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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

#541

Post by FpUser »

austin-cheney wrote: post #532
FpUser wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>" better criminalize violations of accepted ethical norms" What a load of BS. Wat's next ? Burning witches? I think we are way over our heads with criminalization already and have created big underclass of people who have no second chance because of that. So no fuck you. P.S. Sure I'd like to see many of our masters in jail for fucking up with people's lives but that will not happen

There is no criminal underclass of convicted billionaire sociopaths. What are you talking about? Of course it won't happen if we continue to permit, excuse, and enable their behavior while crying about how hard life is.

>"There is no criminal underclass of convicted billionaire sociopaths"

To that I agree. However you can not make laws specifically criminalizing rich for "violations of accepted ethical norms". It will just open floodgates diverting regular and poor to underclass. This whole criminal background check should be made illegal with some very specific exceptions. It hunts people for the rest of their lives. Europe handles this situation much better in general from what I've heard.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#542

Post by dsubburam »

inasio wrote: post #112

Matt Levine has covered this several times in the past, worth reading. From memory, the Purdue family had put away their money in legally sheltered arrangements, so even an unfavorable decision (to the Sacklers) would likely not be able to claw back much money. The previous deal traded the risk of trial for a perceived as decent compensation. My read is that the majority in the supreme court disagreed that you can al…

Matt Levine wrote again today, this time about the decision that just came out:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-06-27/purdue...

He quotes and explains parts of both the majority and dissenting opinions.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#543

Post by Retric »

zer00eyz wrote: post #540
Retric wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can directly count the total amount prescribed opioids through time and adjust for potency. Purdue Pharma didn’t just manufacture a drug. They did a great deal of behind the scenes manipulating so even people who did not seek out severe pain medication were prescribed extremely high doses. In terms of long term pain management opioids suck. People need increasing doses over time until the drugs side effects becom…

> total amount prescribed opioids through time This... Dr were involved too! > long term pain management opioids suck Opioids suck. And the medical profession was complicit. For a class that is supposed to be professional and well informed most Dr's are, shockingly, not that bright.

> Dr where involved too!

The actions of individual Doctors acting on their own simply don’t explain trends.

Doctors and the FDA etc were straight up lied to. I don’t think it’s reasonable to hold Doctors accountable for when some pharmaceutical company commits fraud. That doesn’t mean every doctor was blameless, but individual Doctors have always behaved poorly it was true before the opioid epidemic and it’s still true today.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#544

Post by gnabgib »

dsubburam wrote: post #542
inasio wrote: post #112

Matt Levine has covered this several times in the past, worth reading. From memory, the Purdue family had put away their money in legally sheltered arrangements, so even an unfavorable decision (to the Sacklers) would likely not be able to claw back much money. The previous deal traded the risk of trial for a perceived as decent compensation. My read is that the majority in the supreme court disagreed that you can al…

Matt Levine wrote again today, this time about the decision that just came out: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-06-27/purdue... He quotes and explains parts of both the majority and dissenting opinions.

It was closely submitted, but didn't win the votes (4 points, 7 hours ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40813446

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#545

Post by elphinstone »

janalsncm wrote: post #398

Pound for pound, the Sacklers probably did more damage to America than any other drug dealers in history. More damage than any serial killer or mass shooter. In my mind they should be considered public enemies 1 through N. I sincerely hope they face civil and criminal liabilities for what they’ve done.

They all should be charged with mass murder. The corrupt judge who okayed the settlement deserves prison.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#546

Post by 1024core »

FireBeyond wrote: post #301
a2dam wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?"

Exactly. If they're just returning the money (sans interest), where's the punishment?

If you steal $100 from a bank, you spend more time in jail than these scumbags ever will.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#547

Post by vikramkr »

addicted wrote: post #425
janalsncm wrote: post #398

Pound for pound, the Sacklers probably did more damage to America than any other drug dealers in history. More damage than any serial killer or mass shooter. In my mind they should be considered public enemies 1 through N. I sincerely hope they face civil and criminal liabilities for what they’ve done.

