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.
I added the SCOTUS oral arguments to my podcast feed. They are a great listen!
Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement
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Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement
#312Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Attributing every single opioid overdose to solely the Sackler family is so laughably ludicrous it's hard to take this comment seriously.
Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement
#313I 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.
Try listening to the audio recordings of the arguments on https://www.oyez.org/
Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement
#314I 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…
This is going too far I think.
There are some partisan hacks on the bench and the institution’s legitimacy is in pretty bad shape.
But in this case they got an issue that didn’t have as much partisan alignment so maybe they did some good work.
Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
They learned it from the tobacco industry probably.
Is there a recommended dosage and timing from the tobacco industry?
Yes - sort of. Many of the additives found in cigarettes are designed to increase the rate of absorption of nicotine. This gives you a distinct rush within seconds of consumption, as well as a more pronounced crash that triggers intense cravings.
That's very different from the effects of (freebase?) nicotine typically found in e-cigarettes which is slower to absorb and doesn't have a noticeable crash.
Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement
#316This is a more complex case than I thought, and the dissent argument is actually very powerful and convincing: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-124_8nk0.pdf Basically, the original judge did a good job - the settlement plan was reasonable and widely popular. And the Sackler family being released from liability by putting billions of personal dollars into the payment fund meant more victims would get mor…
If I had lost a family member to drug abuse I would want justice (ie. jail time) not money.
justice from whom? Just because they got a prescription doesn't mean they lost complete body autonomy. The lack of personal responsibility regarding drugs around here is insane.
Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lawyers are fixated on the money for obvious reasons, but the money will never really fix what the Sacklers did (particularly for the many victims who are now dead.) Restitution is largely a farce and we should be focusing on retribution.
I'm really not sure what other retribution you're suggesting. There's always public lynching if that's what you're after, but we've kind of decided that is not a good idea in modern society
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Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement
#318Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's more complicated than that. They knew it was killing people and turning thousands (millions) into addicts and they kept pushing doctors to use it at all costs. I'd recommend the John Oliver special on it.
They also designed it to be more addictive. The recommended dosage and timing causes the patients to repeatedly experience minor withdrawal during normal use, which is a standard technique for conditioning someone into being an addict. All of this is documented in emails that were presented as evidence in court.
Designed it knowingly to be more addictive WHILE producing physician literature that denied or downplayed addiction risk.
Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement
#319I 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-…
Loaning money at 8% interest to informed parties is OK. Loaning money at 200% interest to vulnerable people is usury and should be illegal. Where in the middle is the right line to draw, legally? Does the intent of the lender matter? Does it matter if the lender is intentionally trying to keep people uninformed and vulnerable? These are hard questions, but that doesn't change the basic facts at the extreme ends of the spectrum.
Clearly the Sacklers' behavior was in the realm of exploiting vulnerable people as much as possible in order to create a cycle of dependence. I think they're villains who destroyed lives. I don't think that means no pharmaceutical companies should be allowed to sell opioids, or that Purdue should be shut down for that reason. Clearly giving birthing women access to epidurals (fentanyl!) is OK. Clearly bribing doctors to over-prescribe addictive opioids to vulnerable people is villainous and should be illegal. It's a hard problem to find the exact right line in the middle, but it's a problem worth attempting. Obviously it involves a lot of regulatory oversight.
Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement
#320I 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…
Yet, during oral arguments they use some of the most juvenile thought experiments to prove their 'slippery slope' opinions