Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 691 posts

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#461

Post by _DeadFred_ »

dang wrote: post #373
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha. Sure. Like when they make up Qualified Immunity which is a completely made up special status/protection given by the Courts, not by law or common law but abusing the concept of Judicial immunity and expanding it to all governmental officials. See Pierson v. Ray (1967)

Please make your substantive points without swipes (like "haha sure"). This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html .

My bad. I can no longer edit/delete my comment to fix it.

I haven't responded that way in the past but was responded to that way a couple of days ago and guess it took hold. I can see why you have to clamp down on it, it easily spreads.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#462

Post by beaeglebeachedd »

com2kid wrote: post #455
beaeglebeachedd wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same shit practically all the way back to opium wars. Always the drug dealers fault. I blame the patient. We've known opiates were bad since at least the 1800s, and really longer than that. What the doc said was just what they needed to hear to lie to themselves, but this is taught in every highschool.

> I blame the patient. We've known opiates were bad since at least the 1800s, and really longer than that. As a reminder, Oxy was heavily marketed, (to doctors!) as a "not bad" opioid. As in, not as addictive, not as problematic, and something that can be prescribed more easily and with less worries. If a doctor comes up and tell you "don't worry about this one, it isn't addictive like the others", and you are in a t…

You didn't learn about the opium wars? I'm not talking about dare which was obvious bullshit, I'm talking of learning from history. There was no weed war, that a drug caused a couple wars lasting decades should at least raise an eyebrow of any thinking person.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#463

Post by fuzzylightbulb »

armada651 wrote: post #394
yieldcrv wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "We hid all our assets to evade the law. Give us immunity from criminal money laundering evasion and we will only pay part of what we likely would have owed." > We have those overseas money reporting laws that make it difficult for Americans to get bank accounts overseas. Let's use them! This is conflating two things. It is not criminal to move money offshore, and nothing suggested any money laundering occurred, be…

> And at Sackler levels of money you don't have to remain a US citizen, hence absolving the reporting requirements if they went that direction. Renouncing your citizenship because you owe the US government money is generally not seen as a valid reason by the US government to renounce your citizenship.

Nor should it be. These people are leeches whose very existence is antithetical to a healthy and just society. They've done immeasurable damage and then hide behind the courts to avoid any repercussions. Disgusting, the lot of them.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#464

Post by shawndrost »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #440
shawndrost wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, my question is about how people judge our opioid status quo: a medical system that prescribes addictive opioids for routine and low-grade pain.

I just wonder why random people would know better about this than your highly educated providers. Go ahead and ask. You can say those exact words. They will give better answers! If you want a poll, this court case was a poll. A majority of victims who had ample time to participate in litigation agreed to the settlement terms. They told you that addiction is bad, the new Purdue would help, and that money from its owne…

My question is specifically about the judgements that uninvolved people have formed. I can't learn about this from my doctor, or from the victims' decision in the context of a highly-constrained kabuki dance.

It seems most commenters here are fine with a settlement that clears Purdue to sell opioids (for the benefit of victims), but not with a settlement that lets the Sacklers off with a fine. That is exactly the opposite of my moral intuitions. What gives?

Some questions are message board questions.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#465

Post by beaeglebeachedd »

voisin wrote: post #449
beaeglebeachedd wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same shit practically all the way back to opium wars. Always the drug dealers fault. I blame the patient. We've known opiates were bad since at least the 1800s, and really longer than that. What the doc said was just what they needed to hear to lie to themselves, but this is taught in every highschool.

> We've known opiates were bad since at least the 1800s, and really longer than that. What the doc said was just what they needed to hear to lie to themselves, but this is taught in every highschool. I am not sure high schools are teaching people to be distrustful of their doctor’s advice. I think what’s being taught is about the dangers of illicit drugs, not those with a medical expert’s stamp of approval.

On the plus side between oxy and COVID distrust is now at all time highs.

People have learned you can't trust the doc anymore than a quik-lube mecanico.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#466

Post by jewayne »

EncomLab wrote: post #444
doctorpangloss wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you think there is/was a realistic way to prescribe opioids routinely and safely? Oxycodone is routinely and safely administered right now, to tens of thousands of people, every day. But this is kind of like, an FDA question, no?

