Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement • Hacker News Board

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#301

Post by FireBeyond » Thu, Jun 27, 2024, 7:55 PM UTC

a2dam wrote: post #204

1024core wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of "restitution" if it came from the victims anyways? The Sacklers would have kept all of their ill-gotten gains under this settlement. The amount they'd be paying is practically just the interest from their earnings.

Restoring what was taken from the victims is literally the definition of restitution.

Except if all you have is restitution, there's no punishment.

"Hey, I stole this money from you but since I gave it back - after a court ordered me to - we're all square, right?"

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#302

Post by hyeonwho4 » Thu, Jun 27, 2024, 7:55 PM UTC

nickff wrote: post #261

rootusrootus wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the patience the US has with getting justice against other individuals who have fled our jurisdiction, we could do the same here. We also have an enormous amount of influence in the financial sector in other western nations, so we could at least make their lives less lavish and comfortable. Throwing up our hands and declaring it an unsolvable issue just encourages others to misbehave and then escape the s…

The question is whether to allow a smaller settlement immediately, or pursue a less-likely and possibly larger set of judgements in the future. It's not clear that it is possible to get more money out of them.

The EPA values one human life at $10M. A conservative estimate of the number of people killed by the Sackler family's companies (testified in court) was ~~245,000~~ Edit: probably at least 100,000, see below. So if opiates were environmental pollutants, the Sacklers would be on the hook for $1T in damages. Their immediate settlement was $6B.

Roughly three orders of magnitude too small.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#303

Post by cheeze » Thu, Jun 27, 2024, 7:55 PM UTC

shawndrost wrote: post #280

I understand people who think the Sacklers are villains who destroyed lives, Purdue should be shut down, and we should transform the legal regime around opioids. I understand people who think Purdue should continue, the status quo is OK, and the Sacklers are not [simply] villainous. I don't understand people who think the Sacklers are villains who destroyed lives, but Purdue should continue operating more-or-less as-…

Here is a good resource on it [1]. My understanding is that Purdue pushed hard for marketing, including paying doctors to market for them. This paragraph sums up most of it.

> “Purdue admitted that it marketed and sold its dangerous opioid products to healthcare providers, even though it had reason to believe those providers were diverting them to abusers,” said Rachael A. Honig, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey. “The company lied to the Drug Enforcement Administration about steps it had taken to prevent such diversion, fraudulently increasing the amount of its products it was permitted to sell. Purdue also paid kickbacks to providers to encourage them to prescribe even more of its products.”

Is purdue solely at fault here? Absolutely not. Does it seem that Purdue likely knew what was happening, but put profits above public health? In my opinion, yes.

[1] - https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/opioid-manufacturer-purdue-ph...

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#304

Post by vikramkr » Thu, Jun 27, 2024, 7:55 PM UTC

shawndrost wrote: post #280

I understand people who think the Sacklers are villains who destroyed lives, Purdue should be shut down, and we should transform the legal regime around opioids. I understand people who think Purdue should continue, the status quo is OK, and the Sacklers are not [simply] villainous. I don't understand people who think the Sacklers are villains who destroyed lives, but Purdue should continue operating more-or-less as-…

That's not the settlement. The settlement is that purdue pays 8+ bn and shuts down, but the sacklers are immune personally. The supreme court threw out that deal saying that the sacklers can't be given immunity as a part of the deal.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#305

Post by J_Shelby_J » Thu, Jun 27, 2024, 7:57 PM UTC

photochemsyn wrote: post #37

Interestingly the same kinds of tactics used to push opiates on the general public are still being used to push amphetamine analogs - but the death rate from amphetamine addiction/overdose is much much lower (>1000X lower) than that from opiate addiction/overdose so it doesn't really hit the headlines, and arguably is not as much of a concern. From a libertarian point of view, mood- and mind-altering substance use sh…

Difference is the death rate from prescription ADHD meds is zero, and they’re not addictive like opiates.

I’m open to discussing the underlying problems that push people to take ADHD meds. Like the insane work life required to just maintain the same standard of lives as our parents generation, or modern devices eating our attention spans.

But limiting access to ADHD drugs is just going to affect the most vulnerable and the positive outcome is just for the benefit of Calvinist pushing their world view on the rest of us. Hey, while we’re at it let’s make caffeine a scheduled drug. It’s actually addicting, it’s long we half-life makes it more likely to effect sleep, and its vastly over consumed by everyone starting in middle school.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#306

Post by legitster » Thu, Jun 27, 2024, 7:57 PM UTC

voidfunc wrote: post #282

shadowgovt wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, indubitably. It's easy to lose sight of (if one doesn't read the rulings regularly) the fact that SCOTUS's job is to come to rational and deliberate rulings grounded firmly in textual and common law dating back over a thousand years. Even when one doesn't agree with the conclusion, one rarely sees a ruling that isn't reasonable (though sometimes seeing the reason involves entertaining a fact pattern other than t…

Lol, they're also quite ideological. Don't fall for the trap that these people are enlightened philosophers. They have a lot of flaws in their own right. Ask good lawyers about their thoughts on SCOTUS Justices, it's not always peachy.

