New Harvard Study Confirms Big Pharma & Federal Govt Root Cause of Opioid Epidemic

A new study published in the Harvard Law & Policy Review painstakingly describes how Big Pharma deception and federal government patenting have brought about the current U.S. opioid epidemic. As lawsuits pile up against pharma companies, this study confirms that for 20 years, the American public has served as the victim in a gargantuan scheme of money and power.

The study, titled The Opioid Epidemic: Fixing a Broken Pharmaceutical Market, gets right to the point in the introduction.

“In this article, we argue that non-rigorous patenting standards and ineffectual policing of both fraudulent marketing and anticompetitive actions played an important role in launching and prolonging the opioid epidemic. We further show that these regulatory issues are not unique to prescription opioids but rather are reflective of the wider pharmaceutical market.”

Researchers follow with a primer on the rise of opioid prescriptions and how pain became “the fifth vital sign.” By the 1990s, doctors realized that chronic pain was often ignored, and pain management became a hot topic. Physicians were urged to make greater use of opioids, with experts in the field downplaying the potential for misuse and addiction – a view largely based on experience with morphine.

But this was before OxyContin came along.

Purdue Pharma, recognizing that this newfound view of the medical establishment could be exploited, worked to develop an improved synthetic opioid. Their golden ticket was found with the extended-release oxycodone pill known as OxyContin, patented and approved by the FDA in 1995.

However, Purdue’s exclusive patent was based on corporate fraud and government ignorance.

Advertisment

“Purdue was able to patent extended-release oxycodone in the United States despite the fact that its constituent elements—the active ingredient oxycodone and the controlled-release system Contin—had been developed decades earlier…Oxycodone was used in clinical practice in Germany as early as 1917, and was first introduced in the United States in 1939.”

Purdue’s angle was to develop a controlled-release version of oxycodone, banking on its success with the patented MS Contin for morphine. Here’s where the feds stepped in to help.

READ MORE:  Former SpaceX Employee Faces Life In Prison For Operating Silk Road 2.0

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) initially rejected Purdue’s patent request for extended-release oxycodone, citing the combination as “obvious.” But Purdue responded with a statistical falsehood – which the company knew was false – and the patent office made an about-face, granting the 20 year patent for OxyContin.

Since then, the cozy relationship between Big Pharma and government has grown, with the pharma industry spending almost a billion dollars in ten years on lobbying federal and state governments and campaign contributions.

As the Harvard study notes, “low patenting standards” and “a history of tepid enforcement” provided incentive for Purdue to embark on a massive, fraudulent marketing campaign. With the guarantee of no competition provided by government, Purdue spent obscene amounts of money getting American hooked on their newly-patented product.

“Between 1996 and 2000, the company more than doubled its U.S. marketing team…In 2001, Purdue paid forty million dollars in bonuses tied to extended-release oxycodone…Purdue also invested heavily in analytics, developing a database to identify high-volume prescribers and pharmacies to help focus their marketing resources…Patients were offered starter coupons for a free initial supply of extended-release oxycodone, 34,000 of which were redeemed by 2001…Finally, Purdue hosted forty all-expenses-paid pain management and speaker training conferences at lavish resorts. Over five thousand clinicians attended, receiving toys, fishing hats, and compact discs while listening to sales representatives tout the alleged benefits of extended-release oxycodone…Purdue elevated the stakes, spending an estimated six to twelve times more promoting extended-release oxycodone than its competitor Janssen spent marketing a rival opioid…

Purdue’s efforts paid off. Between 1996 and 2001, extended-release oxycodone generated $2.8 billion in sales. From 2008 to 2014, annual sales exceeded $2 billion.”

It gets even worse.

READ MORE:  Big Pharma Exposed for Knowingly Causing Opioid Epidemic, Ushering in a Heroin Nightmare

As the patent expiration for OxyContin approached, Purdue developed an “abuse-deterrent formulation” of the drug, for which FDA granted a patent in 2010. Not satisfied with a simple new patent, Purdue filed a “citizen petition asking the FDA to refuse to accept generic versions of the original extended-release oxycodone formulation on safety grounds.” Incredibly, FDA also granted this to Purdue, “effectively preventing the marketing of low-cost, therapeutically equivalent products that might undercut Purdue’s incentive to continue to widely promote its new abuse-deterrent formulation.”

