Addiction is a son of a bitch. And I need to stop the cycle now because I don’t want my kids looking in a casket. ibid. mother
The courier that we arrested said that he was picking up money from an Hispanic female. He says she runs a stash house for the cartels, and that the stash house is part of a larger cell here in Columbus. The Trade s1e3, US rozzer
I’ve never thought of myself as a leader. I have defended my family and my town from Los Rojos. And through these actions we’ve won over the people. The Trade s1e4, Mexican gangsta
Hope After Heroion. ibid. protest march
Rozzer: What I need to know, Edith, is how many kilos come at one time to this house?
Edith: Maybe two kilos …
Rozzer: … At least twenty were here … ibid.
Sick and tired of being sick and tired … I knew I could change. ibid. addict
Edith and her co-conspirators pleaded guilty and are now in prison. ibid. caption
America’s overdose crisis is worse than ever before because of the synthetic opioid Fentanyl. The Trade s1e5, television news
Overdoses are now the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of fifty. ibid.
This horrible cycle that we’re stuck in … The heroin death rate is going up. ibid. rozzer
As Afghan heroin floods the market, back at home the Bush administration pushes through a new anti-terror law that’ll change the face of the domestic war on drugs. America’s War on Drugs IV: Heroin, Terrorists & Kings of Pain, History 2017
2001 Afghan opium production: 185 tons; 2011 Afghan opium production 5,800 tons = 3,000% increase. ibid.
The pharmaceutical industry also known as Big Pharma – they have hundreds of thousands of doctors on their payroll. In the last decade they’ve spent over $2 billion on lobbying … $3 billion is spend on drug ads each year. ibid.
The doctors were pushing Oxycontin also known as Oxycodone. ibid.
Copy-cat pain clinics began to pop up. ibid.
Drug lords in Afghanistan and Mexico are poised to meet the demand. And epidemic is coming: heroin. ibid.
In reality children had never been more vulnerable. This was the great age of epidemic: tuberculosis, scarlet fever and typhoid killed thousands of children every year. No amount of money or prayer could keep death from the door. Jeremy Paxman: The Victorians: Home Sweet Home, BBC 2009
As a nation we are slowly but surely getting fatter. We’re all eating well, maybe too well. Gabriel Weston, Horizon: The Truth About Fat, BBC 2012
What is it about this epidemic that operates so randomly? ibid.
It’s the fatty calorie-rich foods we love the most. ibid.
Nearly a quarter of the adult population is clinically obese. ibid.
They discovered two new hormones – Ghrelin and PYY – that together seem to control appetite and weight. ibid.
I’m pretty shocked to discover that my assumption of a lifetime which is that I’m the size I am because of my character is nonsense. ibid.
What was making these twins so different in weight? ibid.
Professor Spector: Stress can create parallel but different strategies. ibid.
The biggest single factor causing a child to be fat was the nine months it spent in its mother’s womb. ibid.
A new set of answers is emerging which could help us to defeat what to me is one of the defining epidemics of our age. ibid.
Since 2000, more than 500,000 Americans have died of opioid overdoses. Millions of Americans have become addicted. Every 25 minutes a baby is born with opioid withdrawal. The US government estimates that the cost of opioid abuse is over $1 trillion. We call this ‘the opioid crisis’. But a crisis is something that just ‘happens’. What if we discovered that the opioid crisis was caused by businesses seeking to profit from pain? What if behind the crisis there was a spectacular crime? Alex Gibney, The Crime of the Century I ***** Sky Documentaries 2021
No American family has profited more from controlled substances, from Valium and Oxycontin, than the Sacklers. ibid.
In the 1960s Sackler became incredibly rich by expanding the market for addictive tranquillizers. ibid.
Controlled-release Oxycodone, or Oxycontin, would be the drug that triggered what we call the ‘opioid crisis.’ ibid.
Johnson & Johnson also genetically altered the nature of the plant to create a super-poppy … Soon 74,000 acres of Tasmania were devoted to opium. ibid.
Blinn was taking the equivalent of 200 hits of heroin a day. He kept the prescription bottle for 20 years because he felt something was not right. ibid.
A nationwide criminal conspiracy that included Fraud, Pills Mills, doctors trading drugs for sex, false statements to Congress, and attempts to target key officials of the Bush administration … The FDA was used to falsely and fraudulently market Oxycontin. ibid.
None of them would spend a day in prison. ibid.
Lifetree Pain Clinic prescription: 60 x Amitriptyline 50mg; 30 x Celexa 40mg; 224 x Oxycodone 30mg; 112 Percocet 10/325mg; 60 x Requip 1mg; 60 x Xanax 1mg; 60 x Zanaflex 4mg. ibid.
