5 ms·

Tens of thousands of US drug users (victims) get jailtime. Citizen traffickers (perps): serious jailtime. Corporate traffickers (perps) get fined for 'nuisance'

Tens of thousands of US drug users (victims) get jailtime. Citizen traffickers (perps): serious jailtime. Corporate traffickers (perps) get fined for 'nuisance'. The Arthur Anderson firm got deep-sixed for felony obstruction of justice. Enron's Ken Lay was convicted of 10 counts of wire and bank fraud. (Skilling just got out of jail.) Tens of thousands of dead Americans: 'nuisance'? I can think of only a couple of 'justifications' for the disparity.

spamizbad 7y ago
Arthur Anderson and Enron harmed wealthy, powerful people. Corporate pusher's victims were just Regular Joes. Who the law protects and who the law binds aren't always in sync.
- trimbo 7y ago
  > Arthur Anderson and Enron harmed wealthy, powerful people. Not true. Probably the biggest losers for Enron were the rank-and-file employees of the company. Not only did they lose their jobs, but more than half of the Enron employees' 401k was invested in Enron stock. And Enron happened to freeze the 401k plan at the time where the stock started to drop and people could have sold. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/22/business/employees-retirement-plan-is-a-victim-as-enron-tumbles.html https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/22/business/employees-retire...
  - distant_hat 7y ago
    That they harmed rank-and-file is besides the point. The important point is they harmed wealthy, powerful people.
  - sjtindell 7y ago
    It is true, lots of people were harmed, including the rank and file. But “rank and file” usually calls up images of honest, blue collar folks and factory floors. According to Smartest Guys In The Room, the rank and file of Enron were mostly MBAs in thousand dollar suits with a reputation for utter ruthlessness and extravagant pay. The electrical utility employees in that article were not truly Enron employees.
dcolkitt 7y ago
What is exactly is it that you believe qualifies as criminal behavior? Opiates are a legal, and medically necessary, component of the healthcare system. Unless you want patients to suffer horrendously, somebody has to manufacture and sell opiates. Opiates are also a fun and addictive drug. As long as they exist and are generally available, some percent of the sub-population will abuse them. We can try our best to keep them only for medical use, but once the prescription leaves the pharmacy there's not much you can do. You can't blame the legal manufacturer when that happens, if they took all required steps to keep their drugs in the legal channels. Maybe you think that's true, but that the opiate manufacturers have used their power and influence to over-prescribe their products. That assumes that opiates are over-utilized in American healthcare. And that's a narrative that simply isn't borne out by the data. Only 0.19% of opiate-treated chronic pain patients without a prior history develop any form of abuse or addiction[1]. And remember these are chronic-pain patients who take tolerance-escalating doses over years or even decades. Virtually no one develops an opiate addiction from following their medically prescribed treatment regiment. The death rate from prescription opiates has not budged since 2006[2]. The vast majority of opiate overdoses in America are not prescription opiates, but illicit fentanyl, and to a lesser extent heroin and methadone. Nor do chronic pain patients face any major risk of overdose. The fatal overdose mortality rate for long-term opiate-prescribed patients is 17 per 100,000[3]. And that number doesn't exclude the subset of the population engaged in abusive behavior like mixing with alcohol, snorting pills, or hoarding medication. Finally the sizable majority of prescription drug abusers in this country do not source from a doctor or the healthcare system at all. The vast majority get their drugs either from the black market or a friend or relative. On the National Drug Use Survey only 18% of prescription drug abusers report doctors as their primary source. And among street prostitutes (a high at-risk group) only 5%[4]. All of this goes to show that there is very little evidence of any sort of over-prescription of opiates in America. To begin with the vast majority of the opiate crisis has to do with fentanyl, not prescription drugs. But even when it comes to prescription drug abuse, the intersection with medical users is vanishingly small. However what there is a major problem in America is untreated chronic pain. 50 million American suffer chronic pain[5]. And 20 million suffer high-impact chronic pain which severely impairs normal life function. More than 10% of suicides are linked to chronic pain[6]. High-dosage opiates are absolutely essential for this group to live any sort of normal life. As long as there are such massive numbers of legitimate pain patients, the law of large numbers guarantees a large supply of diverted opiates. Even under the tightest controls. There's simply no way around that except by denying most of the legitimate patients treatment for their debilitating conditions. