The Sackler Family and Culpability in the Opioid Crisis

SeekingOblivion said:
At the end of the day, every adult patient with 2 brain cells, and certainly every prescriber knew it was all very addictive.
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I do think that the US for-profit model for medication means that even if a strong opioid is not appropriate for a given amount of pain, the customer (patient) can just go elsewhere. It is sad that doctors are reduced to being pill pushers.

I had a bad back to the point where I could not sleep, But my GP suggested that taking more exercise and adjusting my chair might be better and safer alternatives.

Since in the US doctors actually get a kickback for prescribing a medication does mean that there is a clear conflict of interest.

Here in the UK a GP has to report on any gift worth more than £2.74 i.e. drug reps cannot bribe doctors with the classic long weekend for two with a 1 hour lecture on the Friday afternoon and another 1 hour lecture on the Monday morning. Because of that kick-back, it was possible to check which doctors were prescribing the most Oxycontin and they were then rewarded a second time - 3 nights in a 5 star hotel.

So really? Do you think often elderly people would know when their doctor was outright lying to them.

I have a friend who for the last decade has been acting as a defence lawyer for doctors and pharmacists accued by the DEA of overprescribing. They have won almost every case with nothing more than a map. If a doctor's surgery is close to a large retirement home OR is in the middle of a town where most people have jobs that require a lot of physical exertion, obviously more people WILL develop long-term severe chronic pain.

At least in the UK both the livery of the box and the PIL have to bear warnings that 'this medicine can produce addiction' so we did look at the US and work out how so many people didn't know.

Ignorance has nothing to do with intelligence. Ignorance is not knowing a certain set of facts.
 
4DQSAR said:
I do think that the US for-profit model for medication means that even if a strong opioid is not appropriate for a given amount of pain, the customer (patient) can just go elsewhere. It is sad that doctors are reduced to being pill pushers.

I had a bad back to the point where I could not sleep, But my GP suggested that taking more exercise and adjusting my chair might be better and safer alternatives.

Since in the US doctors actually get a kickback for prescribing a medication does mean that there is a clear conflict of interest.

Here in the UK a GP has to report on any gift worth more than £2.74 i.e. drug reps cannot bribe doctors with the classic long weekend for two with a 1 hour lecture on the Friday afternoon and another 1 hour lecture on the Monday morning. Because of that kick-back, it was possible to check which doctors were prescribing the most Oxycontin and they were then rewarded a second time - 3 nights in a 5 star hotel.

So really? Do you think often elderly people would know when their doctor was outright lying to them.

I have a friend who for the last decade has been acting as a defence lawyer for doctors and pharmacists accued by the DEA of overprescribing. They have won almost every case with nothing more than a map. If a doctor's surgery is close to a large retirement home OR is in the middle of a town where most people have jobs that require a lot of physical exertion, obviously more people WILL develop long-term severe chronic pain.

At least in the UK both the livery of the box and the PIL have to bear warnings that 'this medicine can produce addiction' so we did look at the US and work out how so many people didn't know.

Ignorance has nothing to do with intelligence. Ignorance is not knowing a certain set of facts.
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I work in addiction medicine. Over years of practice every single patient I have had has acknowledged they knew it was all a joke. And I have had thousands. And I have had many a fentanyl granny as a patient. The prescribers are indeed more culpable. But it was a game that took two to tango.
 
Dr. John Thackery said:
go back and read my previous post. i’m not blaming addicts for this mess of fent and opioid bans we are on; i’m blaming the ppl that blame a single pharma company for somehow allegedly inventing the fentanyl epidemic
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Oh okay not a SINGLE pharma company. Certainly the Sackler family played their part though.... Most big pharma companies did. The cartel used that chaos to capitalize on addicts pain and suffering even more. Noone forced them to be addicts either, personal responsibility is also a factor of course.

Can we find common ground there? I totally mistook what you were saying if so. (perhaps the retard, junky, and miserable poor ppl blaming the rich skewed my view of you -- really update yo shit dawg lol)
 
SeekingOblivion said:
I work in addiction medicine. Over years of practice every single patient I have had has acknowledged they knew it was all a joke. And I have had thousands. And I have had many a fentanyl granny as a patient. The prescribers are indeed more culpable. But it was a game that took two to tango.
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Unless the person had genuine pain and genuinely believed "x was less addictive" etc as advertised in the commercial or by the doctor/pharm company --- now over time of course this delusion had to fade.....but by than you full swing in the tango?
 
