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Doctor Gets 4 Years in Prison for Insys Opioid Kickbacks

fortune.com

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Re: Doctor Gets 4 Years in Prison for Insys Opioid Kickbacks

#21

Post by joe_the_user »

anonymous5133 wrote: post #10

FYI, there is a new episode on american greed which pretty much shows how these type of operations worked. Insys basically gave the kickbacks by having the doctors give "speeches" but it turns out no speeches were given and the doctors got the checks anyways. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2WBKkyFpRo

Greed and stupidity. A regular "speech" isn't that hard to organize. It's like the leading edge of medical-pharmaceutical industry has devolved from the legal corruption of payments informally coupled to favors to the illegality of payments directly so tied out of laziness and impatience. Perhaps these folks are sampling their own wares too much.

Re: Doctor Gets 4 Years in Prison for Insys Opioid Kickbacks

#22

Post by alkonaut »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #11
astura wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is getting down voted but I don't think that's fair, it's not off topic. Trump said yesterday he's in favor of the death penalty for drug dealers because they are responsible for the death of others. It's a fair question to ask if there should be a distinction between street dealers and these doctors and executives.

Trump is the President, not a King. This doc has been convicted and was sentenced based on the laws in place when he commuted the crimes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law and all. Also Trump cannot force the US Congress and Senate to pass the laws. Or the courts to judge that this is compatible with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruel_and_unusual_punishment

> Trump is the President, not a King

Who will tell him though?

Re: Doctor Gets 4 Years in Prison for Insys Opioid Kickbacks

#23

Post by j_jochem »

andybak wrote: post #20
j_jochem wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That just means we should treat low level criminals humanely. Four years is plenty. And the street dealers’ customers know full well that they’re buying a very addictive substance which is not medically indicated.

> And the street dealers’ customers know full well that they’re buying a very addictive substance You're forgetting the large number of non-addictive substances that carry long sentences.

I was thinking of dealers selling heroin in particular, since that feels like the appropriate thing to compare fentanyl-pushing MDs to, but in a broader sense, your point is if course correct.

Re: Doctor Gets 4 Years in Prison for Insys Opioid Kickbacks

#24

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #11
astura wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is getting down voted but I don't think that's fair, it's not off topic. Trump said yesterday he's in favor of the death penalty for drug dealers because they are responsible for the death of others. It's a fair question to ask if there should be a distinction between street dealers and these doctors and executives.

Trump is the President, not a King. This doc has been convicted and was sentenced based on the laws in place when he commuted the crimes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law and all. Also Trump cannot force the US Congress and Senate to pass the laws. Or the courts to judge that this is compatible with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruel_and_unusual_punishment

> Trump is the President, not a King.

He'd make a bloody awful King, by any measure. It's bad enough that he's a President.

Re: Doctor Gets 4 Years in Prison for Insys Opioid Kickbacks

#25

Post by astura »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #11
astura wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is getting down voted but I don't think that's fair, it's not off topic. Trump said yesterday he's in favor of the death penalty for drug dealers because they are responsible for the death of others. It's a fair question to ask if there should be a distinction between street dealers and these doctors and executives.

Trump is the President, not a King. This doc has been convicted and was sentenced based on the laws in place when he commuted the crimes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law and all. Also Trump cannot force the US Congress and Senate to pass the laws. Or the courts to judge that this is compatible with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruel_and_unusual_punishment

Whether or not he supports something is completely irrelevant to if he can force something to happen or if it's Constitutional. Trump has supported unconstitutional positions in the past, it's not out of character.

Re: Doctor Gets 4 Years in Prison for Insys Opioid Kickbacks

#26

Post by sitkack »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #11
astura wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is getting down voted but I don't think that's fair, it's not off topic. Trump said yesterday he's in favor of the death penalty for drug dealers because they are responsible for the death of others. It's a fair question to ask if there should be a distinction between street dealers and these doctors and executives.

Trump is the President, not a King. This doc has been convicted and was sentenced based on the laws in place when he commuted the crimes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_post_facto_law and all. Also Trump cannot force the US Congress and Senate to pass the laws. Or the courts to judge that this is compatible with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruel_and_unusual_punishment

If I were Trump, I would make a penal colony on one of our pacific atolls and then drone strike him, that would align with existing executive power.

Didn't we declare a "War on Drugs", so that would make drug dealers enemy combatants and subject to tribunals and gitmo.

I should have been Alito.

Re: Doctor Gets 4 Years in Prison for Insys Opioid Kickbacks

#28

Post by CamperBob2 »

rhizome wrote: post #17
koolba wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really not. Four years is hardly a deterrent. It’s barely a slap on the wrist considering the number of lives destroyed by that plague. What’s makes this particularly heinous is the trust we place as a society in medical providers. The vast majority of people will take whatever medicine a doctor prescribes. No questions asked. Abusing that position of power is sickening.

Four years is hardly a deterrent What do you know? Do tell.

Honestly, if you could make $10M as a mid-level distributor, squirrel most of it away tax-free, with the downside risk being only four years in the pen, that would be a massive rational win for most people.

Of course, the only reason you can make millions of dollars illegally at this racket is because it's illegal in the first place, so never mind. Drug laws cause far more harm to society than the drugs themselves ever could. Any argument to the contrary can trivially be resolved to a special-pleading fallacy.

Re: Doctor Gets 4 Years in Prison for Insys Opioid Kickbacks

#29

Post by lopmotr »

pessimizer wrote: post #12
onetimemanytime wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really comparable. The street dealer is not likely to get 40 years, although many may have gotten it (Assuming that a street dealer doesn't have 400 kilos of coke in his stash house. If he does, he's no street dealer) Also the doc loses his license and every single penny he has, between lawyers, years without being able to make a penny, and court fines. When you make a certain amount of money the trend is to live…

> When the money stops coming in, guess what happens? You drop to the status of a boring working person who never took kickbacks to sell opiates? A fate worse than death, I guess. The street dealer is also not likely to get 4 years. That's the point - 40 years was a number picked to illustrate a sentencing discrepancy argument. The fact that a 10x factor seems almost reasonable is the argument. > a street dealer does…

> You drop to the status of a boring working person who never took kickbacks to sell opiates? A fate worse than death, I guess.

People suffer from relative poverty, so that would be pretty bad.

Re: Doctor Gets 4 Years in Prison for Insys Opioid Kickbacks

#30

Post by paulcole »

rhizome wrote: post #17
koolba wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really not. Four years is hardly a deterrent. It’s barely a slap on the wrist considering the number of lives destroyed by that plague. What’s makes this particularly heinous is the trust we place as a society in medical providers. The vast majority of people will take whatever medicine a doctor prescribes. No questions asked. Abusing that position of power is sickening.

Four years is hardly a deterrent What do you know? Do tell.

Couldn’t the same be said of, “Four years is plenty.”?

2 different opinions, neither sourced nor backed by data.

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