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18489635 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18489635 [2] http://www.ncsl.org/portals/1/documents/health/APeeples0118_32103.pdf http://www.ncsl.org/portals/1/documents/health/APeeples0118_... [3] https://annals.org/aim/article-abstract/745518/opioid-prescriptions-chronic-pain-overdose-cohort-study https://annals.org/aim/article-abstract/745518/opioid-prescr... [4] http://sci-hub.tw/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10550880903182986 http://sci-hub.tw/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108... [5] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6736a2.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6736a2.htm [6] https://www.ehidc.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/Chronic%20Pain%20and%20Suicide.pdf https://www.ehidc.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/Ch...
refurb 7y ago
You're comparing the use and trafficking of illegal drugs with the (alleged) mis-marketing of a legal product. Of course the punishment isn't the same.
- smt88 7y ago
  What if the product was both ineffective and dangerous, and it therefore shouldn't have been legal? And what if the studies showing that were buried by the manufacturer? You could actually argue that someone selling heroin to an addict is doing something consensual, where both parties know what they're getting into. You can't say the same of opioid manufacturers, who intentionally buried vital info and muddied the waters of public perception. The intention was to make money, knowing that millions of people would be harmed. Who cares if the method was "just marketing"?
  - refurb 7y ago
    Opioids are ineffective and dangerous? Not according to the government body called the FDA.
    - smt88 7y ago
      The FDA isn't infallible, and it relies on data from industry. Yes, ineffective and dangerous. > "Opioids are ineffective in the treatment of chronic pain, and the dangerous risks associated with using and abusing opioids have led to America's most deadly drug epidemic." -- National Safety Council[1] > "Ibuprofen Plus Acetaminophen Equals Opioid Plus Acetaminophen for Acute Severe Extremity Pain" -- Govt-funded trial at UVA[2] > "Ibuprofen, acetaminophen more effective than opioids in treating dental pain" -- Case Western Reserve University[3] > "In summary, reliable conclusions about the effectiveness of long-term opioid therapy for chronic pain are not possible due to the paucity of research to date. Accumulating evidence supports the increased risk for serious harms associated with long-term opioid therapy, including overdose, opioid abuse, fractures, myocardial infarction, and markers of sexual dysfunction; for some harms, the risk seems to be dose-dependent." -- NIH[4] And after that, you're welcome to look at examples where pharma execs admitted to misleading doctors about both safety and efficacy[5]. 1. https://www.nsc.org/home-safety/safety-topics/opioids/treating-chronic-noncancer-pain https://www.nsc.org/home-safety/safety-topics/opioids/treati... 2. https://www.aafp.org/afp/2018/0301/p348.html https://www.aafp.org/afp/2018/0301/p348.html 3. https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2089370/effectiveness-risks-long-term-opioid-therapy-chronic-pain-systematic-review https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2089370/effectiveness-ris... 4. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180417181101.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180417181101.h... 5. https://www.wbur.org/npr/690556552/lawsuit-details-how-the-sackler-family-allegedly-built-an-oxycontin-fortune https://www.wbur.org/npr/690556552/lawsuit-details-how-the-s...
rdtsc 7y ago
> Corporate traffickers (perps) get fined for 'nuisance'. One of the worst cases is probably https://www.cnn.com/2014/04/02/justice/delaware-du-pont-rape-case/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2014/04/02/justice/delaware-du-pont-rape... > Though Robert H. Richards IV was convicted of rape, the wealthy heir to the du Pont family fortune was spared prison by a Delaware court in 2009 because he would "not fare well" behind bars, The term is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluenza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluenza. It is surprising how blatant and obvious it is. Yeah $500M out of $80B in revenue is pocket change, about 0.6%.

