Posted on 12/04/2023 8:13:41 PM PST by bitt
The Supreme Court seemed concerned Monday that blowing up Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement — a plan the Biden administration challenged based on the immunity it granted the company’s owners from facing future lawsuits — could mean victims of the opioid crisis never see a cent in compensation.
The settlement requires the Sackler family to provide up to $6 billion to address the opioid crisis in exchange for immunity from future lawsuits. While skeptical of the arrangement, multiple justices voiced concerns during oral arguments Monday in Harrington v. Purdue Pharma that changing it would put victims, who overwhelmingly support the settlement because it would meet their urgent need for compensation, in a worse position.
“You’re implying if you just reject this plan there is going to be more money available from the Sacklers down the road,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said. “I don’t think you’re accounting for the uncertainty.”
https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1731701628221190416?
Just 3% of victims oppose the deal, Justice Elena Kagan pointed out, saying that the government’s position could allow “one nutcase holdout” to block the arrangement.
“It’s overwhelming, the support for this deal,” she said. “And among people who have no love for the Sacklers. Among people who think that the Sacklers are pretty much the worst people on earth.”
Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy in 2019 in response to thousands of lawsuits over its deceptive marketing that downplayed the addictiveness of OxyContin. The company also plead guilty to criminal charges in 2007 and 2020 stemming from its marketing of OxyContin.
Between 1999 and 2019, close to 247,000 people died from overdoses on prescription opioids, according to court documents.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycaller.com ...
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At what point do opioid abusers have to accept responsibility for their actions?
i’m sorry, but it was/is the doc’s writing scripts for money that all need to be jailed for life first...
Blame shifting. The OD deaths are due to fentanyl and heroin and not prescription opioids.
Prescription opioids have decreased over 60% while ODs are at record levels.,
Purdue only produced a relatively small percentage of total prescription opioids
This scapegoating is unsurprising when the government stands to gain by protecting the illegal drug trade.
OxyContin was approved by the FDA. Doctors prescribed it and pharmacies filled the prescriptions based on FDA guidelines. It seems to me that the FDA should have been the first in line to be sued.
I tend to agree.
That said, and as horrific as the oxycontin scam injuries are and were, I do believe that the human misery and death resulting from the Fentanyl crossing our southern border is much, much worse.
And was preventable from the outset.
Many of those deaths were from people using STOLEN prescriptions of opioids, as well as illegal drugs.
Your obviously joking or you forgot the sarcasm warning.
You do realize that the ODs are from illegal drugs and it’s been that way for a long time.
Prescription opioids peaked in 2012 and have declined by over 60% since then but ODs are at record levels.
Now if prescription opioids were the primary reason for ODs and addiction, the ODs should’ve gone down by now, 10 years later?
There is a big false narrative on prescription opioids.
Correct. The worst people are now the folks that allow this to come over our borders.
Victims of the “opioid crisis” are people who take opioids without prescription or cause.
There are way more evil people out there than drug manufacturers.
These were legally prescribed medication. I am so sick of Americans showing an entire bucket of FFC down their pie hole then blaming KFC. People knew damn well that opiates are addicting. The GOVERNMENT push to prescribe opiates to treat pain then changed their minds and forced doctors to stop. You can’t gooonfrom 100 mph to zero without damaging the patient. Some could stop, others found ways to detox over time while others were forced to either to rapid withdrawal or street drugs. Almost seemed like the government had a vested interest in driving up street drug usage.
Treat pain ethically! We don’t let patients get fat, treat their self induced diabetes with insulin then one day say no more. Your insulin dependence is in your head and the FDA refuses to let us prescribe insulin so suck it up buttercup.
It still is preventable, and treatable. Go back to where doctors (not the pill mill scams) see patients and write the prescription. That is how you get people into treatment. Wean them down and then get them help. And they get quality assurance and dose assurance. As bad as some people are or were addicted to the medication, it is preferable they do it under a doctor’s care - without fear of repercussions from the government- than forcing them to score fentanyl laced smack from drug cartels. And some people do need these meds for chronic pain but now are put in a tough spot with doctors fearing the loss of their licenses.
Drug policy in America has been a mess for decades and the government has completely lost control at this point. The numbers of synthetic drug types and analogues is the direct result of drug policy. Instead of cocaine we got cheap synthetic meth and bath salts. Instead of heroin or pills we got cheap fentanyl. Instead of weed we got spice. It’s time to call the war off and focus on caring for people with substance abuse. And if they are addicted to pills, it’s preferable than trying their luck on the streets.
In 10 yeas (from the article) 24K died per year. Now it’s 100K - 125K per year. I think even those numbers are low by 50% or more.
Everybody knew opiates were addictive for the last 150 years. Maybe longer if you go back to the opium wars and opium dens. They used to mix opium with alcohol and anyone could get it from a pharmacy or doctor in the late 1800s before we had an FDA. It was called laudanum. Nobody was fooled by Purdue. Everyone who should have known knew, and society at large always did. We had heroin epidemic since the 1920s when they synthesized opium into heroin in the early 1900s and it exploded in the 1960s. People pretending they didn’t know is the real scam. Especially doctors.
The FDA regulator who oversaw the approval of the highly-addictive opioid OxyContin got a six-figure gig at the drug’s manufacturer a year later. Curtis Wright, once a director at the US Food and Drug Administration who oversaw evaluation for pain medication, got a position with a first-year compensation package of $400,000 at Purdue Pharma a year after he led the approval of OxyContin, according to the book “Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty” by Patrick Radden Keefe.
Perdue Pharmacy 20 yrs/ 247,000 ppl
China 3 yrs/300,000 ppl
Who’s the worst people on earth?
John Jacob Astor (1763-1848), America’s first multi-millionare, earned his vast fortunes as a fur trader, real estate mogul, and opium smuggler.
legally manufactured drugs can only come from doctors
and it WAS the reason till the gov clamped down to cover their own ass to the point people with legitimate pain now play hell to get meds and now look on the street for them along wi the junkies...
lotta docs should be in jail
just watch any of the oxy videos from WVA etc where towns were on it
There has to be some middle ground. I wish there was a way to tell which people would get hooked and not. For me, drug chasing a flaw of character, akin to pedophilia. Anyone can fall for it, but it’s something you have to take responsibility for and NOT PUSH TO OTHERS.
We’re a nation of weed addicts now that are no better than big pharma was with opiates.
Noblefree and others on here that I’ve seen pushed this state of mind and deserve...
OxyContin is a delivery system, not some wretched drug - it’s a convenient QD dosing of oxycodone.
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