Starting in 2013, a powerful synthetic opioid surged in popularity: Fentanyl. It’s a 100 times more powerful than morphine. Rather than reckoning with its dangers, companies sold it as aggressively as drug cartels. But instead of gun-toting dealers on street corners, men and women in suits and lab coats pushed opioids and cash bonuses and power-point presentations at pain management jamborees. Flush with campaign cash from Big Pharma, Congress would look the other way. ibid.
‘40 people every day die from Prescription overdoses.’ Alex Gibney, The Crime of the Century II ***** news
‘The opioid crisis started with prescriptions, prescriptions and patient care. This idea that we weren’t adequately treating pain. Drugs like Oxycontin … began to preach the gospel of the opioid … They developed new medical terms like pseudo-addiction … As you get stronger drugs, it’s more expensive. ibid. Joe Rannazzisi, insider whistleblower gives evidence
Fentanyl byproducts is killing a lot of people … It was a natural progression … Overdose deaths are under-reported, we know that for sure so we don’t know really how many people died. We started seeing massive amounts of death … prescriptions: 250 million. ibid.
An onslaught of pills, hundreds of thousands of deaths. Who is accountable? ibid. The Washington Post online article 20 July 2019
Some of America’s biggest pharmaceuticals were not only profiting from the opioid crisis, they may have been manufacturing it. ibid.
We have had many run-ins with the Sacklers lately. The crisis began when Oxycontin hit the streets. Their man point of contention is that they did not ignore the opioid crisis single-handedly. Whether you believe that or don’t believe that, there is voluminous evidence the crisis began when Oxycontin hit the streets. Purdue [Pharma] led the charge. ibid. Bernstein, Washington Post
Generic versions … sending massive amounts of these drugs downstream because there were corrupt doctors all over the country. It became like the Wild West. This was a new drug cartel that was being established in the United States. But instead of coming in from a foreign country, they were drug dealers who were wearing suits and lab-coats. ibid.
A patient survey form. You say, I got back pain. The problem is that no-one ever saw the patient. As long as they have any kind of credit card they were fine. You’d have a doctor on the east coast, a patient and drug seeker on the west coast, the pharmacy was in the mid-west. It was just a trafficking organisation that was hiding behind the veil of the internet. ibid.
Broward County has more pill-mills (142) than McDonald’s. ibid.
Superior Injury Centre 870-6370. ibid.
There was one store in particular that was known by drug dealers as the go-to: CVS Pharmacy. ibid.
In 2011 there was a crack-down by the DEA. Operation Pill Nation involved more than 500 law-enforcement officers resulting in seizures of 7 vehicles, $19 million in cash and 105 arrests. ibid.
But the real problem wasn’t on the street. It was in the Executive Suites of pharmaceutical companies which had become addicted to the profits opioids could deliver. ibid.
Workers disciplined in Prozac mailings: At least one Lilly’s employee fired; seven face various other measures. ibid.
The product was Act-Tiv. It was a lolly-pop made of Fentanyl whose potency carried the enormous risk of overdose. ibid.
They start paying exorbitantly, a huge number of speaker programs, and they use the speaker program basically as a way of cover for the bribes they are paying. ibid. whistleblower
Clearly we’re breaking the law. ibid.
CVS Pharmacy: on the edge of a highway, so people would cruise in, get their drugs, and be out in no time at all. ibid.
I know they’re sick like me. Gotta be number one. ibid.
These changes are good to one way of thinking in the sense that they make it harder to buy and abuse pharmaceutical opioids. But what that does is it drives all these people who are already addicted on to the black market. ibid.
International drug cartels catered to those who had become addicted to prescription pills. As their need for narcotics increased and doctors were more reluctant to prescribe an increasing doses, users turned to heroin, and a synthetic opioid fifty times more powerful: Fentanyl. ibid.
Since 2015, Fentanyl overdoses have been rising dramatically. Rates have soared by 2000% in San Diego. ibid.
The company told me nothing ever. ibid. salesman/whistleblower
Late in 2020 the Trump administration rushed to make an announcement for the presidential election. Pleading guilty to three felony counts, the Sackler family would pay a $225 million fine. Purdue Pharma would plead guilt to kickbacks and fraud. And promise to pay fines totalling $8.3 billion. ibid.
Purdue is in bankruptcy and only has about $1 billion which a whole bunch of creditors are already fighting over. That money is never going to be paid by the company or anybody else. ibid.
A cruel irony: the only way the company could pay damages was to increase its sales of drugs, including Oxycontin. ibid.
It was an epidemic that happened in this city. You know this city was flooded with narcotics. Liverpool Narcos I: Heroin ***** Sky Documentaries 2021
Everyone’s on heroin? How the hell did that happen? ibid.
Operation Rainman surveillance … Suddenly, these guys were doing seriously well. And flaunting it. And that kind of rankled with us. So we kind of took that personal. ibid. rozzers