Which is why going after the Sackler's is about politics and not about the law.

Or maybe it's about the horrible crimes against humanity committed by the Sacklers?

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#467

Post by ninetyninenine »

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-…

Here's a way to help you understand. Let's say I gave you 1 million dollars to help you understand. Then would you understand? That's likely how other people started understanding the situation. Something along those lines. Something this obviously wrong, some sort of coercion or bribery or some other shady thing has got to be a part of it.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#468

Post by kristopolous »

stavros wrote: post #336
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.

They're also eminently readable, which (to me) shows the massive skill of whoever writes these. The fact that I, a layman, can easily understand them speaks to the quality of the writing.

Or to how unexceptionally average most of the judges actually are.

If you're willing to entertain these are skilled brilliant jurists with some kind of mystical levels of elucidation, maybe they're actually just people who failed upward into a job with a fancy robe

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#469

Post by com2kid »

beaeglebeachedd wrote: post #462
com2kid wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I blame the patient. We've known opiates were bad since at least the 1800s, and really longer than that. As a reminder, Oxy was heavily marketed, (to doctors!) as a "not bad" opioid. As in, not as addictive, not as problematic, and something that can be prescribed more easily and with less worries. If a doctor comes up and tell you "don't worry about this one, it isn't addictive like the others", and you are in a t…

You didn't learn about the opium wars? I'm not talking about dare which was obvious bullshit, I'm talking of learning from history. There was no weed war, that a drug caused a couple wars lasting decades should at least raise an eyebrow of any thinking person.

We didn't study the Opium Wars in history at all throughout my education, I learned about those on my own thanks to the Internet. The entire Middle East, our influence in South America, etc, none of that was covered in school, and I went to some pretty good public schools. (E.g. in High School we edited DNA of Bacteria)

For that matter, I think China was only mentioned in passing throughout my entire education. WW1 was also only mentioned very briefly (maybe a couple weeks? Archduke is shot, shit goes down) and then we spent a fair bit of time on WW2, but less than we spent on Ancient Egypt honestly. (I think we spent an entire 2 or 3 months on Ancient Egypt).

We spent a fair amount of time on the Reformation and Renaissance, ancient Greece and Rome, and US history was mostly a ~bullshit~ censored history of the founding of the US. The Washington State history classes went into some history of the local tribes, but failed to mention any of the fun details about how Seattle was founded (prostitution, drinking, Seattle literally poisoning the wells of nearby towns to force them to join Seattle to get access to clean water)

College was better, mostly US history and World History, still nothing about the far east though.

We did an excellent segment on the US Revolution in College, including the funding source behind the revolutionary war, that was very interesting.

Edit: Sex ed was pretty comprehensive, and we ended the quarter by watching Rocky Horror Picture Show, so that was fun. (The Nerd and Goth kids formed a voting block for what movie to watch. :D) I am still surprised they talked about so much about forms of contraceptives that almost no one uses (spermicidal gels and foams), but at least they properly demonstrated how to use a condom, so that was good.

For "don't smoke" the health teacher had lots of pictures of tumors.

Alcohol wasn't really talked about, but honestly in the 90s we didn't know a much about how unhealthy it is as we do now. (Doctors knew it was bad, but just in the last few years research has come out showing that the safe amount of drinking is none)

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#470

Post by mardifoufs »

LordKeren wrote: post #39
psunavy03 wrote: post #25

For those claiming the Supreme Court is a political institution, I'd like to note that this was indeed a 5-4 decision. But one with Justices in the majority who were appointed by Biden, Trump, Bush 43, and Bush 41, and in the minority who were appointed by Bush 43, Obama, and Trump. It was Jackson, Gorsuch, Barrett, Alito, and Thomas in the majority and Sotomayor, Kagan, Roberts, and Kavanaugh in the minority.

Hmmm, I’m not sure pointing to singular rulings like this really demonstrates that the Supreme Court isn’t getting increasingly political.

Increasingly political compared to when?

And I don't think it's a singular judgement. If anything, the "ideological split" types of decisions are rarer, so it's more accurate to say that a few decisions on hot political topics doesn't mean that the SCOTUS is increasingly political.

Post reply on HN