4DQSAR said:
I

I have a friend who for the last decade has been acting as a defence lawyer for doctors and pharmacists accued by the DEA of overprescribing. They have won almost every case with nothing more than a map.
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what a legend bad ass llawyer. he’s doing gods work.

maybe he only takes homerun cases but i’m aware of completely legitimate non pill mill doctors that are in prison for decades because the dea wanted to set an example.

it’s absolutely sick and they need to be pardoned and released .
 
Well, Oxycontin was licenced in 1996 while the black box warning was only added in 2001.

I can't speak for anyone else but I admit, after about two years, I stopped reading the PIL as I had been using the medication for years and had no side-effects.

I found fentanyl patches to have no manner of ASC, it just controlled the pain. I don't know why Oxycontin ended up more popular than fentanyl.
 
You missed my post or selectively did not reply. I do not love that lol

Oh okay not a SINGLE pharma company. Certainly the Sackler family played their part though.... Most big pharma companies did. The cartel used that chaos to capitalize on addicts pain and suffering even more. Noone forced them to be addicts either, personal responsibility is also a factor of course.

Can we find common ground there?

Let me go one question further. Do you believe that the prices of prescription medication are fair? Before insurance of course4d

@4DQSAR oh hooray I can answer one of your questions for once -- In the US it was advertised as if it were the second coming "Oxycontin ask your doctor for it by name" .... The Trials in the Apalachia's (hence the term hillbilly heroin) -- The flood of pill mills in FL.

BUT HONESTLY BIGGEST REASON -- Oxycontin is more euphoric than fentanyl and has like an 85% oral bioavailability. "It was like a blizzard" Sackler was not wrong. Doctors were getting a ton of "Perks" (no pun) for scripting oxycontin
 
^Not you -- the good doctor "junkies are miserable poor retards" (Hopefully that is just bad speech pattern)

I wouldn't demand an answer if he didnt quote me in his post. Felt like a choice to engage

Also ignored all things ending in ? (Pet peeve lol) -- Ill keep editing while you online doc haha (Just breakin balls you safe, hold your own its respectable - if ya can)

4DQSAR said:
I can only apoligise for my oversight. I was only replying to the previous post.
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notsmokeymcpot42088 said:
^Not you -- the good doctor "junkies are miserable poor retards" (Hopefully that is just bad speech pattern)
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this is now my third time clarifying this point for you that others reading have already understood, and will be the last….the ppl that selectively blame the sacklers for the fentanyl epidemic are the retards, not drug addicts.


the media has done a great job of pinning the fentanyl epidemic on oxy and the sacklers and the public lap it up.

the truth is the dissolution of the american dream and the family, for profit and lack of access to healthcare, for profit punitive prison industry, uniquely american things, and something at the rot of american culture specifically is responsible for the opioid epidemic. meth use has likewise skyrocketed in the same time frame and nobody is blaming the mass prescription of amphetamine.

this is a uniquely american problem. this country has failed and the media and government needed a scapegoat and unfortunately ppl blame one drug company and one drug instead of the systemic failures of america.
 
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I got what you were saying and had several questions that you did not address.

I do not disagree systemic failures of america are at fault. The Sackler's certainly took full and knowing advantage and rode that bandwagon till the rails fell off. (Till they were sued)
Dr. John Thackery said:
this is now my third time clarifying this point for you that others reading have already understood, and will be the last….the ppl that selectively blame the sacklers for the fentanyl epidemic are the retards, not drug addicts.


the media has done a great job of pinning the fentanyl epidemic on oxy and the sacklers and the public lap it up.

the truth is the dissolution of the american dream and the family, for profit and lack of access to healthcare, for profit punitive prison industry, uniquely american things, and something at the rot of american culture specifically is responsible for the opioid epidemic. meth use has likewise skyrocketed in the same time frame and nobody is blaming the mass prescription of amphetamine.

this is a uniquely american problem. this country has failed and the media and government needed a scapegoat and unfortunately ppl blame one drug company and one drug instead of the systemic failures of america.
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notsmokeymcpot42088 said:
I got what you were saying and had several questions that you did not address.

