The current "headline" story being referred to here centers around drug companies deliberately lobbying Congress to ensure that the DEA's ability to suspend sus

The current "headline" story being referred to here centers around drug companies deliberately lobbying Congress to ensure that the DEA's ability to suspend suspicious opioid orders was weakened (the "Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act"). The Washington Post and 60 Minutes broke the story -- https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/investigations/dea-drug-industry-congress/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/investigations/... The story concerns legislation and lobbying between 2014 and 2016, eg, legislation passed by a Republican Congress and signed by Barack Obama. Joseph Rannazzisi, who used to run the DEA's diversion control before "retiring" due to conflict over this very issue, seems to be the big driving force in the reporting. It does seem that Mr. Rannazzisi riled Congress and pharma companies with his characterizations and rather aggressive stance (for instance, in the article, Mr. Rannazzisi characterized the main difference between pharma execs and heroin / cocaine dealers is that they "didn’t have a class ring on their finger from a prestigious university"). From my viewpoint, though, Mr. Rannazzisi's views are quite justified. To be fair: there is another side to the story, as mentioned in older articles on this. ( https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/19/us/politics/opioid-dea-addiction.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/19/us/politics/opioid-dea-ad... ). Some balance does need to exist between people who legitimately need opioids for pain management. Still, the article suggests that there is far too cozy of a relationship between pharmaceutical companies and Congress. The fact that the response to this article seems to be a lot of backpedaling, nominee withdrawals, and "no comments" suggests to me there's a huge amount of truth in it.