By the way, the “abuse-deterrent” OxyContin doesn’t really deter addicts, and it has fueled the explosive heroin epidemic as addicts seek out cheaper, black market alternatives. But Purdue is content making its billions off the patented drug.

While thousands of Americans die under a campaign of deception and greed, official Washington pretends to care with the occasional fine levied against pharma companies, including for false marketing by Purdue.

But no one ever goes to jail; no one in top management is ever held to account. The persons in “personhood” conveniently disappear when corporations get in trouble. And the fines? Mere pocket change compared to the revenues already made from the drugs involved.

“Rather than deterring fraudulent marketing, the penalties simply became a cost of doing business.”

The Harvard study provides much more insight into the fraudulent marketing practices of Big Pharma, the patent schemes enabled by federal government, how generic drugs are routinely stifled, and possible ways to address the injustice.

Some of the more sinister effects of the system include “hard switches” which force patients to go from one costly patented drug to another instead of generics. The use of “citizen petitions” by pharma corporations to slow generic drugs and keep prices high is a particularly insidious scheme.

READ MORE:  Anti-Drug Senator"s Office Manager Arrested For Importing Meth And "Date Rape" Drug From China

The study notes that today, “Over four million Americans misuse opioids each month” at a societal cost of $80 billion annually. 300 million prescriptions were written in 2015 in the U.S., which has a population of 323 million. This is reflected in the fact that 80 percent of the world’s opioids are consumed in the U.S., which has 5 percent of the world’s population.

The misuse of opioids is a not a simple issue, and personal choice is of course involved. But the above numbers point to something much bigger going on.

As the Harvard study confirms, Big Pharma has exploited the enormous addiction potential of opioids to prey upon the American populace for decades — made possible by a federal government with blatant disregard for the well-being of citizens.

New Study Shows Legal Weed is Better at Stopping Opioid Overdose Epidemic than Drug War

There’s one thing that appears to be saving more lives during the opioid epidemic than anything else – medical cannabis. While government touts meaningless attempts at addressing the problem – paying lip service to the people while protecting Big Pharma’s profits and filling jails – people are saving themselves by turning to an ancient plant.

Yet another scientific study has confirmed that medical cannabis access reduces harm from opioid abuse among the population. A recent study published in the Drug and Alcohol Dependency journal found that states with legal medical cannabis experience fewer hospitalizations related to opioids.

“Medical marijuana legalization was associated with 23% and 13% reductions in hospitalizations related to opioid dependence or abuse and [opioid pain reliever] OPR overdose, respectively; lagged effects were observed after policy implementation.”

Researchers from the University of California analyzed hospital administrative records for the period of 1997 to 2014. The author reported:

“This study demonstrated significant reductions on OPR- (opioid pain reliever) related hospitalizations associated with the implementation of medical marijuana policies. … We found reductions in OPR-related hospitalizations immediately after the year of policy implementation as well as delayed reductions in the third post-policy year.“

The data also show that cannabis-related hospitalizations did not increase after legalization, contrary to what prohibitionists would have you believe.

“While the interpretation of the results should remain cautious, this study suggested that medical marijuana policies were not associated with marijuana-related hospitalizations. Instead, the policies were unintendedly associated with substantial reductions in OPR related hospitalizations.”

This study is just the latest in a series of scientific inquiries on the effects of medical cannabis policy on the raging opioid epidemic, spurred by Big Pharma companies such as Purdue Pharma which knowingly deceived doctors and patients while turning a blind eye to black market OxyContin trafficking.

READ MORE:  These 20 Americans Own More Wealth than Half of All US Citizens Combined - And It"s Getting Worse

A 2014 study looked at 11 years of data, finding that deaths from opioid painkillers plummet in states with legal weed. A 2015 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that states with medical cannabis dispensaries have reduced levels of opioid addiction and deaths.

The same year, a survey discovered that 80% of respondents reported substituting cannabis for prescription pills. Big Pharma must have been paying attention, as companies such as Insys Therapeutics were helping to fund propaganda campaigns against numerous state-level cannabis legalization initiatives.

In 2016, another study confirmed the positive effects of legal medical cannabis. Researchers looked at 17 states over a three-year period (2010-2013), showing yet again that prescription drug use falls in legal weed states.

