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That's the weirdest thing about this whole saga. Opioids are not illegal, they haven't been removed from insurance or Medicare coverage, and doctors are still f

That's the weirdest thing about this whole saga. Opioids are not illegal, they haven't been removed from insurance or Medicare coverage, and doctors are still free to over-prescribe them with little to no repercussions. It's kind of like if Ford got sued out of existence for every traffic death, but every other manufacturer got to keep making cars.

rqtwteye 2y ago
Ford should get sued out of existence if they knowingly shipped defective cars while internally knowing that their cars kill people. The Purdue people knew that their public statements about the addictiveness of Oxycontin were wrong.
- appendix-rock 2y ago
  I’ve got the beginning of a movie staring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt that you might be interested in.
  - fragmede 2y ago
    You mean the Ford Pinto case that was actually real, and lead to 27 deaths? https://medium.com/@GallowayJefcoat/tyler-durden-was-right-about-car-recalls-d7fe8a6c9586 https://medium.com/@GallowayJefcoat/tyler-durden-was-right-a...
    - jaggederest 2y ago
      Purdue is responsible for somewhere between a quarter million and half a million excess deaths due to opiates. It's a shocking number. The Pinto scandal is rightfully notorious, but this is a different order of magnitude.
      - jart 2y ago
        Only if you believe people aren't responsible for their own actions. Pintos would explode when you're rear-ended due to fuel tank defects. Opioids won't kill you if you take them as your doctor prescribes. Cars in general are a dangerous thing though. Even when they're built to generally accepted standards, they kill about as many people per year as opioids. Just like there's people who abuse drugs, there's drivers who drive recklessly. However, unlike abusing opioids, driving recklessly will kill others.
        jaggederest 2y ago
        > Opioids won't kill you if you take them as your doctor prescribes. The whole point is that Purdue recklessly lied about the effectiveness of Oxycontin and the duration of action, leading people to seek out street drugs when they had breakthrough pain, and doubled down by saying "just prescribe more oxy" when it became obvious that it only lasted 8 hours, not 12, because all of their profits were based on a 12 hour extended duration of effect. Even if taken as prescribed, they were basically selling a recipe for a heroin OD. They're responsible for a lot more than 27 deaths.
        rqtwteye 2y ago
        “ Opioids won't kill you if you take them as your doctor prescribes” They will give you an addiction if used as prescribed. Purdue knew that their 12 hour interval doesn’t work but they still sold it as such.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        floydnoel 2y ago
        they will give some percentage of people an addiction, sure, but it isn't 100%.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    Now imagine a version where the steering cuts out every hour in every Pinto and they still don't recall.
    - hedora 2y ago
      That sounds like present day active safety systems on some cars. I counted one erroneous steering override every 20 miles on mine until I disabled the feature deep in the car settings menu. (Turning off lane keeping wasn’t enough - the car still overrides steering in “emergencies” by default. It still seems to override sometimes, but it hasn’t done anything dangerous recently). I talked to people with vehicles that have similar capabilities, all under five years old. Other than the rivian and tesla owners, every person I talked to experienced similar problems.
- techjamie 2y ago
  They came pretty close with the Ford Pinto, after determining that the wrongful death lawsuits would be cheaper than doing a recall. https://www.spokesman.com/blogs/autos/2008/oct/17/pinto-memo-its-cheaper-let-them-burn/ https://www.spokesman.com/blogs/autos/2008/oct/17/pinto-memo...
  - doubled112 2y ago
    Didn't GM do this as well with their ignition switches? As in, they knew it was a problem, but decided it'd be cheaper to deal with repercussions instead of fixing it.
njbooher 2y ago
Why would we as a society make the most effective class of painkillers illegal as a response to the bad actions of one company? (Pre-edit: Why would we make a highly effective class of severe painkillers illegal because of one bad actor?)
- fragmede 2y ago
  We made an entire class of medications (cannabinoids) illegal because of one bad actor (Regan), why wouldn't we do it again?
  - noman-land 2y ago
    Because that was the wrong decision and a disaster.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- lazide 2y ago
  Well, the issue with opioids has always been how addictive they are - literally since the beginning. It’s ’chasing the dragon’ for a reason. Considering both Heroin and Oxy were such big issues because the pharmaceutical companies pretended their formulations were less addictive when that was not only not the case, but they were worse, I guess what we should be banning is anything that isn’t uncut opium eh?
  - johnisgood 2y ago
    Have you ever seen an old lady become addicted to morphine? Regardless, "this is why we can't have nice things", because of people, because of addicts who die from drug overdose and we are all blaming the drugs for it and preventing people from having access to painkillers for their chronic pain. It should not even to be said, but pain fucking sucks, and no one should wish it to anyone. Being "addicted" to opioids for pain (or depression & anxiety) is not good, but in the same vain that it is not good to be healthy for you to take NSAIDs on a daily basis, but that is just life for you. Sure, I am all up for a physically harmless, non-addictive alternative, but until then, let people who have chronic pain (or acute pain, does not matter) decide.
llamaimperative 2y ago
People who are in pain need effective pain medications bruh
- Loughla 2y ago
  That's the problem now though. Doctors do not like to prescribe these things anymore, even when they're warranted. I have a family member going through cancer. This type causes extreme pain. The doctors recommended a Tylenol course first, because they were afraid he was just drug seeking. So he sat in misery for two months before we finally had a good doctor prescribe appropriate opioid medication. Now he can focus enough to eat and walk instead of just being in pain. It's almost like there should be a nuanced view of problems.
GeekyBear 2y ago
Fraud is illegal. The Sacker family leadership was behind the fraudulent claim that Oxycontin was a non-addictive opioid that was suitable for the treatment of everyday pain. They should be stripped of their ill gotten opioid gains.
- jart 2y ago
  They have been. The Sacklers are social pariahs and outcasts. Their liabilities far exceed their net worth. They had to move away from New York to Florida in order to afford something resembling their old lifestyle. Their family name has been taken down from all the museums they funded. Being upper class people, they still have a lot of wealth earning potential going forward, and you can feel assured that whatever they earn, most of it will go to paying the people who've brought cases against them.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - yndoendo 2y ago
    When people sell drugs like cocaine or heroin and the consumer dies, they dealer is prosecuted for their death. The Slacker family has assisted with more deaths than any single street dealer and are not held to the same standards. This show how much political and monetary sway they still have. Slacker family highlights how perverse the US legal system is towards such individuals and how people are still not equal under the law. Slacker family should be in jail for lying to the FDA about how their product was not addictive and for all the deaths they assisted with.
    - lazide 2y ago
      Huh? Since when do drug dealers get ‘prosecuted for the deaths’ of folks who OD on their products, assuming it was unintentional? Prosecuted for selling illegal substances yeah. But that’s different.
      - 2y ago
sirhardy 2y ago
Footsoldiers of the Sacklers seem to crawl out of the woodwork repeatedly. The Sacklers knew of the degree of addiction opiods caused, practically bribed doctors to prescribe them when entirely unnecessary, all while strategically whitewashing their sins through philanthropy.

