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The money they claim 6M for 200 arrests is a pretty darn low dollar per person claim - this is a really weak bust in my opinion, and I assume a lot of those arr

The money they claim 6M for 200 arrests is a pretty darn low dollar per person claim - this is a really weak bust in my opinion, and I assume a lot of those arrests are really unlucky people who happened to slip into this net, but not cybercriminal masterminds, or drug lords. Let's celebrate when we catch the people who produce the shit, or even better, legalize as much of it as we can and establish social programs to help with awareness and recovery.

roymurdock 6y ago
Keep your eye on the Sackler/Purdue Pharma case [1]. Purdue steered over $13B directly to the Sackler family by aggressively marketing opiates, misinforming doctors and the public about their dangers, and giving medical software companies kickbacks to push more addictive long-release versions of their opiates to doctors. One company, Allscripts, was able to pay $145M to resolve criminal and civil kickback allegations [2]. They directly killed over 400,000 people between 1999 and 2017 and indirectly killed many more/caused unimaginable human suffering. The family is proposing to pay $3B over 7 years and an additional $1.5B by selling off another company they own. This is the real opiate crisis jackpot and the high-scale, high-powered, industrialized version of the crimes that are happening on the dark web. I'm sure there are more large companies and high powered individuals involved and agree that the 200 arrests/$6M is an infinitely tiny drop in the bucket, but it's way easier to prove and stick than the larger operations. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purdue-pharma-bankruptcy-factbox/where-the-purdue-pharma-sackler-legal-saga-stands-idUSKBN1ZS1H3 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purdue-pharma-bankruptcy-... [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purdue-pharma-investigation-opioids-e/exclusive-oxycontin-maker-purdue-is-pharma-co-x-in-u-s-opioid-kickback-probe-sources-idUSKBN1ZR2RY https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purdue-pharma-investigati...
- codezero 6y ago
  Yep - I agree, small wins are easier, and especially if you can use buzzwords like we do in tech. It also leaves more option for agent corruption to bring some of that cash home. This possibly one reason why white collar crime is less punished (see: civil forfeiture - though more so that the likeliness of a successful court case is very low) - less money to take home because rich people will spend it all on lawyers if they have to, then use their connections to get right back on top.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  The pharma companies getting people addicted on opioids killed pretty much nobody. For the most part they just created a hell of a lot of functional addicts. Not great but not the end of the world. The feds cutting a bunch of junkies off from their safe and legal suppliers and forcing them to source their fix from the black market was what killed a lot of people. Obviously the stuff the pharma companies did should be punished but blaming them for the body count and all the other bad things that happened once the feds cracked down is nothing more than a typical exercise in government being unwilling to hold itself accountable.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - codezero 6y ago
    This isn't data so I'm not refuting you, but I have several EMT acquaintances and basically all their stories are about repeat opiate addicts getting revived again and again until they are dead a few months later. Ignoring the deaths, the economic drain of having so many people addicted to drugs and being unemployed/working at low function likely has had massive effects that are very difficult to measure.
dzhiurgis 6y ago
Kinda feel catching a ton of distributors is a good deterrent form becoming one. Most are not thinking of this as a business tho, but as a form of some sort of liberation and are junkies themselves.
- codezero 6y ago
  As all of history has shown, this doesn't work. Literally anyone can jump into their shoes, and for the most part, a lot of people are waiting to. There are a lot of poor people who will take an opportunity to get out of their status even with high risk.

roymurdock 6y ago

Keep your eye on the Sackler/Purdue Pharma case [1]. Purdue steered over $13B directly to the Sackler family by aggressively marketing opiates, misinforming doctors and the public about their dangers, and giving medical software companies kickbacks to push more addictive long-release versions of their opiates to doctors. One company, Allscripts, was able to pay $145M to resolve criminal and civil kickback allegations [2]. They directly killed over 400,000 people between 1999 and 2017 and indirectly killed many more/caused unimaginable human suffering. The family is proposing to pay $3B over 7 years and an additional $1.5B by selling off another company they own. This is the real opiate crisis jackpot and the high-scale, high-powered, industrialized version of the crimes that are happening on the dark web. I'm sure there are more large companies and high powered individuals involved and agree that the 200 arrests/$6M is an infinitely tiny drop in the bucket, but it's way easier to prove and stick than the larger operations. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purdue-pharma-bankruptcy-factbox/where-the-purdue-pharma-sackler-legal-saga-stands-idUSKBN1ZS1H3 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purdue-pharma-bankruptcy-... [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purdue-pharma-investigation-opioids-e/exclusive-oxycontin-maker-purdue-is-pharma-co-x-in-u-s-opioid-kickback-probe-sources-idUSKBN1ZR2RY https://www.reuters.com/article/us-purdue-pharma-investigati...

codezero 6y ago
Yep - I agree, small wins are easier, and especially if you can use buzzwords like we do in tech. It also leaves more option for agent corruption to bring some of that cash home. This possibly one reason why white collar crime is less punished (see: civil forfeiture - though more so that the likeliness of a successful court case is very low) - less money to take home because rich people will spend it all on lawyers if they have to, then use their connections to get right back on top.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
The pharma companies getting people addicted on opioids killed pretty much nobody. For the most part they just created a hell of a lot of functional addicts. Not great but not the end of the world. The feds cutting a bunch of junkies off from their safe and legal suppliers and forcing them to source their fix from the black market was what killed a lot of people. Obviously the stuff the pharma companies did should be punished but blaming them for the body count and all the other bad things that happened once the feds cracked down is nothing more than a typical exercise in government being unwilling to hold itself accountable.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- codezero 6y ago
  This isn't data so I'm not refuting you, but I have several EMT acquaintances and basically all their stories are about repeat opiate addicts getting revived again and again until they are dead a few months later. Ignoring the deaths, the economic drain of having so many people addicted to drugs and being unemployed/working at low function likely has had massive effects that are very difficult to measure.

dzhiurgis 6y ago

Kinda feel catching a ton of distributors is a good deterrent form becoming one. Most are not thinking of this as a business tho, but as a form of some sort of liberation and are junkies themselves.

codezero 6y ago
As all of history has shown, this doesn't work. Literally anyone can jump into their shoes, and for the most part, a lot of people are waiting to. There are a lot of poor people who will take an opportunity to get out of their status even with high risk.