“Generally, we found that when a medical marijuana law went into effect, prescribing for FDA-approved prescription drugs under Medicare Part D fell substantially,” said researchers. They estimated that if all 50 states would have legal cannabis therapy, $486 million in prescription drug savings could be achieved annually.

You would think this to be good news for federal government, which presumably should be looking for ways to reduce spending. However, when Congress developed the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, all attempts to including medical cannabis research or use were blocked — despite clear data on its ability to address the opioid epidemic.

Clearly, the interests of Big Pharma continue to be protected by government at the expense of the people’s health.

Despite the best efforts of crony lawmakers and a DEA floundering in ignorance by keeping cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug with “ no medical use,” people are fully awake to the reality of medical cannabis, with nearly 90 percent saying it should be legal.

Having Your Life Saved During an Overdose Now Punishable by 6 Months in Jail

Washington Court House, OH — As if struggling to beat opioid addiction weren’t challenging enough, being revived from an overdose in one Ohio town could now earn the victim criminal charges.

In February, Washington Court House Police Chief Brian Hottinger told NBC4, his department began citing anyone whom emergency services must revive using naloxone (name brand, Narcan) with inducing panic.

At least seven people have been charged with this first-degree misdemeanor since the change, and now must face a $1,000 fine and — alarmingly for those already battling addiction — up to six months in county jail.

Officials claim the switch occurred as the latest attempt to quash a widespread opioid epidemic gripping Ohio and the entire nation — but the situation has spiraled so far out of control, Washington Court House’s plan mostly seeks to track who has overdosed.

“It gives us the ability to keep an eye on them, to offer them assistance and to know who has overdosed,” City Attorney Mark Pitsick explained to ABC6. “Sometimes we can’t even track who has overdosed.”

Southwest Ohio and the surrounding region are experiencing, as other areas, the brunt of the heroin and opioid epidemic, leaving authorities scrambling to determine how to best help civilians and stem the supply.

“We are trying everything we can do. It’s an epidemic,” Pitsick asserted.

Hottinger and Pitsick insist charging overdose victims this way will allow officials to offer much-needed help to those whose habits have overtaken their lives — and stuffing people in cages isn’t the goal, but is one option of last resort.

Pitsick reiterated,

“Service. Follow up. Just them understanding that people do care. We are here to help. We are not here to put them in jail.

“They don’t have hope to begin with, but [by] helping them we hope we are giving them the ability to turn their lives around.”

Although the epidemic is far from unique to Washington Court House, the frustration expressed by overwhelmed officials isn’t; but the widespread, deadly issue has the simplest of solutions — if only beleaguered police departments and emergency medical providers would make their case to the federal government.

Several viable alternatives to jailing nonviolent drug offenders — particularly people addicted to opiates — have shown undeniable promise in curbing the epidemic.

Repealing cannabis prohibition — implemented and sustained for purely political reasons — could virtually solve America’s sordid obsession with heroin and painkillers. Weed not only fails to act as the ‘gateway’ drug U.S. government propaganda has warned us about for decades, but a recent study also found the extraordinary plant can reduce a user’s dependency on, among other things, opiates.

Indeed, decriminalization or legalization as has been attempted in a growing number of nations after Portugal experienced a decade of imperfect success in removing the criminality from all substances — including cannabis, cocaine, heroin, and any drug considered illicit.

Portugal’s prisons veritably emptied of nonviolent drug offenders, the overall violent crime rate slumped, adolescents no longer experiment with substances at the same rate as other Western nations, and — after a brief, expected spike in the revolutionary program’s nascence — the rate of drug use and dependence has lessened dramatically.

Were the U.S. to follow those cues, anyone dependent on opioids would be able to use psilocybin or LSD to break the drug’s chokehold — the government’s own data admits magic mushrooms and acid can reduce opioid dependence.

Of course, any of these options would steal profits from the pockets of pharmaceutical companies which wildly profit from legal drugs like Oxycontin, fentanyl, and more — in short, national decriminalization isn’t likely anytime soon, if ever.

One option working to fight the opioid epidemic that doesn’t require a seismic shift in federal drug policy originally hails from Gloucester, Massachusetts, where heartbroken, now-former Police Chief Leonard Campanello threw the ultimate Hail Mary in 2015.