I do not disagree systemic failures of america are at fault. The Sackler's certainly took full and knowing advantage and rode that bandwagon till the rails fell off. (Till they were sued)
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it is the job of any company to sell as much of their product as possible, period. this is how capitalism works. it is not their job to manage addiction issues. this is a job for institutions (government and doctors) and individuals - all of which failed and ignored the problem and continue to ignore it and actually anything they do they make it even worse.
 
Well, was there an epidemic caused by fentanyl patches? I ended up on two 100µh patches AT ONCE for about 18 months and they did nothing but control the pain. Didn't feel anything. Almost no AWS even after that dose for that long.

Illicit αMF turned up on the streets of the US in 1981 but the 'cook', George Marquardt was caught in 1983. Likewise, etonitazene first turned up in the US in the 2003. A chemist called Jackson K. Highsmith made it, got a 20 minute habit, got caught, the AWS and the fact he was facing life in prison resulted in his suicide.

So it seems like those two classes of opioid only gained popularity when prescribing of almost ANY opioid was stopped without warning by the DEA. Before then there was enough H in the US so nobody needed or indeed wanted an inferior product. But when someone with real severe chronic pain gets their prescription stopped without any warning or even a pathway to a detox facility, it's the perfect storm. Suddenly millions of badly informed people who just woke up and realized they were in fact very ill. I'm sure many didn't know why and just ended up either housebound as without analgesia they could not function, or ended their own lives not understanding why they had suddenly go so ill, yet the doctor would not say why.

As I mentioned, a friend spend a decade defending doctors and pharmacies and they mentioned that for a while, it was only Oxycontin that the DEA had a problem with so good clinicians swapped their patients to other opioids and then the DEA spotted that and ALL opioid prescriptions became as rare as hen's teeth.

Only once-a-day buprenorphine and once-a-day methadone were excluded from the new DEA pressure and I KNOW at least three BLers who are given one of those two options to control pain. I did ask why once-a-day was the protocol as with both, a smaller dose every 8-12 hours is indicated for pain. They all knew, yet they were given much higher doses but just once a day. I can only guess that this is because the doctor had fudged the paperwork so that the DEA believes that these are patients being detoxed. But the irony is that for them to work for 24 hours, MUCH larger doses are used so the irony is, the DEA just made MORE people opiate-dependent.
 
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4DQSAR said:
Well, was there an epidemic caused by fentanyl patches? I ended up on two 100µh patches AT ONCE for about 18 months and they did nothing but control the pain. Didn't feel anything. Almost no SWS even after that dose for that long.

Illicit αMF turned up on the streets of the US in 1981 but the 'cook', George Marquardt was caught in 1983. Likewise, etonitazene first turned up in the US in the 2003. A chemist called Jackson K. Highsmith made it, got a 20 minute habit, got caught, the AWS and the fact he was facing life in prison resulted in his suicide.

So it seems like those two classes of opioid only gained popularity when prescribing of almost ANY opioid was stopped without warning by the DEA. Before then there was enough H in the US so nobody needed or indeed wanted an inferior product. But when someone with real severe chronic pain gets their prescription stopped without any warning or even a pathway to a detox facility, it's the perfect storm. Suddenly millions of badly informed people who just woke up and realized they were in fact very ill. I'm sure many didn't know why and just ended up either housebound as without analgesia they could not function, or ended their own lives not understanding why they had suddenly go so ill, yet the doctor would not say why.

As I mentioned, a friend spend a decade defending doctors and pharmacies and they mentioned that for a while, it was only Oxycontin that the DEA had a problem with so good clinicians swapped their patients to other opioids and then the DEA spotted that and ALL opioid prescriptions became as rare as hen's teeth.

Only once-a-day buprenorphine and once-a-day methadone were excluded from the new DEA pressure and I KNOW at least three BLers who are given one of those two options to control pain. I did why once-a-day was the protocol as with both, a smaller dose every 8-12 hours is indicated for pain. They all knew, yet they were given much higher doses but just once a day. I can only guess that this is because the doctor had fudged the paperwork so that the DEA believes that these are patients being detoxed. But the irony is that for them to work for 24 hours, MUCH larger doses are used so the irony is, the DEA just made MORE people opiate-dependent.
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the dea. i can’t tell if it’s stupidity and incompetence or if they are purposely making the drugs epidemic worse to justify their existence and funding (and also help the private prison and rehab industries). they are to blame more than any pharmaceutical company for this mess.
 