I’d argue it’s the opposite. Look at what’s happened since Oxycontin was heavily regulated. Opioid deaths in America have exploded by an order of magnitude. There’s a direct correlation between higher regulation of OxyContin and opioid deaths in the U.S. The Sacklers have done illegal stuff. Misrepresenting the addictiveness of their drugs (well, it was immoral and wrong…it’s not clear how illegal it was). But it’s q…

Regulation helped cause the deaths by driving people to more dangerous sources. You're 'forgetting,' however, that the oxycontin and prescribed pills were the source of those addictions in the first place. The regulations didn't kill them. If the regulations had always been there, they would have been fine. They weren't tamping down on some mystical parallel crisis, however convenient that would be to shift the blame. They were creating a new one, using the legitimacy of the medical system and doctors prescriptions to get people hooked, to fatal effect when the regulations finally came down and people facing addiction turned to illicit sources.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#548

Post by thegrimmest »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #520
thegrimmest wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Loaning money at 200% interest to vulnerable people is usury and should be illegal Stop with the patronizing. Any transaction between consenting parties (backed by bankruptcy protection) should be allowed. We're all grown ups, let people make their own decisions. Setting upper limits on interest rates simply makes it so that high-risk borrowers are unable to access credit. This harms those borrowers more than anyon…

> Stop with the patronizing. Any transaction between consenting parties (backed by bankruptcy protection) should be allowed. Any? Can I sell my kidney? You are arguing an extreme minority opinion, consumer protection laws exist because it is not possible for an average consumer to understand all safety implications of vehicle design, house construction or a medical procedure.

> Can I sell my kidney?

I don't see why not. Me saying you can't would imply that I have a stronger claim to your own kidney than you do. This is a pretty hard claim to substantiate. The majority can be, and often is, wrong.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#549

Post by darth_avocado »

jnovek wrote: post #484
darth_avocado wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it’s quite clear that America had a parallel opioid crisis going on I don’t think that’s really the case. What happened here was that peddling oxy, created the excess demand that is now met by illicit sources that cause more deaths now that oxy is regulated. But what you’re missing in your understanding is that without oxy, demand wouldn’t exist in the first place. And that’s the harm everyone is talking about.…

You’re saying “created excess demand” like the people that you’re referring to weren’t chronic pain patients. I know some of them were drug-seekers but we decided it was OK to throw chronic pain patients under the bus so we could eliminate those drug-seekers. Now, in addition to dealing with pain every day, I also have to “prove” that I’m not an opioid seeker if I end up in the ER for overwhelming pain. Because sayin…

> You’re saying “created excess demand” like the people that you’re referring to weren’t chronic pain patients.

I don’t think you know the full history of how Purdue operated. They did two things: downplay how addictive oxy was & aggressively push oxy through doctors by providing kickbacks.

Chronic pain patients were actually a much smaller portion of the eventual victims. In a lot of cases, normal people would be prescribed oxy after minor procedures and they would get hooked on it and become permanent addicts. Once hooked, doctors would continue prescribing it for far longer and create a perpetual dependency. If the true effects of oxy were made public (which were known by Purdue pharma and Sackler family), oxy would’ve been prescribed with a lot more caution. And prescription of oxy for minor pain would’ve been non existent since a lot of safer alternatives existed.

I’m sorry you have a chronic condition, but not everyone who got hooked onto oxy had chronic conditions, and nor were they junkies.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#550

Post by idiotsecant »

addicted wrote: post #425
janalsncm wrote: post #398

Pound for pound, the Sacklers probably did more damage to America than any other drug dealers in history. More damage than any serial killer or mass shooter. In my mind they should be considered public enemies 1 through N. I sincerely hope they face civil and criminal liabilities for what they’ve done.

I’d argue it’s the opposite. Look at what’s happened since Oxycontin was heavily regulated. Opioid deaths in America have exploded by an order of magnitude. There’s a direct correlation between higher regulation of OxyContin and opioid deaths in the U.S. The Sacklers have done illegal stuff. Misrepresenting the addictiveness of their drugs (well, it was immoral and wrong…it’s not clear how illegal it was). But it’s q…

There is a lot in this post that is ...questionable in my opinion but I just have to call out as especially creative the praise for a drug that is so safe and slow-acting that it won't have harmful fast acting effects unless you... Apply a small amount of pressure with a hard object.

Truly a stupendous point.

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