OxyContin Maker to Plead Guilty to Federal Criminal Charges, Pay $8 Billion, Close Company

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From CNN Business: “Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, has agreed to plead guilty to three federal criminal charges for its role in creating the nation’s opioid crisis and will pay more than $8 billion and close down the company.

The money will go to opioid treatment and abatement programs. The privately held company has agreed to pay a $3.5 billion fine as well as forfeit an additional $2 billion in past profits, in addition to the $2.8 billion it agreed to pay in civil liability.

‘Purdue Pharma actively thwarted the United States’ efforts to ensure compliance and prevent diversion,’ said Drug Enforcement Administration Assistant Administrator Tim McDermott. ‘The devastating ripple effect of Purdue’s actions left lives lost and others addicted.'”

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1 COMMENT

  1. People should still have the right to get hydrocodone (by itself, without the much more harmful acetaminophen/tylenol) and perhaps even herion. At the very least, opium. And the war on opioids is really just the DEA going for easy targets in its WAR because doctors are kept track of. This Nixon admin agency needs to be shut down imo.

    Meanwhile, back when doctors were actually prescribing opioids willy-nilly, the death statistics were around 5,000 to 9,000 a year, it wasn’t until the DEA began going after doctors and pharmacies that people started getting cut off from the safest way to get the pharmaceutical grade stuff.

    And then this of course creates demand on a black market. And it’s THERE, where both addicts and family members of severe pain sufferers, are having to deal with drug dealers and risk their life with unverified substances, and it’s here that the statistics show the rise to 60,000 or so deaths.

    Realistically, people can live their entire lives on higher and higher and higher dosages of opioids and be completely healthy and happy — my grandfather, a WW2 vet, did it (died at 92) — but only if the stuff they are using is pharma grade and dosed right so that they can ensure control over how much is in them. It’s that simple. Legalize and supervise = no more opioid deaths (save for “junkies” and the remarkably “dumb”)

    But no, that terrifies people. Because then everyone would feel compelled to do it. So no. Just no. No No No!

    But meanwhile, chronic pain patients have been suffering in a hidden holocaust the last several years. Many have died, either of suicide or stroke, heart attack or damages caused by OTC drugs and other desperate attempts to make their pain manageable. And as a society, are we really going to say that this was all for the best, because we’re “saving” drug addicts, who statistically and culturally it appears we not only couldn’t care less about, but criminalize and hate?

    *deep breaths* …

    0_0

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