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Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

arstechnica.com

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Re: Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

#51

Post by nashashmi »

javajosh wrote: post #20
psychanarch wrote: post #15

Unfortunately, unjust settlements like this are common place in our country, and after the outrage cycle dies down, this will be forgotten like the others. Nothing changes. What can we possibly do?

Start by reforming the justice system. It is badly broken at all levels. It's slow speed, incredibly expensive interactions, and hard-to-understand system of laws need a big time upgrade. We need relatively simple laws that ordinary folks can understand, and a much faster time-to-judgement. It is really the complexity and cost of the system that leads to so many of these unjust outcomes, because hardly any actors in…

Justice cannot happen without input from the those who are on the other side, the indicted.

You quickly realize justice TRIES to be a really bad cop. And then the indicted /convicted have to make deals for something that is terribly unfair. Just imagine negotiating with a person like Kamala.

When I see light weight no benefit deals like this, I think that it looks like both prosecutor and defendant got away with murder with little effort.

Further, let's stop the rhetoric that severe punishments will stop bad crimes. Not true. Even the lightest of punishments can stop crimes simply with shame. If more people get caught and are able to reconcile for their crimes, that would be sufficient to prevent 95 percent of future crimes.

Re: Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

#52

Post by adventured »

randomfool wrote: post #50
enchiridion wrote: post #38

This is a misleading headline. It is part of an $8.3B settlement. Edit: I should have read the whole article. The $225M is against the $11B the family has siphoned from Purdue.

No- the $8.3B settlement was against the company, but the Sackler family has already drained $10.7B in cash out of the company. They've known this was coming and drained as much as they could- from Dec 2019: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/12/sacklers-siphoned-ne...

It's the first line of the article:

"The infamous megarich Sackler family will pay $235 million in civil penalties as part of a controversial $8.3 billion settlement with the US Department of Justice."

Further, the family owned all of Purdue Pharma. The company settlement is also a direct cost to the Sackler family. If the company has an $8.3 billion settlement with the DOJ, that is the family paying $8.3 billion from their asset as it was 100% owned by them.

The headline is slightly misleading, even if the Sacklers are scumbags. The headline is blatantly attempting to pretend the only cost to the Sackler family is $235m. You can tell by the article's opening, aggressive tilt; very colorful phrasing like "infamous megarich" - which is ars firing up the outrage machine in the first line to prep a reaction for the rest of the article.

Re: Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

#53

Post by randomfool »

imcoconut wrote: post #45
enchiridion wrote: post #38

This is a misleading headline. It is part of an $8.3B settlement. Edit: I should have read the whole article. The $225M is against the $11B the family has siphoned from Purdue.

Correct. I do believe what they did was quite evil, and they should be disgorged of all profits - and if that bankrupts them then all the better. While 8.3bn is still not the 11bn they made in profits, it's still significantly more than 225mn. The headline is misleading.

Incorrect- the family has already drained $10.7B from the company and are only being fined $225M themselves- they are not responsible for any other portion of the $8.3B.

The family will lose control of the company in bankruptcy but they knew this was coming and drained it ahead of time. DoJ is letting them get away with it.

Re: Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

#54

Post by horsawlarway »

imcoconut wrote: post #45
enchiridion wrote: post #38

This is a misleading headline. It is part of an $8.3B settlement. Edit: I should have read the whole article. The $225M is against the $11B the family has siphoned from Purdue.

Correct. I do believe what they did was quite evil, and they should be disgorged of all profits - and if that bankrupts them then all the better. While 8.3bn is still not the 11bn they made in profits, it's still significantly more than 225mn. The headline is misleading.

They, personally, are paying 225 million.

The company, of which they likely will not retain control, is settling for ~8billion.

Importantly, the company itself DOES NOT HAVE THAT MUCH MONEY. It is expected to pay it off over time, assuming it remains solvent.