rqtwteye 2y ago

Ford should get sued out of existence if they knowingly shipped defective cars while internally knowing that their cars kill people. The Purdue people knew that their public statements about the addictiveness of Oxycontin were wrong.

appendix-rock 2y ago
I’ve got the beginning of a movie staring Edward Norton and Brad Pitt that you might be interested in.
- fragmede 2y ago
  You mean the Ford Pinto case that was actually real, and lead to 27 deaths? https://medium.com/@GallowayJefcoat/tyler-durden-was-right-about-car-recalls-d7fe8a6c9586 https://medium.com/@GallowayJefcoat/tyler-durden-was-right-a...
  - jaggederest 2y ago
    Purdue is responsible for somewhere between a quarter million and half a million excess deaths due to opiates. It's a shocking number. The Pinto scandal is rightfully notorious, but this is a different order of magnitude.
    - jart 2y ago
      Only if you believe people aren't responsible for their own actions. Pintos would explode when you're rear-ended due to fuel tank defects. Opioids won't kill you if you take them as your doctor prescribes. Cars in general are a dangerous thing though. Even when they're built to generally accepted standards, they kill about as many people per year as opioids. Just like there's people who abuse drugs, there's drivers who drive recklessly. However, unlike abusing opioids, driving recklessly will kill others.
      - jaggederest 2y ago
        > Opioids won't kill you if you take them as your doctor prescribes. The whole point is that Purdue recklessly lied about the effectiveness of Oxycontin and the duration of action, leading people to seek out street drugs when they had breakthrough pain, and doubled down by saying "just prescribe more oxy" when it became obvious that it only lasted 8 hours, not 12, because all of their profits were based on a 12 hour extended duration of effect. Even if taken as prescribed, they were basically selling a recipe for a heroin OD. They're responsible for a lot more than 27 deaths.
      - rqtwteye 2y ago
        “ Opioids won't kill you if you take them as your doctor prescribes” They will give you an addiction if used as prescribed. Purdue knew that their 12 hour interval doesn’t work but they still sold it as such.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        floydnoel 2y ago
        they will give some percentage of people an addiction, sure, but it isn't 100%.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  Now imagine a version where the steering cuts out every hour in every Pinto and they still don't recall.
  - hedora 2y ago
    That sounds like present day active safety systems on some cars. I counted one erroneous steering override every 20 miles on mine until I disabled the feature deep in the car settings menu. (Turning off lane keeping wasn’t enough - the car still overrides steering in “emergencies” by default. It still seems to override sometimes, but it hasn’t done anything dangerous recently). I talked to people with vehicles that have similar capabilities, all under five years old. Other than the rivian and tesla owners, every person I talked to experienced similar problems.
techjamie 2y ago
They came pretty close with the Ford Pinto, after determining that the wrongful death lawsuits would be cheaper than doing a recall. https://www.spokesman.com/blogs/autos/2008/oct/17/pinto-memo-its-cheaper-let-them-burn/ https://www.spokesman.com/blogs/autos/2008/oct/17/pinto-memo...
- doubled112 2y ago
  Didn't GM do this as well with their ignition switches? As in, they knew it was a problem, but decided it'd be cheaper to deal with repercussions instead of fixing it.

