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 is 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 dose, 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. 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.
Look around America: squads of armed and angry people taking to the streets in the woodlands and public squares howling into the night. These are the soldiers of the America Militia Movement, locked and loaded. But what’s their beef? And who’s the instigator egging them on? Is it protest or it is something more sinister? America on Fire, Charlie LeDuff reporting, History 2019
According to the Southern Poverty Law Centre, there are more than 600 anti-government patriot groups in the United States. ibid.
On one part of the fence is the three-percenters, marching to protect the First Amendment backed by the second; on the other side is a mix of ANTIFA, known as anti-fascists, and American Muslims and left-wing activists. ibid.
Welcome to Wall Street, the epicentre of financial power in America. Perhaps the money capital of the world … These financial firms are trying to undo the regulations and new laws governing them imposed by the Congress. Who Rules America? I, Press TV 2015
The focus is on political personalities not the forces they represent. ibid.
‘A power elite: an interlocking set of connections of people in business, in politics, in the military, who pretty much determine the parameters of possible change.’ ibid. Eric Foner, Columbia University
There seems to be corporate forces in addition to Wall Street that essentially help guide our political and economic direction. ibid.
A complex system that’s evolved over the years. ibid.
The activists Occupy Wall Street are continuing the fight for independence and economic injustice. Who Rules America II
The unresolved history of conflict in the United States between those who own and control its resources and those who want economic equality. ibid.
Fifty years later, on the Warning’s anniversary, President Eisenhower’s own granddaughter Susan documented how the military industrial complex had grown. She wrote: ‘In less than ten years our military and security expenditures have increased by 119%’. Who Rules America? III
Years earlier an auto executive turned defense secretary Charles Wilson said, What’s good for General Motors is good for America. He saw no distinction between an elected government and an unelected corporation. ibid.
‘We’ve undergone coup d’etat. We live in a corporate state.’ ibid. Chris Hedges
From the earliest days freedom of press was what defined America … Today our newspapers seem to be fading in importance in a multimedia world that is largely owned and controlled by a handful of large media corporation. Who Rules America? IV
US-based media became a transnational force. The US media companies are themselves owned in large part by hedge funds, mutual funds and finance companies. ibid.
Media attention still tends to revolve around a political elite with authority. ibid.
‘Where does the money come from? … One per cent of the donors are giving 64% of the money. This is a tiny elite.’ Who Rules America? V, Sheila Krumholz
‘The largest contributors to political campaigns in America are the financial institutions.’ ibid. Michael Hudson
There are no constraints left to halt America’s slide into a totalitarian capitalism. Electoral politics are a sham. The media have been debased and defanged by corporate owners. The working class has been impoverished and is now being plunged into profound despair. The legal system has been corrupted to serve corporate interests. Popular institutions, from labor unions to political parties, have been destroyed or emasculated by corporate power. And any form of protest, no matter how tepid, is blocked by an internal security apparatus that is starting to rival that of the East German secret police. The mounting anger and hatred, coursing through the bloodstream of the body politic, make violence and counter-violence inevitable. Brace yourself. The American empire is over. And the descent is going to be horrifying. Chris Hedges, Calling All Rebels, 2010