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Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

washingtonpost.com

631–640 of 691 posts

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#631

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.

> Pound for pound, the Sacklers probably did more damage to America than any other drug dealers in history.

That's complete horseshit. They produced a drug of known, unvarying dosage in regulated pharmaceutical manufacturing plants, overseen by pharmaceutical engineers making sure that no illegal or unsafe substances adulterated the final product.

For once, there was a drug on the street that wouldn't cause junkies to overdose. It wasn't hot with fentanyl half the time. Jackasses didn't cut it with baby formula or laxatives. Hell, it didn't even encourage druggies to reuse needles.

But if you need empirical evidence, drug overdose deaths only spike after the DEA cracks down on pill mills. They demonstrably saved lives. Any sane person who examines this at even a shallow level would concur. You've drank the kool-aid.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#632

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.

You're really underselling it if anything. Over a million Americans have died so far in the opioid epidemic. That more than any of their wars, including their civil war.

> Over a million Americans have died so far in the opioid epidemic.

Which of those million died from Oxycontin overdoses, which of them died from hepatitis they caught when shooting up pills with a reused drug needle?

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#633

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.

Manslaughter maybe, but not murder. They didn't want to kill people using their drugs. That wouldn't make any sense.

Also, I'd be careful about saying the judge (Robert Drain) is corrupt unless you can back that up with facts. You might be opening yourself up to a libel suit.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Interesting if I can sell my organs, Essential for survival, That I’m selling my life logically I should be able to sell my life in other ways. So I should be able to sell myself into slavery. If so, Then your idea of freedom creates more un-freedom. If not, Then you must have a logical reason why selling my liver and dying after that is okay but selling myself and living after that is not okay. And it cannot rely on…

> So I should be able to sell myself into slavery.

No, because that would imply that a person can own another person. Free, morally equal, people cannot own each other. It would also imply that present-you can obligate future-you in a way that fundamentally compromises future-you's freedom.

Present-you can however terminate his own existence, since present-you has the strongest claim on it.

Interactions must be consensual with the possibility to opt-out backed by bankruptcy protection. If you agree to donate your organs in return for compensation (presumably to your estate), but change your mind on the operating table, you should be perfectly entitled to do so. You may incur a bankruptcy protected obligation if you signed an agreement to that effect

Consent should be the fundamental principle guiding all interactions. It also conveniently precludes slavery.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The $6bn ruling was significant and not an amazing outcome for either side (so, a compromise). I find this framing extremely bizarre. A $6bn ruling means the family profits $5 BILLION. In no universe is that not an amazing outcome for them.

It's a loss of ~1/2 of their net worth. That's significant. They are now likely to pay much less by settling smaller individual cases, which will take significantly longer and cost claimants significantly more to pursue. When they die (which will be soon, most of them are 75+) it'll become even more difficult to get anything. The deal that was overruled was certainly not justice, but reality will likely be worse. The…

> It's a loss of ~1/2 of their net worth. That's significant.

It's a gain of billions of dollars that everyone agrees they should not have had in the first place. That's really much more significant.

It's pretty telling that literally nobody says that the Sackler family should actually have this money, just varying degrees of it being hard to claw back from them.

If someone walks into my house, stabs me with a knife, and steals the money on my dresser, keeping half of the money they took from me is the exact opposite of a loss for them.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a loss of ~1/2 of their net worth. That's significant. They are now likely to pay much less by settling smaller individual cases, which will take significantly longer and cost claimants significantly more to pursue. When they die (which will be soon, most of them are 75+) it'll become even more difficult to get anything. The deal that was overruled was certainly not justice, but reality will likely be worse. The…

> It's a loss of ~1/2 of their net worth. That's significant. It's a gain of billions of dollars that everyone agrees they should not have had in the first place. That's really much more significant. It's pretty telling that literally nobody says that the Sackler family should actually have this money, just varying degrees of it being hard to claw back from them. If someone walks into my house, stabs me with a knife,…

There's no strong legal structure to allow it, the US justice system strongly favors the rich and corporations. Loose consensus isn't enough if there's no legal mechanism to do so.

The deal was pragmatic in the absence of a clear path for actual consequences.

It would be easier to rally an angry mob at this point.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Both examples are expressing the same belief about Dobbs ! Yes, I believe the social harmony from allowing these questions to be decided democratically outweighs individual "rights." What about Ireland? Abortion was illegal in Ireland until 2018 , and then it was put to the public for vote in a referendum. In 2010, the European Court of Human Rights refused to overturn Ireland's abortion ban (though it did find a due…

How do feel about Brown v Board?

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God this Gwern junk will never die. There's tons [0] of evidence that nicotine is addictive on its own. > Why are nicotine pouches and vapes addictive It's the nicotine. [0]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nicotine+addictive+site%3Anih.gov&...

I'm not here to argue, but all top 5 links for me are about smoking. I've not heard of people being addicted to nicotine patches for example, especially non-smokers.

Nicotine Addiction: Neurobiology and Mechanism: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32322429/

Neurophysiology of Nicotine Addiction: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22454789/

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

God this Gwern junk will never die. There's tons [0] of evidence that nicotine is addictive on its own. > Why are nicotine pouches and vapes addictive It's the nicotine. [0]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nicotine+addictive+site%3Anih.gov&...

I'm not here to argue, but all top 5 links for me are about smoking. I've not heard of people being addicted to nicotine patches for example, especially non-smokers.

I looked into this previously, though it was a while ago so I no longer have the sources to hand. Nicotine is still addictive on it's own but when given to non-smokers in a non-tobacco form it's notably less addictive than smoking. Still addictive but far closer to coffee than cigarettes.

Some of this can be explained by different consumptions methods. For example in lozenges, gum and patches nicotine enters the bloodstream much slower than smoking or vaping so even if you consume the same overall amount the peak is lower slowing adaption. But that couldn't explain it entirely.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Ibuprofen, paracetamol, rest? From https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/27/opinion/sunday/surgery-ge... : if you "no longer feel the pain you will no longer know what your body is telling you. You might overexert yourself because you are no longer feeling the pain signals".

One thinks you have never had a really damaging surgery. For obstructive sleep apnea I had the back of my tongue microwaved, my deviated septum repaired, and my uvula and back of throat removed. Ibuprofen and Tylenol would not have been sufficient for recovery from that. And that is even nothing compared to other more damaging surgeries.
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