4DQSAR said:
So it seems like those two classes of opioid only gained popularity when prescribing of almost ANY opioid was stopped without warning by the DEA. Before then there was enough H in the US so nobody needed or indeed wanted an inferior product. But when someone with real severe chronic pain gets their prescription stopped without any warning or even a pathway to a detox facility, it's the perfect storm. Suddenly millions of badly informed people who just woke up and realized they were in fact very ill. I'm sure many didn't know why and just ended up either housebound as without analgesia they could not function, or ended their own lives not understanding why they had suddenly go so ill, yet the doctor would not say why.

As I mentioned, a friend spend a decade defending doctors and pharmacies and they mentioned that for a while, it was only Oxycontin that the DEA had a problem with so good clinicians swapped their patients to other opioids and then the DEA spotted that and ALL opioid prescriptions became as rare as hen's teeth.

Only once-a-day buprenorphine and once-a-day methadone were excluded from the new DEA pressure and I KNOW at least three BLers who are given one of those two options to control pain. I did why once-a-day was the protocol as with both, a smaller dose every 8-12 hours is indicated for pain. They all knew, yet they were given much higher doses but just once a day. I can only guess that this is because the doctor had fudged the paperwork so that the DEA believes that these are patients being detoxed. But the irony is that for them to work for 24 hours, MUCH larger doses are used so the irony is, the DEA just made MORE people opiate-dependent.
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Obviously the DEA has a role to play, but the primary regulatory agency to blame for under-prescription of opioids is the FDA. It was the FDA's pressure on Purdue to reformulate OxyContin in the early 2010s that was one of the primary catalysts in pushing pharmaceutical opioid-dependent Americans towards heroin and then fentanyl.
 
tuppingtoncity said:
Obviously the DEA has a role to play, but the primary regulatory agency to blame for under-prescription of opioids is the FDA. It was the FDA's pressure on Purdue to reformulate OxyContin in the early 2010s that was one of the primary catalysts in pushing pharmaceutical opioid-dependent Americans towards heroin and then fentanyl.
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i love how by then nearly all oxy in circulation was all generic 30s that couldn’t have been better formulated for injection or snorting. not to mention dilauded, morphine etc.

was basically symbolic to reformulate brand name oxy by that point
 
Dr. John Thackery said:
the dea. i can’t tell if it’s stupidity and incompetence or if they are purposely making the drugs epidemic worse to justify their existence and funding (and also help the private prison and rehab industries). they are to blame more than any pharmaceutical company for this mess.
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If you have an entire national agency whose sole raison d'être is to control the supply, distribution and sales of a small subset of chemicals, OF COURSE they need to ensure that they will have a career. A job for life with a retirement plan.

I've said this before but just legalize evreything BUT require vendors to sell only pure products and only with a licence to sell such products. Then the DEA has a new role - checking the quality of the products, checking the licences and checking nobody under 18 is served.

That way nobody gets their rice-bowl broken, drugs sell at a lower price (methadone is $400/Kg so just how much profit is being made out of addicts here?) and the quality and age-check both ensure the safety of those who make the informed choice to imbibe.

But you have to find a role for the DEA first. So I found a role. All of those agents have families and debts to service. Pensions when they retire. So we could tax sales and THAT is what funds the DEA. So they then have every reason to ensure they fulfil their new brief in full.
 
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4DQSAR said:
But you have to find a role for the DEA first. So I found a role. All of those agents have families and debts to service. Pensions when they retire. So we could tax sales and THAT is what funds the DEA. So they then have every reason to ensure they fulfil their new brief in full.
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Or perhaps merge and create a new subsection of the FDA since there would be immense overlap between the two agencies if the DEA were to be repurposed as such. The unfortunate thing is the fact that so many DEA agents are almost religiously assured of their righteousness in perpetuating the drug war. I think many of them do indeed believe they are doing the right thing, their brains crushed by an overwhelming amount of drug war propaganda.
 
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