Even if they are ideological, they are not usually political hacks (cough Thomas cough).

Honestly though, for as much flak as this current court gets, there is at least a certain consistency where they at least mostly stick to arguments about the letter of the law. In previous courts you would see some truly wild written arguments about how, like, a specific word in the Commerce Clause or whatever could mean whatever you wanted it to.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#307

Post by Mistletoe » Thu, Jun 27, 2024, 7:57 PM UTC

shawndrost wrote: post #280

I understand people who think the Sacklers are villains who destroyed lives, Purdue should be shut down, and we should transform the legal regime around opioids. I understand people who think Purdue should continue, the status quo is OK, and the Sacklers are not [simply] villainous. I don't understand people who think the Sacklers are villains who destroyed lives, but Purdue should continue operating more-or-less as-…

I mean I have been prescribed opioids many times and I just take them as prescribed and they help the pain of the surgery or whatever. I don’t even take the whole bottle. What will replace the opioids if we don’t allow them to be prescribed?

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#308

Post by doublet00th » Thu, Jun 27, 2024, 7:58 PM UTC

shawndrost wrote: post #280

I understand people who think the Sacklers are villains who destroyed lives, Purdue should be shut down, and we should transform the legal regime around opioids. I understand people who think Purdue should continue, the status quo is OK, and the Sacklers are not [simply] villainous. I don't understand people who think the Sacklers are villains who destroyed lives, but Purdue should continue operating more-or-less as-…

I think there's a misunderstanding in what the settlement is about. As part of Purdue's bankruptcy, the Sackler family is voluntarily providing 6 billion dollars to help settle claims opioid victims have brought against Purdue Pharma.

As a condition to provide the 6 billion dollars, the Sackler family has asked the bankruptcy judge to not even allow any new suits against the Sacklers related to the Opioid epidemic. This is something bankruptcy courts do regular for the company Purdue Pharma, but it is irregular when it comes to the Sackler family (this is not the entity going bankrupt!)

This is the issue that went up to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court ruled that the protection given to the Sackler family is not something that can be given by a bankruptcy judge during the bankruptcy of Purdue Pharma.

Matt Levine has a much better explanation here: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-06-27/purdue...

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#309

Post by jandrese » Thu, Jun 27, 2024, 7:58 PM UTC

NickC25 wrote: post #171

rahimnathwani wrote: post #72

The Sacklers want to have their cake and eat it. They want both: - To avoid filing for bankruptcy, and - For a bankruptcy settlement to release them from additional liability.

And they'll get it - they stashed a lot of their gains overseas, and they'll keep those gains while continuing to live a lavish life amongst the elites of the world. I lost a very close friend to opoid addiction, and Purdue was based one town over from where I grew up. I hope the entire Sackler family gets fined and taxed to the point of genuine destitute poverty, and then some. Genuine scum.

I think this is where the settlement went wrong. The Sacklers were going to remain billionaires after the $6B payout. In all real respects they were going to feel no pain. They already have way more money than any of them could hope to spend in their remaining years, and that really rubbed people the wrong way. With the immunity removed they will at least spend some of their retirement in court room after court room instead of sipping drinks on the deck of one of their many megayachts.

It sucks for the victims who are realistically not going to get any help before they die, but it does send a message that you can't kill thousands (probably millions) and get off scot free.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#310

Post by Supermancho » Thu, Jun 27, 2024, 7:58 PM UTC

shadowgovt wrote: post #263

legitster wrote: post #179

I find the Supreme court decisions to be fascinating reads and overall much more interesting and complicated than most news services make them out to be.

Yes, indubitably. It's easy to lose sight of (if one doesn't read the rulings regularly) the fact that SCOTUS's job is to come to rational and deliberate rulings grounded firmly in textual and common law dating back over a thousand years. Even when one doesn't agree with the conclusion, one rarely sees a ruling that isn't reasonable (though sometimes seeing the reason involves entertaining a fact pattern other than t…

> one rarely sees a ruling that isn't reasonable

Not so true of this incarnation of SCOTUS. It's amazing when they dont delay or rule (by majority) via ridiculous interpretation.