I cannot understand why the Government is not acting against the pharmas profiting from this crisis. And why people are not revolting. There is a clear nexus between pharmas and doctors. Something should be done.
Between 2006 and 2015, Purdue and other painkiller producers, along with their associated nonprofits, spent nearly nine hundred million dollars on lobbying and political contributions—eight times what the gun lobby spent during that period.
And the revolving door:
He had also enlisted Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, and his associate Bernard Kerik to preëmpt any government crackdown.
Not exactly. If money speaks than the cannabis would be generally accessible in every state because it brings in huge amount of tax to government and income for companies.
Money did speak... 90 years ago when interested (and wealthy) parties saw to it that weed be made illegal. It has been banned ever since and so there hasn't been almost any opportunity for the money in the marijuana business to do any speaking. That is the real reason that pharma businesses lobby against legalization of it. Not just because it would hurt their business directly (lost sales) but because weed businesses would be able to legally lobby against pharama's interests.
Indeed. I work at a local clinic and see the fallout of the opioid crisis on a daily basis.
I'm always surprised how the Opium Wars seldom comes up in these discussions.
Opioids are quite effective at coaxing a population into complacency. Unless the government intervenes, I don't see the problem slowing down anytime soon.
As someone else pointed out, the lobbyists are very influential...
I cannot understand why people are not revolting against the health care system in general.
This crisis is not about pharma in particular, it's about the entire system. In fact, the opioid crisis illuminates a lot of the problems with the system at once.
Pharma benefits because it creates a market for their drugs.
Physicians benefit twice, because the initial prescribers get the seekers and then the "addiction specialists" get to profit when someone tries to come clean and are required to go to them to do so.
There's no oversight because the foxes are in charge of the henhouse. I.e., we say "physicians are the only ones who are really positioned to understand and regulate the system."
The criminal justice system benefits because they get to treat everyone as a criminal. Cause that's the right way to approach the drugs, right? Oh, and cracking down on drugs has really improved society in the US and elsewhere right?
The FDA is revealed to be useless because it's banning harmless drugs like cannabis and kratom while allowing harmful drugs to be used under the assumption that the monopolies they're granting (to pharma, physicians) are selfless, competent experts who only have the patients' well-being in mind.
And I'm sure all this is being charged and reimbursed appropriately?
The US healthcare system is a protection racket enabled by the government.
Why would people revolt? I had a surgery last year and in pre-op room as anesthesiologists questioned patients about what they were taking, I heard two guys explain why they were on fentanyl patches. They defended their use of them.
So many older men are on opioids for chronic pain. They're not going to revolt when their alternative is no solution to their problems.
When they become heavily addicted and it's too late, an American sentiment of personal responsibility kicks in.
I agree. This is a human rights issue happening right under our eyes, but we're so wrapped up in opiophobia and supposed benevolent paternalism to see it.
The people who use them for dealing with chronic pain have been devastated by this war against them and their medicine. Many are committing suicide rather than face the pain without their medicine, and yes the medicine is being taken away, with "stopping the opioid epidemic" given as justification. It is truly sick what we're doing out of ignorance as a society. I've seen very few profiles of people in the media (beyond the Pain News Network), so most non-pain patients have no idea about this world and what they are doing to their neighbors.
can put things into perspective. I know it's hard for people who have never experienced chronic severe pain to not understand why these medications are needed. the same as I look at normal people and can't remember what it's like to not be in pain.
I can't help but feel that these medications are being vastly over prescribed by doctors.
Why is this not a problem in other countries? Either the number of people suffering from chronic pain in the U.S is way higher (percentage wise) than in other countries (why?) or the doctors are prescribing extremely dangerous medicine as if it were candy.
From my experience there are two factors I can see:
Due to end user advertising the US a lot of people are tuned into taking drugs. It's just a part of life. I am 50 and people seem to be baffled when I tell them I don't any prescription drugs unless I have something acute. I see tons of people taking antibiotics and pain killers immediately when they have a problem. That starts from childhood on.
Doctors in the US are really quick prescribing hardcore drugs. I have had several occasions when I had an injury like a bruised and got a Cocktail of vicodine and muscle relaxers. They make you feel real good quickly and I can totally see how people can get addicted. In addition people who have withdrawal symptoms get cut off cold turkey and get no help. I guess that's even more so in low income populations that barely get any healthcare.
The NewYorker article mentioned above explains some of the reasons, ranging from misleading marketing to more nefarious tactics. The article is worth reading.
Keep in mind, as you watch this, 60 Minutes never asks "Why wasn't the lack of receiving data a red flag?" Sure the DEA is supposed to get various things submitted to it. But does it have to be so trusting? (Hint: No not at all.)
This is true. The mechanism is decentralized, and so very powerful. In capitalism speech is proportional to money, so those with money speak more loudly and more often than others. The Adam Smith ideal is that successful capitalists use their soapbox to ideologically reproduce. However, the soapbox is used to mislead, weakening society at large to enrich oneself. Each individual is weakened only slightly, but in aggregate the benefit to the attacker is enormous.
Doves want drugs. A smart business wolf constructs a sophisticated machine (business) that in order to sell drugs, hires genius level lawyers and chemists (techie wolves) to do an end-run around the law, strengthen legal and technical barriers-to-entry, and perhaps make a good side-business with private law-enforcement in several ways (make new addicts, fund recovery programs, sell recovery drugs, and also sell private prison services, which is the most lucrative of all).
It's thoroughly, blatantly evil. The law is clearly insufficient to control the wolves - it may even be that US democracy is insufficient to control the wolves, since doves can't even be counted on to vote in their own interest, thanks in no small part to being mentally disabled by the wolves.
"what federal officials Thursday called the “largest ever health care fraud enforcement action” by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force, 412 individuals, including 115 doctors, nurses and other licensed medical professionals, were arrested in a nationwide operation that involved more than 1,000 law enforcement agents in at least 30 states."