Sick of the town’s string of deaths from heroin, the frustrated Campanello posted to social media that anyone suffering with drug addiction and dependence should come to the police station — with their remaining supply and needles — and rather than being charged or taken to jail, the department promised to help find an appropriate treatment facility.

To his delight, a number of people took the chief’s offer, even sending the desperate out of state when treatment better fit the individual elsewhere. The drastic switch in policy — and Campanello’s resultant Angel Program — were so efficacious in thwarting the epidemic, it has now been implemented by over 200 police departments around the United States.

Washington Court House officials closely echo Campanello’s helplessness in the face of the monster epidemic — but their plan to charge people as criminals after what must be the lowest point of dependence, overdose, misses the mark.

Our federal government has the power to stifle this problem and rein in opioid dependence — but its fealty to Big Pharma thus far has supplanted any semblance of reason, common sense, and, most of all, compassion.

Govt’s Own Data Finally Admits Magic Mushrooms & LSD Can Stifle Opioid Addiction

Before the War on Drugs cast its shadow across humanity, a collective mind expansion was being achieved in part thanks cannabis and psychedelics. For decades the military-corporatist state has suppressed the human right to ingest “illicit” substances – while profiting from this prohibition – but the pursuit of knowledge has a way of thriving despite fascism.

While research on the medicinal uses of cannabis has increased at a tremendous pace, therapeutic research into psychedelics has also garnered more interest in recent years. In 2014, advanced cancer patients “experienced immediate and dramatic reductions in anxiety and depression, improvements that were sustained for at least six months” with a single dose of psilocybin (the “magic mushroom” active ingredient).

Psilocybin is successfully treating patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In Dec. 2016, clinical trials showed that psilocybin can heal mental illness, such as depression and anxiety, like a “surgical intervention.”

Addiction, too, can be treated with psychedelics. Psilocybin has a far better success rate at helping people quit smoking cigarettes than any nicotine-replacement therapy. As one study participant said, “Smoking seemed irrelevant, so I stopped.” This comes as no surprise; in the 1960s and 70s LSD was being shown to help people overcome alcohol addiction.

Now, as the opioid epidemic rages in America, psychedelics are again telling us they can help.

The Drug Policy Alliance reports on a new study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. According to the government’s own data, people who have experienced psilocybin or LSD have a “decreased risk of opioid abuse and dependence.”

READ MORE:  A Couple of Bad Apples? Nearly 4 Dozen Georgia Officers Arrested in Massive FBI Sting

From the study:

“Among respondents with a history of illicit opioid use, psychedelic drug use is associated with 27% reduced risk of past year opioid dependence and 40% reduced risk of past year opioid abuse. Other than marijuana use, which was associated with 55% reduced risk of past year opioid abuse, no other illicit drug was associated with reduced risk of past year opioid dependence or abuse.”

Researchers analyzed “44,000 illicit opioid users” from a six-year timeframe, finding a “pervasive and significant” association between psychedelic use and decreased opioid misuse. The authors note that their results are consistent with other studies showing psychedelics can treat substance use disorders.

What makes this study so glaring is the fact that it is based on six years of data from the federal government’s own National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), which surveys 70,000 people each year.

How ironic that two drugs deemed illegal by the federal government – cannabis and psychedelics – clearly help people overcome addiction to legal opioid drugs and heroin.

As we reported in August 2015, a major study showed that deaths from prescription painkillers plummeted in states with legal cannabis. Other studies confirmed that the use of prescription pills drops in states with legal cannabis, which explains why big pharma fights against cannabis legalization.

Based on the facts, any measure to combat opioid abuse should include the use of medical cannabis. However, the Comprehensive Addiction & Recovery Act or ‘opioid bill’ passed by Congress in 2016 did not contain a single reference to cannabis, and lawmakers actually rejected an amendment to “potential for marijuana to serve as an alternative to opioids for pain management.”

READ MORE:  VIDEO: Cops Thought they Smelled Weed, So they Broke into a House & Terrorized the Occupants

Clearly, there’s something about psilocybin and LSD and cannabis which, when taken responsibly, can allow a person to break free from strangleholds on life.

“I understand love is the most powerful force on the planet.”

