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Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#361

Post by nonethewiser »

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 don't understand people who think the Sacklers are villains who destroyed lives, but Purdue should continue operating more-or-less as-is. Which is, I think, the conclusion from this settlement. If this is you, can you help me understand? Do you think there is/was a realistic way to prescribe opioids routinely and safely?

This is an extremely easy answer that doesn’t require any details of the case.

The supreme court clarifies what the law is, not if the Sacklers are villains and if Purdue should continue.

So the people who think the the Sacklers are Villains and that Pursue should continue are people who believe the settlement is not legal and dont believe in legislating from the bench.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#362

Post by causal »

richwater wrote: post #316
raizer88 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The whole basis of this suit is that a Purdue subsidiary went out of their way to market these pills as non-addicting. "Personal responsibility" in this case clearly lies on those actors, not the addicts.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#363

Post by hyeonwho4 »

legitster wrote: post #260
7thaccount wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I looked into things, the fines they were going to pay is a tiny slap on the wrist compared to the obscene money they made. They can put the billions in an account and use just some of the interest for the fines. The biggest hit to them so far was having their name removed from some museums. Let that sink in. They've lost some slight prestige with other wealthy folks.

They took in something like $11 billion and were going to fund something like $6 billion. As far as purely pragmatic solutions go this was not a bad deal for victims. There are a lot of members of the Sackler family and a lot of them have a lot of money despite personally not being connected to the Purdue business in any way. Even if they could all be connected to wrongdoing actually getting money from, like, the sec…

645,000 people died due to opiate abuse while their company was promoting opiates, and their prescriptions peaked at 6.2 million prescription users pee year. Under EPA standards for damages they would be liable for trillions.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#364

Post by causal »

richwater wrote: post #354
emaro wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opioids are highly addictive. If you're vulnerable and your doctor eagerly prescribes them because it feeds their wallet, you can easily loose control. Don't blame the victims.

> Don't blame the victims. Expecting some personal agency is now victim blaming? Detoxing from opioids is not fatal. It sucks. But it's doable. You don't need to take your entire prescription. Take it while you're in pain.

If you were prescribed heroin and proceeded to take it, you would end up addicted and unable to quit. Full stop. It is exceedingly rare to overcome opiates, you underestimate them greatly.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#365

Post by JohnMakin »

subsubzero wrote: post #333
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially since this 5-4 decision didn't follow the "conservative" or "liberal" split at all.

How they voted(Name and the party of the administration that picked them): Majority Neil Gorsuch (Rep.) Samuel A. Alito Jr (Rep) Clarence Thomas (Rep) Ketanji Brown Jackson (Dem) Amy Coney Barrett (Rep) ======= Minority John G. Roberts(Rep) Sonia Sotomeyer(Dem) Elena Kagan(Dem) Brent Kavanagh(Rep) Whats really surprising is how Gorusch is quite the wildcard, he also authored the majority decision that said that 1/2 o…

Kavanaugh can also be a bit of a wild card. Been surprised by him quite a few times. many of the others are entirely predictable.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#366

Post by hollerith »

relaxing wrote: post #358
rayiner wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The justices don't vote on "abortion, environmental protection, etc." They vote on the legal vehicles that have been used to address those things. And views on those legal vehicles map onto judicial philosophies that have nothing to do with the substantive issues. To use an analogy: there's people who think operating systems should be microkernels, and people who think they should be monolithic kernels. Windows NT wa…

[flagged]

He's a lawyer with a lot of professional experience. Are you a lawyer?

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#367

Post by marcus0x62 »

nonethewiser wrote: post #339
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.

You mean articles with headlines like “ Supreme Court Nukes Hunter Biden Laptop Conspiracy in Brutal Ruling” arent actually substantive? https://newrepublic.com/post/183140/supreme-court-hunter-bid...

I’m surprised that wasn’t

“Supreme Court NUKES Hunter Biden Laptop Conspiracy in BRUTAL Ruling” (with “NUKES” and “BRUTAL” in obligatory red font.)

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#368

Post by legitster »

esd_g0d wrote: post #283
legitster wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scott Alexander had a very interesting writeup about his experiences: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/16/against-against-pseudo...

The US is the only place in the world AFAIK where you will get prescribed opioids for something as trivial as a wisdom tooth extraction (kind of like one of the cases cited). It is also the only place in the world AFAIK going through the opioid epidemic. Every other country in the world has got the problem of painkillers figured out. So it can't be that complicated.

Wisdom teeth was actually one of the safer use cases. You would only get a short run so it was hard to build dependance.

The opioid crisis was really defined by people with chronic long-term pain being given it for years at a time.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#369

Post by lostdog »

dylan604 wrote: post #281
lupusreal wrote: post #172

Earlier 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

Jail. Jail would be reasonable for purposefully poisoning tens of millions of people.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#370

Post by lesuorac »

wmf wrote: post #343
dylan604 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They could be imprisoned.

Really unclear how knowingly creating a scenario where people die of overdosing for profit isn't criminal.
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