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Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

washingtonpost.com

611–620 of 691 posts

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#611
post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s weird is that people still think tobacco smoking is about nicotine being addictive and dangerous, when it is literally everything else in the smoke that makes it extremely addictive and mortally dangerous.

The nicotine is what makes it addictive , but everything else makes it deadly . This distinction is well known here in Sweden where we have snus, and also lower rates of lung cancer and cigarette use than the rest of Europe by a LOT.

It's not known in Australia where you have to have a prescription to buy a vape but can buy cigarettes freely. Apparently they're relaxing the prescription requirement later in the year but still only pharmacies will be allowed to sell them.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#612
post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s weird is that people still think tobacco smoking is about nicotine being addictive and dangerous, when it is literally everything else in the smoke that makes it extremely addictive and mortally dangerous.

The nicotine is what makes it addictive , but everything else makes it deadly . This distinction is well known here in Sweden where we have snus, and also lower rates of lung cancer and cigarette use than the rest of Europe by a LOT.

That is not true. It is the interaction of nicotine with various monoamine oxidase inhibitors that makes tobacco smoking addictive, to an extent that it could be stated that it is the MAOIs entirely causing the addictive behaviour: the exact same MAOIs are also found in coffee, after all.

Why are nicotine pouches and vapes addictive, then? The answer lies in the flavourings, which themselves have psychoactive properties, likely also through MAO inhibition.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#613
post #514

The wild part is how the justices were split: Gorsuch wrote for the majority, joined by Thomas, Alito, Barrett and Jackson. You won't often see these 5 seeing eye to eye in a split decision. This ruling breaks my usual test that the conservative majority will nearly always side with corporate intersts because this decision definitely isn't pro-corporate. The settlement would essentially shield the Sacklers from all l…

European here: the fact that "you guys" even know who your judges are, is amazing.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#614
post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nicotine is what makes it addictive , but everything else makes it deadly . This distinction is well known here in Sweden where we have snus, and also lower rates of lung cancer and cigarette use than the rest of Europe by a LOT.

That is not true. It is the interaction of nicotine with various monoamine oxidase inhibitors that makes tobacco smoking addictive, to an extent that it could be stated that it is the MAOIs entirely causing the addictive behaviour: the exact same MAOIs are also found in coffee, after all. Why are nicotine pouches and vapes addictive, then? The answer lies in the flavourings, which themselves have psychoactive propert…

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&...

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#615
post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the reply! I am honestly not informed about this stuff and not asking to covertly push an agenda. Follow-up Q for you. What is the realistic way to prescribe opioids routinely and safely? Are there certain formulations that have been or should be removed from the market? How do we reinstate the taboo on prescribing them? For EG: I got a vasectomy recently and was told to expect a day or two of pain. I w…

> I got a vasectomy recently and was told to expect a day or two of pain I didn't get anything after mine. I nearly fainted outside the clinic waiting to be picked up when the feelings all suddenly caught up with me.

Neither did I. "If you have pain then take ibuprofen"

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#616
post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might be partially right, but McKinsey Senior Partners have a very long list of friends to call, many of them former McKinseys in positions of power. So while the shitty PowerPoint might seem as the product, the actual product might be trafficking influences and coordinating favors, getting insider information from a competitor, etc. In this case in particular, if memory serves, they were advising the FDA in para…

They also provide plausible deniability. "Look, we have independent research by a reputable firm."

In fact that's the main thing they sell.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#617
post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 tr…

> Doctors and the FDA etc were straight up lied to Oh please. Doctors, did not believe the preponderance of evidence that ulcers were caused by bacteria. The reason, the person who discovered it was a vet. They had to give the man a Nobel Prize to get Dr's to pry their heads out of their self aggrandizing asses and pay attention to reality. Opioids were addictive. They never stoped being that. Dr's were fiscally moti…

Doctors also refused to believe the germ theory of disease because it would imply they were all incompetent before then. Lots and lots of people died from infections transmitted by unwashed hands.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#618
post #606
post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nicotine is what makes it addictive , but everything else makes it deadly . This distinction is well known here in Sweden where we have snus, and also lower rates of lung cancer and cigarette use than the rest of Europe by a LOT.

Though at the same time I would wager a larger rate of gum disease and mouth cancer than the rest of Europe by a lot.

Going by a quick skim of the 2022 WHO oral health numbers, Sweden[0] doesn't seem significantly worse off oral-health wise than Germany, Holland, or the UK. In fact it's oral cancer incident rates appear a bit better. Though the UK doesn't have great cancer incident rates, it's periodontal disease rate seem to be significantly lesser than the other three (perhaps due to close monitoring as a result of the "bad British teeth" stereotype).

Sweden male tobacco use percentages are slightly higher than the other three countries, which might be a function of the population additionally using non-cigarette tobacco substitutes perhaps as was mentioned by others.

[0] https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/country-profil...

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#619

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.

Just after the decision was announced, the victim's lawyers seemed to put out a statement decrying the decision since the victims are not going to be paid (soon?). Is this overzealousness on the part of the lawyers themselves wanting to get paid? Does any law person have a comment on the situation?

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not true. It is the interaction of nicotine with various monoamine oxidase inhibitors that makes tobacco smoking addictive, to an extent that it could be stated that it is the MAOIs entirely causing the addictive behaviour: the exact same MAOIs are also found in coffee, after all. Why are nicotine pouches and vapes addictive, then? The answer lies in the flavourings, which themselves have psychoactive propert…

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.
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