“I had an encounter with my cancer, this black cloud of smoke.”

“I was bathed in God’s love, and that continued for hours. I really had no other way to describe this incredibly powerful experience.”

These are some quotes from people in clinical trials taking psychedelics, and the last one is from an atheist.

Albert Hofmann, who discovered LSD in 1938 and accidentally touched some with his finger, described the first-ever LSD trip as follows:

“At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors.”

The mystical experience of psilocybin described by patients can be thought of as the opposite of PTSD, where a single event has a lasting negative effect on the mental state.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is helping to understand the mechanisms of how psychedelics can treat addiction and depression. Stimulation of serotonin 2A receptors by psychedelics decreases activity in certain areas of the brain, especially the “default mode network” (DMN) which is involved in our ingrained thought patterns and behaviors. Decreasing DMN stimulation can allow people to break free from destructive brain patterns.

READ MORE:  States are Legalizing Pot at Increasing Rate, So Why is the Military Training to Combat Marijuana?

An exhaustive survey carried out by Johns Hopkins Medicine supports the conclusions of clinical research, finding that “A history of psychedelic drug use is associated with less psychological distress and fewer suicidal thoughts, planning and attempts…”

Fascinating research using fMRI shows that, under the influence of psilocybin, the brain enters a pattern of activity similar to the dream state. Primitive areas of the brain linked to emotions, memory and arousal become more synchronized, while higher-level thinking and the “sense of self” become unsynchronized.

As long as the nonsensical War on Drugs continues to be waged by government, the power of psychedelics to free people from opioid addiction and numerous other mental ailments will remain out of reach for millions.

Program to Help Addicts Instead of Jail Them So Effective, 200 Police Depts Across US Have Adopted It

The problem of the war on drugs can be summed up in one phrase – it’s a war on people. While far too many cops gladly take part in this war to profit from civil asset forfeiture or to perpetuate the oppression of minorities, some are taking a decidedly different approach and it’s working.

As the opioid epidemic came into full force in recent years, one police chief in Massachusetts had a novel idea – help drug addicts instead of throwing them in a cage. This led to the creation of the Angel Program.

As the Boston Globe reports:

“As Gloucester police chief, Leonard Campanello pledged in 2015 that drug users could walk into the police station, hand over heroin, and walk out into treatment within hours — without arrest or charges. The concept of help rather than handcuffs became a national sensation.”

Campanello is no longer police chief there, but the program is continuing in Gloucester. The concept of helping addicts instead of criminalizing them is such a success, it’s been adopted by 200 police agencies in 28 states. This encouraging phenomenon shows that it’s possible for law enforcement to listen to reason when it comes to drug abuse and actually helping communities.

“It puts police in the lifesaving business instead of the spin-drying business of arresting and releasing,” said John Rosenthal, a Boston resident fighting the opioid epidemic. “We estimate that approximately 10,000 people have been placed into treatment.”

In Gloucester, records show that 530 people have sought help at the police station since June 2015. Steve Lesnikoski was the first person to get help under the program, and now, after 18 months of being clean, he says without the Angel Program, “I’d probably be in jail or dead.”

READ MORE:  Court Rules Shooting "Upskirt" Pics of Women is Legal in Public -- Still Throws You in a Cage for Pot

Fatal overdoses and drug arrests have decreased in Gloucester. A study by Boston University and Boston Medical Center provided compelling evidence for the Angel Program’s efficacy.

“In 417 cases where a person who visited the Gloucester police station was eligible for treatment, police data showed that 94.5 percent were offered direct placement and 89.7 percent enrolled in detox or other recovery services, according to Dr. Davida Schiff, a BMC pediatrician who was lead researcher in the study.

Those numbers, reported in December by the New England Journal of Medicine, compared with less than 60 percent of direct referrals from hospital-based programs, which recruit patients who visit emergency rooms with substance-abuse disorders, Schiff said.”

So, doing the opposite of the war on drugs is what truly helps people. This is especially important as opioid abuse – which has become an epidemic thanks in part to Big Pharma — has become the number one drug problem in so many parts of the country.