The Sacklers, on the other hand, have drained nearly 10 billion dollars from the company account into their personal estate, and are retaining all but 225 million of it.

---

My hot take - They can keep the fucking money, let them buy as much ramen from the prison commissary as they'd like.

Re: Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

#55

Post by bredren »

bananabreakfast wrote: post #36
BaronVonSteuben wrote: post #9

I know everybody loves to hate on the Sacklers, but my life was dramatically better when I had access to opioids. Because of the "crisis" it has gotten really difficult to get them, even for people who need them. There are days when it's difficult to do much more than lie in bed in agony, but nobody beyond a small community of other pain sufferers seems to care. I'm at least grateful for the few good years I did get…

While you're clearly in pain and vindictive for lack of access to effective treatment, putting "crisis" in quotes like it's a manufactured epidemic with no real impact is extremely disingenuous. In 2018 ~130 people died every day in the US overdosing on opioids[1]. I'm sure they're effective for you but if people are not responsible enough to be trusted taking them without killing themselves then you might as well be…

Just so this doesn’t come off like too radical an idea: legalization of all drugs has been a position of The Economist since 1989. “Legalize, Control, Discourage.”

https://www.economist.com/leaders/1989/01/21/hooked-on-just-...

Re: Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

#56

Post by rubyfan »

nine_k wrote: post #32
rubyfan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So since the market created functional drug addicts that’s ok and the government caused the problem by trying to stop the market from creating drug addiction?

If somebody tried to stop a train that was speeding along a wrong way by putting a wall on its way, it would end in a trainwreck. If you care about the passengers, that won't be a responsible thing to do, though technically the train would be stopped. So, a trainwreck is what we see :(

Genuinely curious the alternative you would suggest.

I think people can still access opioids legally, albeit much less easy than before. There are plenty of treatment options and the right answer isn’t to let drug addicts keep on ruining their own lives and the people around them. The train has to slow down and people have to get off the train.

Granted, the government can do much more to help people get treatment and stop punishing users. But they damn sure do need to punish people who intentionally create drug addicts and that’s what this is about.

Re: Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

#57

Post by randomfool »

adventured wrote: post #52
randomfool wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No- the $8.3B settlement was against the company, but the Sackler family has already drained $10.7B in cash out of the company. They've known this was coming and drained as much as they could- from Dec 2019: https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/12/sacklers-siphoned-ne...

It's the first line of the article: "The infamous megarich Sackler family will pay $235 million in civil penalties as part of a controversial $8.3 billion settlement with the US Department of Justice." Further, the family owned all of Purdue Pharma. The company settlement is also a direct cost to the Sackler family. If the company has an $8.3 billion settlement with the DOJ, that is the family paying $8.3 billion fro…

But the $8.3B is not coming out of the $10.7B that the family extracted.

The title is not misleading at all- the family which profited $10.7B is paying $225M.

The company already entered bankruptcy proceedings last year.

Re: Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

#58

Post by tiffanyh »

wombatmobile wrote: post #19

Dupont made more than $30 billion profit selling Teflon for almost 50 years, polluting the environment by dumping untreated toxic waste from the manufacturing process into virgin West Virginia landscapes the whole time. In February 2017, DuPont settled over 3,550 lawsuits for $671 million. Dark Waters Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvAOuhyunhY

FB made $100s of billion off of selling users privacy and were only fined $5B.

Lots more examples of other companies as well.

