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It's more complicated than that. They knew it was killing people and turning thousands (millions) into addicts and they kept pushing doctors to use it at all costs. I'd recommend the John Oliver special on it.
Why are doctors so easy to manipulate? They learn about addiction in medical school. Why would they believe a pharmaceutical company saying "...oh but this opioid is not addictive..."
- To avoid filing for bankruptcy, and
- For a bankruptcy settlement to release them from additional liability.
Interestingly the same kinds of tactics used to push opiates on the general public are still being used to push amphetamine analogs - but the death rate from amphetamine addiction/overdose is much much lower (>1000X lower) than that from opiate addiction/overdose so it doesn't really hit the headlines, and arguably is not as much of a concern. From a libertarian point of view, mood- and mind-altering substance use sh…
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It depends on what your personal views are here. If you wanted the outcome of the case to be at least some money going towards opioid treatment, then this decision could jeopardize that outcome. However, if you thought that the Sackler family being able to escape any personal liability despite the myriad of evidence of many of their involvement in stoking the opioid epidemic— and they still got to keep a very sizeabl…
I wouldn't be opposed to similar outcomes as the Chinese baby milk scandal in the end.
> A number of trials were conducted by the Chinese government resulting in two executions, three sentences of life imprisonment, two 15-year prison sentences, and the firing or forced resignation of seven local government officials and the Director of the Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ). The former chairwoman of China's Sanlu dairy was sentenced to life in prison.
Yeah, that sounds nice :-)
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the choice to have sex with someone or be fired is not a legitimate choice and framing it as one is also illegitimate. do you have a better suggestion for a term you would prefer?
It is choice. That's the whole point of the discussion you might not like the choice you would have to take but it still is. If you want to convey that you get extorted do so but use the right words.
>to make something happen or make someone do something difficult, unpleasant, or unusual, especially by threatening or not offering the possibility of choice[0] (notice or here)
>If someone forces you to do something, they make you do it even though you do not want to, for example, by threatening you.[1]
>to make someone do something that they do not want to do
>I was forced to take a taxi because the last bus had left.[2]
[0] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/force
[1] https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/forc...
[2] https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/ame...
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Why are doctors so easy to manipulate? They learn about addiction in medical school. Why would they believe a pharmaceutical company saying "...oh but this opioid is not addictive..."
Because doctors believe studies and health system policies pushed aggressive treatment of pain. And our unequal society forces a lot of people to damage their bodies in the pursuit of happiness (i.e. earning money). That damage becomes chronic pain. And unfortunately, painkillers often have a euphoric effect. So people might use that effect to escape the grinding reality that they are trapped within. Consider how pop…
>The court on a 5-4 vote ruled that the bankruptcy court did not have the authority to release the Sackler family members from legal claims made by opioid victims. As part of the deal, the family, which controlled the company, had agreed to pay $6 billion that could be used to settle opioid-related claims, but only in return for a complete release from any liability in future cases. Is this actually a positive outcom…
If you sell drugs and use the interest from your profits to pay a fine, it doesn’t sound like punishment.
Part of the problem with this is that much of an old money wealth is from less than reputable sources (slavery, piracy, war, crime, smuggling, opium and alcohol).
Thank you. For my purpose as a reader it is editorial incompetence that the article neither provided that link, nor the name of the case to make it easy to lookup.
At least it is for SCOTUS decisions to find the decision quickly ( https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/slipopinion/23 has a list of all opinions from the current time, updated live as they are announced). It's really painful when you've got coverage of state court cases where you have neither the case name nor the court it was filed in nor the docket nor any document nor anything that would let you figure any of th…
How is there such a big divide in the court on this? Is the law really this unclear on the matter?
As much as each side likes to bloviate about originalism and activist judges, SCOTUS often decides at the whims of ideology and personal bias because the law gives them lots of room.
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.
We had a decision on the SEC vacating some of its enforcement powers, 6-3 with only the 3 liberal justices dissenting.
We had this decision, which was 5-4, although it wasn't a clear ideological split.
We had a 5-4 decision vacating an EPA regulation, with the 3 liberal justices and one of the more moderate conservative justices dissenting.
We had a 6-3 decision on the EMTALA-abortion decision, with the 3 most conservative justices dissenting. (Technically it's per curiam, and the "majority" opinion is unsigned. But every justice signed onto a concurrence or a dissent, so we know exactly how every justice voted in this case).
Yesterday, we had a decision on social media which was 6-3, with the 3 most conservative justices dissenting.
Yesterday, we also had a decision on bribery which was 6-3, with the 3 liberal justices dissenting.
Out of the most recent 6 decisions, we have 4 decisions that clearly evidence a 3-3-3 ideological split between 3 liberal justices, 3 more moderate conservative justices, and 3 very conservative justices that would be able to pretty fully predict how they would vote on the cases, and there's another case that it's partially predictive on (a 5-4 that peels off either Roberts, Kavanaugh, or Barrett doesn't contradict this lineup). Furthermore, the one case that the ideological breakdown doesn't work on is the case that is the least politically charged (it's literally resolving a circuit split, as opposed to please-intervene-in-this-politically-charged-case).
So yeah, this doesn't disprove the thesis that SCOTUS has become increasingly politicized over the past few years.