Posted on 12/24/2017 9:41:36 PM PST by bitt
A 60 Minutes/Washington Post joint investigation into the DEA's response to the opioid epidemic again finds investigators who hit a brick wall in Washington
In October, we joined forces with the Washington Post and reported a disturbing story of Washington at its worst - about an act of Congress that crippled the DEA's ability to fight the worst drug crisis in American history - the opioid addiction crisis. Now, a new front of that joint investigation. It is also disturbing. It's the inside story of the biggest case the DEA ever built against a drug company: the McKesson Corporation, the country's largest drug distributor. It's also the story of a company too big to prosecute.
In 2014, after two years of painstaking inquiry by nine DEA field divisions and 12 U.S. Attorneys, investigators built a powerful case against McKesson for the company's role in the opioid crisis.
Our reporting turned up the leader of the DEA team, David Schiller, who tells for the first time how his investigators hit a brick wall in Washington when they tried to hold the powerful company accountable.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
NOTE DATE OF SETTLEMENT: JAN 17 2017, only 2 days before Trump! They wanted to protect Obama DEA that was already protecting #Hezbollah !
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The opiod “Crisis” was engineered to destroy working-class and rural whites.
60 Minutes is following its usual black hat/white hat dichotomy of bad guys and good guys in a given situation. I’m not sure how much the pharmaceutical companies are at fault, but you really have to look at the recreational drug users who never were in pain, never had surgeries, never really needed it, but still went to great lengths to seek out and then abuse these substances. Almost every journalistic treatment of this subject almost immediately absolves the users. And that group (users) resolves down into a spectrum of groups, some of which deserve sympathy, others which do not. But for 60 Minutes, its the usual sinister corporation in the black hat.
Just like the crack epidemic of the 1980’s, the opioid epidemic is the fault of the users, and not the fault of the government or any corporation.
There is one different aspect to this issue....it’s a legal drug (unlike Meth, crack, cocaine, etc). So all of these folks with long-term back-pain found their wonder drug....all legal in nature.
As you look at the usage issue....even the people with pain came to discover that as they used for long-term, it became less effective, and they had to double-up on the wonder drug. This is how the pain-clinics in Florida popped up and helped to hand out additional prescriptions and gave people as much as they wanted.
Methamphetamine and cocaine are both legal Schedule II drugs.
Not at all. Most obtained the drugs legally then were hooked.
It’s more like entrapment.
"As part of an Obamacare initiative meant to reward quality care, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is allocating some $1.5 billion in Medicare payments to hospitals based on criteria that include patient-satisfaction surveys. Among the questions: “During this hospital stay, how often did the hospital staff do everything they could to help you with your pain?” And: “How often was your pain well controlled?”"
Long before the government stepped in cigarettes were called coffin nails. Everybody knew they were bad for you.
There is no "opioid crisis", just the governments failed 40+ year war on drugs which have done more to destroy the Bill of Rights than any commie could dream possible.
Finally in a free country people are allowed to make their own decisions including killing themselves. Now we know the Feds don't give a rip about junkies offing themselves, else booze would be banned. This is just the latest iteration of the drug "crisis" which will eventually 1) allow the Feds to extort money from big pharma and 2) strip more of our freedoms.
Junkies are not entrapped, junkies choose to use, abuse and become addicted.
Perhaps it's time Americans take responsibility for their consumption of drugs and not place the blame on external entities.
Spot on!
It is the weak minded that get addicted to crack, meth or opioids and whenever a segment of the population becomes addicted to one of those drugs, the apologists get their panties in a wad and want to blame Big Pharma or the government.
That fact is that the only person a junky has to blame is himself.
I think people have simply forgotten how to cope with pain, our great, great grandparents certainly had more pain to cope with than we do now simply due to a much more physically demanding lifestyle but most of them did not depend on painkilling medicines. I myself have spent years in constant pain and took no painkillers at all, not even aspirin. Some may think this crazy but what seems to relieve my aches and pains better than medicine now is simply to take a very hot shower and then turn the water from hot to pure cold and stand there under the shower for another ten minutes. I am 73 and have only minor aches now, I can walk faster than almost anyone I know and can still run for short distances.
One thing I am fairly sure of is that if you take strong pain medications for an extended period you will have worse pain than ever if you stop and that results in not being able to get along without them. The brain has amazing power to turn off pain if people could learn to use that power.
I was a liver donor (1/2) and was on high dose morphine for a few days. I needed it as they cut through all the abdominal muscles. The morphine took care of the pain but I did not like the way it made me feel and think. As soon as the pain was bearable I got off the morphine (about 5 days). I do not understand why anyone would want to feel the way the morphine makes you feel.
Addiction is psychological and physiological. The hard one to break is the psychological addiction.
You did the most important thing there, you saved a life. Thanks.
The people I have known that became addicted to substances each had some personal weakness and lack of self-control and I have known people with similar weaknesses and lack of self-control that made the decisions to not become addicted.
Addiction is a choice.
The vast majority of these group addicts were average folks started by their own doctors.
The vast quantities available now is another crime unto itself.
“The vast majority of these group addicts were average folks started by their own doctors.”
Can you please provide an example of someone’s doctor entering a patient’s home without consent, tackling their patient, holding them down and shooting opioids into their patient’s veins until they become addicted?
If not, those people are getting addicted by their own free will.
pharmakeia
sorcery, witchcraft.
From pharmakeus; medication (”pharmacy”), i.e. (by extension) magic (literally or figuratively) — sorcery, witchcraft.
see GREEK pharmakeus
I’m not too concerned about the so called opiate crisis.
I’m more worried about the unholy alliance between the feds,
big pharma and medical professionals.
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