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McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

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81–90 of 324 posts

Re: McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

#81

A slap on the wrist. After a half million Americans have died from a crisis they helped kickstart, they should be facing criminal charges and jail time. The rich and powerful once again are allowed to buy their freedom.

> A slap on the wrist. After a half million Americans have died from a crisis they helped kickstart, they should be facing criminal charges and jail time. I keep reading people who say, over and over again, that the war on drugs is a failure and that it's a mistake to try criminally prosecute suppliers and send them to prison. People will always find a way to get the drugs if they want them, we're told. But then I se…

Legalization was popular for weed because weed is relatively benign but decriminalization is what's needed for harder drugs.

People get these mixed up and use them interchangeably but they're very different. There will (and should) never be heroin shops that look like Apple stores like there are for weed.

Decrim can be for production, distribution and possession but people generally use it to mean possession. That means that possession of amounts for personal use are not a criminal matter, which makes sense if we see it as an addiction that needs to be treated. In that scenario, production and distribution can be (and often are) illegal.

There are other nuances in how to handle decriminalization in terms of social services offered and how to disrupt demand.

Re: McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

#83
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

meaning like losing a job unless you get a jab, considering that a significant force?

No. Making hard choices inherently implies options. Vaccines saved well over a million people’s lives at negligible heath impact for the wider population, that’s simply what states are going to do in an epidemic.

I can tell if you took a red pill or a blue pill :)

Re: McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

meaning like losing a job unless you get a jab, considering that a significant force?

That is a private company making a decision about their work environment. You don't have the right to demand that they cater to your requirements.

I work for the government

Re: McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

#85
post #3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life They could figure out how to divvy up their 65 life sentences. Why do they get to pay their way out of this? > According to Kavanaugh, former McKinsey senior partner Martin Elling [2] "personally deleted various Purdue related electronic materials from his McKinsey laptop with the intent to obstruct future investigations." Corporate laptops are backed up, with backups offsi…

I've never worked anywhere that backed up laptops. Onedrive, fileshares, cloud storage, servers, sure. I would not want to try managing backups for devices that aren't guaranteed online 24/7. The odd failed server backup is enough work, now apply that to 2000 laptops. Fuck that, save your shit on our backed up infra.

Re: McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

#86
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My mom got hooked in 99 after she slipped on ice at her house in Bluefield, WV. Became a full blown addict after getting prescribed for the subsequent back injury. She lost everything, disappeared, became a homeless addict drifting from DC to Baltimore to NYC and back, until she died of an overdose of heroin in a parking lot of a 7-11 in DC in December 2015. Her story and the impact on me and my 4 siblings is a drop…

I am sorry to hear this. I would have gone full Luigi on someone if this happened to me

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Re: McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A slap on the wrist. After a half million Americans have died from a crisis they helped kickstart, they should be facing criminal charges and jail time. I keep reading people who say, over and over again, that the war on drugs is a failure and that it's a mistake to try criminally prosecute suppliers and send them to prison. People will always find a way to get the drugs if they want them, we're told. But then I se…

I'm not sure most people are against going after the suppliers, even if they support decriminalization. Decriminalization should mean that users are not prosecuted for simply using drugs, but those participating in the manufacture and distribution are still held responsible.

> I'm not sure most people are against going after the suppliers

I see the claim made often, it even commonly pops up on HN. The claim is that the War on Drugs is a failure, because any prohibition efforts are doomed. Laws against a substance merely push it into the criminal sector and don't actually disrupt the supply. So the only outcome is that we get more crime and suffering, but the amount of people using the drug doesn't change.

We saw a similarly argument often used when marijuana legalization was being discussed - legalization wouldn't actually impact the number of people who used the drugs, because prohibition laws don't stop people from acquiring a substance. Naturally, the validity of marijuana legalization goes well beyond it's impact on the number of users, but there were many claims that it wouldn't impact the number of users.

Of course, one can make the argument that the War on Drugs is a good thing but that it's implementation has often been wrong (for instance, that there should be more effort made on going after suppliers rather than users). But it's very common to see people claim that any attempts at prohibition are doomed to failure and cause more harm with little to no benefit.

Edit: To give an example, here's a HN discussion where most of the people are in favor of fully legalizing all drugs:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10424099

Re: McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

#88
post #56

With all the overdose deaths and the lives ruined by opioids, I guess I'm a little bit surprised this didn't result in criminal charges for someone at McKinsey. Surely there must be some emails or texts that are inculpating.

As long as you hide behind a corporation, you can do pretty much whatever you want. Worst case, the company will pay a nominal fine as cost of doing business. And maybe somebody gets fired with a large severance.

Well, until a good looking 20-something year old man puts a couple bullets in your chest outside an investor meeting.

Re: McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

#89
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry to hear this. I would have gone full Luigi on someone if this happened to me

[flagged]

>just like the canadian billionaire couple who ran a drug company got whacked

The Canadian couple got whacked by a competing drug company for selling cheap generic versions of expensive drugs. Or at least that is what most observers believe although last I heard, no one has ever been charged with the murders. Before the murders, people were worried the couple would be killed because they were so good at bringing to market drugs that are much cheaper than any of their competitors, destroying the profit margins of those competitors.

Re: McKinsey and Company to pay $650M for role in opioid crisis

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a private company making a decision about their work environment. You don't have the right to demand that they cater to your requirements.

I work for the government

Then they're just an employer to you. They're not acting as rule-maker. It's very different from a legal requirement that applies to all jobs.
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