But also the Sacklers are only like 8% of the problem. All the rest of the opioids, (92%), came from other companies. So, theoretically, if we confiscated all of the wealth of all of the owners and stockholders in all of these companies we'd get the money we need to at least ameliorate some of the carnage. Because we'd have at least 90% more than we'd have by just confiscating the Sackler wealth alone.
All that's just theory though. I don't even know if it's possible to hold ownership responsible? Because wouldn't that put people who buy stock in whatever company at risk if the company was doing something sufficiently untoward?
But I get it. Someone dies and it’s the drug dealers fault, and punishing them will make everyone feel better. Except it doesn’t do anything about the actual problem (opioid addiction).
It feels to me like the elation here is because the Sacklers are rich and people really don’t like that, rather than any sort of victory in combating opiate addiction.
When they learned doctors were prescribing it for eight hours, they tried to "re-train" them to use the "proper" (read: their) dosing recommendation, because there were cheaper drugs with six of eight hour doses.
Sure, the doctors made the prescriptions, but you, and I, and everyone who thinks honestly about it for two and a half seconds realizes that no matter what the recommendation is, enough people who are in bad enough pain to be prescribed oxy will take it when they need it, recommendation be damned, that to have issued that recommendation in the first place was an act of bad faith.
They marketed the drug on a lie in order to get doctors to prescribe it, which fueled — if not created — an epidemic, which has killed tens of thousands of people. Their hands are not clean, here.
This seems a bit of a stretch to me.
The doctors prescribed it, even given readily available research, the FDA approved it, knowing full well this was a risk. Those are the guilty parties here. Purdue filled their role just fine, they just happened to be making an opiate and so they're getting chased for it now because China is dumping fentanyl. Pretty ridiculous really.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/world-health-organiz...
That’s far more than just manufacturing and opened them up to significantly increased liability.
The lying in marketing, over the period 1995-2001, was already litigated in 2007.
But again, the Sackler's are only 8% of the problem. So if you go after them, and the owners and stockholders of the companies that provided the other 92% of opioids, and the doctors who wrote the prescriptions in bad faith, you probably come up with an amount of money that could make a dent.
https://www.statnews.com/2016/09/22/abbott-oxycontin-crusade...