njbooher 2y ago

Why would we as a society make the most effective class of painkillers illegal as a response to the bad actions of one company? (Pre-edit: Why would we make a highly effective class of severe painkillers illegal because of one bad actor?)

fragmede 2y ago
We made an entire class of medications (cannabinoids) illegal because of one bad actor (Regan), why wouldn't we do it again?
- noman-land 2y ago
  Because that was the wrong decision and a disaster.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
lazide 2y ago
Well, the issue with opioids has always been how addictive they are - literally since the beginning. It’s ’chasing the dragon’ for a reason. Considering both Heroin and Oxy were such big issues because the pharmaceutical companies pretended their formulations were less addictive when that was not only not the case, but they were worse, I guess what we should be banning is anything that isn’t uncut opium eh?
- johnisgood 2y ago
  Have you ever seen an old lady become addicted to morphine? Regardless, "this is why we can't have nice things", because of people, because of addicts who die from drug overdose and we are all blaming the drugs for it and preventing people from having access to painkillers for their chronic pain. It should not even to be said, but pain fucking sucks, and no one should wish it to anyone. Being "addicted" to opioids for pain (or depression & anxiety) is not good, but in the same vain that it is not good to be healthy for you to take NSAIDs on a daily basis, but that is just life for you. Sure, I am all up for a physically harmless, non-addictive alternative, but until then, let people who have chronic pain (or acute pain, does not matter) decide.

llamaimperative 2y ago

People who are in pain need effective pain medications bruh

Loughla 2y ago
That's the problem now though. Doctors do not like to prescribe these things anymore, even when they're warranted. I have a family member going through cancer. This type causes extreme pain. The doctors recommended a Tylenol course first, because they were afraid he was just drug seeking. So he sat in misery for two months before we finally had a good doctor prescribe appropriate opioid medication. Now he can focus enough to eat and walk instead of just being in pain. It's almost like there should be a nuanced view of problems.

GeekyBear 2y ago

Fraud is illegal. The Sacker family leadership was behind the fraudulent claim that Oxycontin was a non-addictive opioid that was suitable for the treatment of everyday pain. They should be stripped of their ill gotten opioid gains.

jart 2y ago
They have been. The Sacklers are social pariahs and outcasts. Their liabilities far exceed their net worth. They had to move away from New York to Florida in order to afford something resembling their old lifestyle. Their family name has been taken down from all the museums they funded. Being upper class people, they still have a lot of wealth earning potential going forward, and you can feel assured that whatever they earn, most of it will go to paying the people who've brought cases against them.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- yndoendo 2y ago
  When people sell drugs like cocaine or heroin and the consumer dies, they dealer is prosecuted for their death. The Slacker family has assisted with more deaths than any single street dealer and are not held to the same standards. This show how much political and monetary sway they still have. Slacker family highlights how perverse the US legal system is towards such individuals and how people are still not equal under the law. Slacker family should be in jail for lying to the FDA about how their product was not addictive and for all the deaths they assisted with.
  - lazide 2y ago
    Huh? Since when do drug dealers get ‘prosecuted for the deaths’ of folks who OD on their products, assuming it was unintentional? Prosecuted for selling illegal substances yeah. But that’s different.
    - 2y ago

sirhardy 2y ago

Footsoldiers of the Sacklers seem to crawl out of the woodwork repeatedly. The Sacklers knew of the degree of addiction opiods caused, practically bribed doctors to prescribe them when entirely unnecessary, all while strategically whitewashing their sins through philanthropy.