Re: Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

#59

Post by veb »

isbjorn16 wrote: post #42
veb wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a warning, Tramadol reacts very badly in some people. Like myself, just a single pill will cause me to have tonic-clonic seizures leading up to a grand-mal seizure later on in the day. Tramadol also has a bunch of shit in it, I feel like it's a 'dirty' drug. For example, it's very closely related to the chemical structures of antidepressants. This can be helpful, but not when you need to stop it. You also can't…

I wish I had known about the serotonin part earlier; I destroyed my back today on the dumbest thing and took one so I could get some work done. I wasn't taking an SSRI when I used tramadol more frequently, but I am now, and I probably wouldn't have had I known. Sigh. I really don't know what to do in these scenarios, it's nothing but bad choices :(

Best thing anyone can do is to familiarise themselves with what they take, and what the key indications are with mixing medication and what happens when you stop. In NZ we have medsafe (https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/), a govt website that lists everything they give out. There's also the The New Zealand Formulary (http://nzformulary.org/)

An example here is that too many doctors believe that Pregabalin has no withdrawals. They're very wrong. Here, they will prescribe it for anything. It works really well too, but there's a lot of hidden bullshit. As an example, they give it to people with epilepsy, but one of the main contradictions is that it can actually cause seizures. So when that started happening for me, they put me on clonazepam (2mg, six times a day).

When I burned myself, I told the hospital I did not want either medicine. There's no point in taking Pregabalin if I have to take so much clonazepam to fix the side effects.

A week later (while still in hospital) I had a panicked pharmacist for the ward visit me and he's like "omg we weren't giving you these two" and I said, "nah mate, it's fine. I feel okay apart from the pain" and he's like, "hang on, you just stopped 12mg of clonazepam a day and you feel fine?" and so I said yes, it's because it simply stopped working and my body has decided it doesn't work on me anymore, which is why I can't take the Pregabalin either... and the stupid thing is the Pregabalin is probably one of the best things I could take right now due to it's amazing nerve pain relief. I'd rather not have seizures though, nor have to find the right kind of benzo to help. I doubt I'd find one that's different enough from the rest to help.

Re: Sacklers–who made $11B off opioid crisis–to pay $225M in damages

#60

Post by elipsey »

BaronVonSteuben wrote: post #18
kennywinker wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear what you're saying, but it feels like you should be placing your blame on the sacklers too - if they hadn't pushed opioids on people who didn't need them, fueling the crisis, then there would not have been this backlash you describe. Like, we shouldn't be mad at opioids, we should be mad at drug pushing profiteers.

That's a reasonable point, although if they hadn't helped make doctors more comfortable with using them, then I may not have ever gotten them in the first place as they would be stingy with them like they are now. Hard to know where I would have landed.

TL;DR: I think it is reasonable to blame Purdue for the reduced access to opioids we are now stuck with.

Purdue caused more addiction to occur, which in turn caused reduced access to the opioids that existed prior to the creation of Purdue's nuisance product.

Also, perverse incentives caused by the patent and licensing system motivated them to make OxyContin unnecessarily addictive in it's formulation and dosing schedule, in order to engage in patent "ever-greening" of an existing substance.

Oxycodone has been around for a long time, but was doesed and administered more safely in older products.

Purdue did some pretty perverse things to support their patent and regulatory rationale for OxyContin. To gain approval as a superior and patent-able alternative to the other extant gerneric hydrocodone and oxycodone products, it was claimed to require less frequent (but larger) doses. The result was that large numbers patients found that when taken as directed it provided superior pain relief, followed by a return of pain, in conjunction with hours of opioid withdrawals until the next dose. Early on in the product's life cycle doctors were encouraged to increase the dose but not the dosing schedule when patients complained, in part because the alternative would have undermined the rationale for the existence of the product.

Although this was probably an undesired side effect from the point of view of Purdue, they could hardly have designed a better way to cause drug addiction. Millions of people took this product and many became addicted. Purdue went far out of their way to publicize people as criminals rather than address the fundamental problem with the way the product was administered. It seems to be evidenced that the more effective administration schedules of other already existing products cause less addiction, so at the margin, Purdue caused many more drug addicts to exists than would have otherwise.

If they had not done this, or had been willing to adequately address the problems, we would probably still have easier access now to the opioids that already existed. The problem has grown to such a scale that it is now very hard to "put the genie back in the bottle."

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