spamizbad 7y ago

Arthur Anderson and Enron harmed wealthy, powerful people. Corporate pusher's victims were just Regular Joes. Who the law protects and who the law binds aren't always in sync.

trimbo 7y ago
> Arthur Anderson and Enron harmed wealthy, powerful people. Not true. Probably the biggest losers for Enron were the rank-and-file employees of the company. Not only did they lose their jobs, but more than half of the Enron employees' 401k was invested in Enron stock. And Enron happened to freeze the 401k plan at the time where the stock started to drop and people could have sold. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/22/business/employees-retirement-plan-is-a-victim-as-enron-tumbles.html https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/22/business/employees-retire...
- distant_hat 7y ago
  That they harmed rank-and-file is besides the point. The important point is they harmed wealthy, powerful people.
- sjtindell 7y ago
  It is true, lots of people were harmed, including the rank and file. But “rank and file” usually calls up images of honest, blue collar folks and factory floors. According to Smartest Guys In The Room, the rank and file of Enron were mostly MBAs in thousand dollar suits with a reputation for utter ruthlessness and extravagant pay. The electrical utility employees in that article were not truly Enron employees.

dcolkitt 7y ago

What is exactly is it that you believe qualifies as criminal behavior? Opiates are a legal, and medically necessary, component of the healthcare system. Unless you want patients to suffer horrendously, somebody has to manufacture and sell opiates. Opiates are also a fun and addictive drug. As long as they exist and are generally available, some percent of the sub-population will abuse them. We can try our best to keep them only for medical use, but once the prescription leaves the pharmacy there's not much you can do. You can't blame the legal manufacturer when that happens, if they took all required steps to keep their drugs in the legal channels. Maybe you think that's true, but that the opiate manufacturers have used their power and influence to over-prescribe their products. That assumes that opiates are over-utilized in American healthcare. And that's a narrative that simply isn't borne out by the data. Only 0.19% of opiate-treated chronic pain patients without a prior history develop any form of abuse or addiction[1]. And remember these are chronic-pain patients who take tolerance-escalating doses over years or even decades. Virtually no one develops an opiate addiction from following their medically prescribed treatment regiment. The death rate from prescription opiates has not budged since 2006[2]. The vast majority of opiate overdoses in America are not prescription opiates, but illicit fentanyl, and to a lesser extent heroin and methadone. Nor do chronic pain patients face any major risk of overdose. The fatal overdose mortality rate for long-term opiate-prescribed patients is 17 per 100,000[3]. And that number doesn't exclude the subset of the population engaged in abusive behavior like mixing with alcohol, snorting pills, or hoarding medication. Finally the sizable majority of prescription drug abusers in this country do not source from a doctor or the healthcare system at all. The vast majority get their drugs either from the black market or a friend or relative. On the National Drug Use Survey only 18% of prescription drug abusers report doctors as their primary source. And among street prostitutes (a high at-risk group) only 5%[4]. All of this goes to show that there is very little evidence of any sort of over-prescription of opiates in America. To begin with the vast majority of the opiate crisis has to do with fentanyl, not prescription drugs. But even when it comes to prescription drug abuse, the intersection with medical users is vanishingly small. However what there is a major problem in America is untreated chronic pain. 50 million American suffer chronic pain[5]. And 20 million suffer high-impact chronic pain which severely impairs normal life function. More than 10% of suicides are linked to chronic pain[6]. High-dosage opiates are absolutely essential for this group to live any sort of normal life. As long as there are such massive numbers of legitimate pain patients, the law of large numbers guarantees a large supply of diverted opiates. Even under the tightest controls. There's simply no way around that except by denying most of the legitimate patients treatment for their debilitating conditions. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18489635 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18489635 [2] http://www.ncsl.org/portals/1/documents/health/APeeples0118_32103.pdf http://www.ncsl.org/portals/1/documents/health/APeeples0118_... [3] https://annals.org/aim/article-abstract/745518/opioid-prescriptions-chronic-pain-overdose-cohort-study https://annals.org/aim/article-abstract/745518/opioid-prescr... [4] http://sci-hub.tw/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10550880903182986 http://sci-hub.tw/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108... [5] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6736a2.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6736a2.htm [6] https://www.ehidc.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/Chronic%20Pain%20and%20Suicide.pdf https://www.ehidc.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/Ch...

refurb 7y ago

You're comparing the use and trafficking of illegal drugs with the (alleged) mis-marketing of a legal product. Of course the punishment isn't the same.

smt88 7y ago
What if the product was both ineffective and dangerous, and it therefore shouldn't have been legal? And what if the studies showing that were buried by the manufacturer? You could actually argue that someone selling heroin to an addict is doing something consensual, where both parties know what they're getting into. You can't say the same of opioid manufacturers, who intentionally buried vital info and muddied the waters of public perception. The intention was to make money, knowing that millions of people would be harmed. Who cares if the method was "just marketing"?
- refurb 7y ago
  Opioids are ineffective and dangerous? Not according to the government body called the FDA.
  - smt88 7y ago
    The FDA isn't infallible, and it relies on data from industry. Yes, ineffective and dangerous. > "Opioids are ineffective in the treatment of chronic pain, and the dangerous risks associated with using and abusing opioids have led to America's most deadly drug epidemic." -- National Safety Council[1] > "Ibuprofen Plus Acetaminophen Equals Opioid Plus Acetaminophen for Acute Severe Extremity Pain" -- Govt-funded trial at UVA[2] > "Ibuprofen, acetaminophen more effective than opioids in treating dental pain" -- Case Western Reserve University[3] > "In summary, reliable conclusions about the effectiveness of long-term opioid therapy for chronic pain are not possible due to the paucity of research to date. Accumulating evidence supports the increased risk for serious harms associated with long-term opioid therapy, including overdose, opioid abuse, fractures, myocardial infarction, and markers of sexual dysfunction; for some harms, the risk seems to be dose-dependent." -- NIH[4] And after that, you're welcome to look at examples where pharma execs admitted to misleading doctors about both safety and efficacy[5]. 1. https://www.nsc.org/home-safety/safety-topics/opioids/treating-chronic-noncancer-pain https://www.nsc.org/home-safety/safety-topics/opioids/treati... 2. https://www.aafp.org/afp/2018/0301/p348.html https://www.aafp.org/afp/2018/0301/p348.html 3. https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2089370/effectiveness-risks-long-term-opioid-therapy-chronic-pain-systematic-review https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/2089370/effectiveness-ris... 4. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180417181101.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180417181101.h... 5. https://www.wbur.org/npr/690556552/lawsuit-details-how-the-sackler-family-allegedly-built-an-oxycontin-fortune https://www.wbur.org/npr/690556552/lawsuit-details-how-the-s...

rdtsc 7y ago

> Corporate traffickers (perps) get fined for 'nuisance'. One of the worst cases is probably https://www.cnn.com/2014/04/02/justice/delaware-du-pont-rape-case/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2014/04/02/justice/delaware-du-pont-rape... > Though Robert H. Richards IV was convicted of rape, the wealthy heir to the du Pont family fortune was spared prison by a Delaware court in 2009 because he would "not fare well" behind bars, The term is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluenza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluenza. It is surprising how blatant and obvious it is. Yeah $500M out of $80B in revenue is pocket change, about 0.6%.