe both are incredible?
| ddoolin wrote:
| I definitely think your latter point is very important but also
| very likely to get lost in the noise and the circus of the
| public.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-09-16 23:01 UTC)