Rosenthal and Campanello are promoting the Angel Program in other states through a non-profit network called the Police Assisted Addiction and Recovery Initiative (PAARI). The organization includes “private citizens, philanthropists, business owners, law enforcement leaders, and prominent members of the academic community” who share the goal of “saving lives from drug overdoses, reducing the number of drug addicts and opioid drug demand, thereby devaluing a seemingly endless drug supply.”

“The police have changed the conversation,” said Rosenthal. “This is a conservative entity that has realistically concluded that you cannot arrest your way out of this public-health epidemic.”

READ MORE:  VICTORY! State Disbands Cops Who Robbed Innocent People"s Life Savings, Victims Reimbursed

While there is a long way to go until authorities finally acknowledge the utter failure of prohibition and the misery it brings, the Angel Program and PAARI are heartening indications that law enforcement can adopt a rational, proactive approach to the problem of drug abuse.

First of Its Kind Study: Pot NOT a Gateway Drug, Can Treat Tobacco & Opioid Addiction

In the latest of dozens of studies proving the healthful benefits of cannabis, researchers in Canada found not only can marijuana be effective in managing pain, but it can reduce a user’s dependency on tobacco, alcohol, and can replace a number of prescription medications — including antidepressants.

Weed, they also found, simply isn’t the “gateway drug” politicians and detractors have claimed it is for decades.

Published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, the study — comprised of 271 participants enrolled in Canada’s Marihuana for Medical Purposes program — is considered one of the first to evince how cannabis can help alleviate substance addiction.

“[T]his study is the first to specify the classes of prescription drugs for which cannabis is used as a substitute, and to match this substitution to specific diagnostic categories,” the study findings state.

Called the first comprehensive study of people enrolled in Canada’s medical marijuana program, researchers pointedly found cannabis does not act as a gateway drug — the primary premise of pot prohibition.

Indeed, weed has been targeted by so-called anti-drug groups for years as the gateway to harder and ostensively dangerous substances, facilely providing the impetus for politicians and officials to keep it pegged as a Schedule 1 drug — alongside heroin, cocaine, and LSD.

For the study to prove not only that isn’t true, but that cannabis can replace opioid painkillers and other pharmaceuticals — as well as alcohol and tobacco — makes it foundational, if not revolutionary.

“Cannabis is perceived to be an effective treatment for diverse conditions,” wrote lead researchers, Philippe Lucas from the University of Victoria and Zach Walsh from the University of British Columbia, “with pain and mental health the most prominent.”

Analyzing the 107 questions study participants answered online, concerning “demographics, patterns of use, and cannabis substitution effect,” researchers found a whopping 63 percent used weed in place of prescription medications — 30 percent of whom replaced pharmaceutical opioids with cannabis.

READ MORE:  After Fighting for Freedom, 76-yo Vet Sentenced to Die In Prison for Treating His Illness With Pot

Fully 16 percent turned to weed as an alternative to benzodiazepines — such as Xanax or Valium — for treating anxiety and insomnia, while 12 percent chose cannabis over antidepressants to relieve symptoms of depression.

One-quarter of participants had substituted cannabis for alcohol, and for 12 percent, weed was preferable to tobacco — three percent of respondents even replaced hard drugs with pot.

Essentially, the findings could be viewed by the pharmaceutical industry and prohibition-loving politicians as a threat to the wallet.

However, for-profit prisons, police, and attorneys likely will salivate at the telling detail that 42 percent of participants obtained their cannabis through unregulated or illegal channels.

Of course, that’s by design of the U.S.’ global war on drugs. Maintain cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug without medical benefit — despite mountains of solid scientific evidence to the contrary — and Big Pharma easily maintains a skyrocketing profit margin on opioid and other medications.

Backlogged court systems, overcrowded prisons, and extortive penalties levied through police complete the circle of pot prohibition profiteers.

“The findings that some authorized patients purchase cannabis from unregulated sources and that a significant percentage of patients were charged for medical cannabis recommendations highlight ongoing policy challenges for this federal program,” the study authors conclude.

High Times points out that “[a]s we’ve seen in the United States, keeping medical marijuana in an illegal status not only creates an unsafe scenario for the patients who obviously can benefit from it, but also results with a major revenue loss. Not to mention the health, law enforcement and social costs resulting from the opioid epidemic facing our country.”

Considering the findings from this breakthrough study and others proving the seemingly endless medical and psychological benefits of cannabis, those societal costs prove insignificant in the eyes of those who keep this miraculous plant highly illegal or difficult to obtain.

City Suing OxyContin Co. for Causing Opioid Epidemic by Allowing Criminal Trafficking

A major pharmaceutical company that was exposed in 2016 for its complicity in wrecking countless lives is now facing a new kind of lawsuit. The city of Everett, Washington has filed suit against Purdue Pharma, claiming it ignored criminal trafficking of huge quantities of the drug OxyContin – in violation of federal law – and primarily caused an opioid epidemic.

According to the LA Times:

“In a complaint in state Superior Court, city lawyers accused Purdue of gross negligence, creating a public nuisance and other misconduct and said the company should pay costs of handling the opioid crisis — a figure that the mayor said could run to tens of millions of dollars — as well as punitive damages.”

OxyContin, a patented form of oxycodone which hit the market in 1995, ushered in the era of opioid addiction and brought billions in profits to Purdue Pharma. Owned by the Sackler family, Purdue came to control nearly a third of the U.S. pain pill market through massive marketing and a campaign of deception against doctors and patients.

Purdue identified doctors around the country who were prescribing the most pain medications – even doctors it knew were acting recklessly – and targeted them with a marketing onslaught. It worked, and “from 1997 to 2002 prescriptions of OxyContin for non-cancer pain increased almost tenfold.”

Purdue has been sued numerous times before concerning its marketing to doctors and OxyContin’s risk of addiction, but the Everett lawsuit is the first to focus on the company’s knowledge of criminal distribution after the Times investigation.

“The Times’ investigation, published in July, disclosed that for more than a decade, an internal security team at Purdue monitored doctors and pharmacies it suspected of colluding with dealers and addicts. In the case of the L.A. ring, criminals set up a phony clinic near MacArthur Park in 2008 and worked with corrupt physicians and pharmacies to obtain pills over 18 months.

A Purdue sales manager dispatched to investigate the high volume of prescriptions at the clinic found a rundown building thronged with rough men and urged supervisors to alert the Drug Enforcement Administration, saying she was “very certain this is an organized drug ring.”

Despite her pleas and additional evidence suggesting that pills were pouring into the hands of criminals, company officials did not go to authorities until years later when the drug ring was out of business and its leaders under indictment. By then, 1.1 million pills had spilled into the illicit pipeline.”

These disturbing revelations come on top of a prior investigation that found Purdue maintained a secret Purdue database of 1,800 suspect doctors, but only about 10 percent of them were reported to law enforcement.

READ MORE:  1 in 13 children taking psychiatric medication in US

As a result of this willful ignorance, OxyContin – a powerful formulation of oxycodone which was labeled a dangerous drug before being patented – flooded the streets across America and gave rise to the opioid epidemic.

By the year 2000, Purdue was producing 160mg tablets which became wildly popular as users could crush, sniff or inject the pill for a powerful, long-lasting high. In 2010, Purdue reformulated OxyContin to make it harder to abuse, but this simply drove addicts to heroin.

Purdue claimed the potential for addiction was very small or “less than 1 percent.” In 2007, “Purdue and its top executives pleaded guilty to charges that it misled doctors and patients about the addictive properties of OxyContin and misbranded the product as “abuse resistant.””

Now, the city of Everett is seeking to hold Purdue accountable for allowing its most profitable drug to flood the streets, by failing to report known criminal trafficking of the drug, which has resulted in countless wrecked lives and millions of dollars in costs to the city.

Heroin is now an enormous problem, thanks to OxyContin. Fatal overdoses are common and government budgets are overwhelmed. Jails are full of addicts in need of detox, city blocks have become open-air drug markets, and homelessness has exploded. At one point, OxyContin was a factor in more than half the crimes in Snohomish County.

“Purdue’s improper actions of placing profits over the welfare of the citizens of Everett have caused and will continue to cause substantial damages to Everett,” lawyers wrote in the complaint. “Purdue is liable for its intentional, reckless, and/or negligent misconduct and should not be allowed to evade responsibility for its callous and unconscionable practices.”

Former DEA Prescription Head Drops a BombShell — Congress Protects Big Pharma & Fuels Opioid Crisis

Congress would rather protect the profits of pharmaceutical companies than the health of those addicted to dangerous opioid drugs, says a former head of the DEA responsible for preventing abuse of medications.

Joseph Rannazzisi, former Deputy Assistant Administrator at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, asserts Big Pharma and its lobbyists have a “stranglehold” on legislators in Congress and have engineered the protection of a $9 billion per year industry over the health of American citizens, according to a report from the Guardian.

“Congress would rather listen to people who had a profit motive rather than a public health and safety motive,” he said, according to the outlet. “As long as the industry has this stranglehold through lobbyists, nothing’s going to change.”

Rannazzisi explained lobbyists have spent millions thwarting legislative and policy efforts to provide guidelines for reducing the prescribing of opioid medications closely related to heroin — and helped limit the DEA’s powers to discipline those who dispense unusually high dosages of the same.

A pharmacist himself, Rannazzisi severely criticized lawmakers he claims hold a double standard — publicly vowing to combat the opioid epidemic, while essentially working on behalf of pharmaceutical companies to ensure the industry’s profits.

“These congressmen and senators who are using this because they are up for re-election, it’s a sham,” he told the Guardian. “The congressmen and senators who are championing this fight, the ones who really believe in what they’re doing, their voices are drowned out because the industry has too much influence.”

With the unique insight of having been an insider, Rannazzisi excoriated the duplicity evidenced between legislators’ public lamentation of addiction and deaths from the opioid crisis during election years, and private efforts to protect drugmakers from liability.

And he would know. According to Rannazzisi’s LinkedIn profile, as Chief of Diversion, he had been tasked with “oversight and control of all regulatory compliance inspections and civil and criminal investigations of approximately 1.6 million DEA registrants” — but if the standards are lowered by Congress to allow greater leeway in prescribing opioids, the threshold of criminality is raised.

As the Guardian points out, legislation to fight the opioid epidemic, Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, did, in fact, pass in July — but partisan controversy erupted when Republicans failed to provide funding to give the law sharp teeth. Democrats then issued a report titled “Dying Waiting for Treatment” in response, which “likened the Republican response to the opioid crisis to ‘using a piece of chewing gum to patch a cracked dam.’”

Indeed the report sharply criticized the bill, equating its policies to ‘empty promises’ for the lack of financial follow-through.

As the Washington Post detailed in a report earlier this month, the DEA launched an aggressive campaign to rein in distribution of opioids by pharmaceutical manufacturers to illegal ‘pill mills’ and corrupt pharmacies, who cared little whether the drugs wound up on the streets.

Headed by Rannazzisi, the Office of Diversion Control sent investigators into the field, and began issuing hefty fines and filing lawsuits against the distributors responsible for the proliferation of opioids on the streets.

But the disproportionately powerful pharmaceutical industry — fearing a potential significant loss in profits — fought back. Hard.

According to the Post, the deputy attorney general summoned Rannazzisi to a meeting in 2012, concerning the cases of two unnamed major drug companies.

“That meeting was to chastise me for going after industry, and that’s all that meeting was about,” the now-retired DEA official told the Post.

Then, in 2014, came what constituted a hand out to the pharmaceutical industry by the Department of Justice and congressional legislators: the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act — legislation initiated by the Healthcare Distribution Management Association — the industry group representing distributors at the heart of the controversy.

An analysis of lobbying records by the Post found “the Healthcare Distribution Alliance, spent $13 million lobbying House and Senate members and their staffs on the legislation and other issues between 2014 and 2016.”

Rannazzisi argued his case to congressional staffers in a phone conference in July 2014, and recalled telling them, “This bill passes the way it’s written we won’t be able to get immediate suspension orders, we won’t be able to stop the hemorrhaging of these drugs out of these bad pharmacies and these bad corporations.”

Stunned at the massive — and ultimately successful — effort to take the bite out of DEA attempts to hold distributors and drugmakers responsible for their role in an epidemic estimated to take 19,000 lives every year, Rannazzisi likened the legislation to a “free pass” for legal drug pushers.

“This doesn’t ensure patient access and it doesn’t help drug enforcement at all,” he told the Guardian. “What this bill does has nothing to do with the medical process. What this bill does is take away DEA’s ability to go after a pharmacist, a wholesaler, manufacturer or distributor.”

“This was a gift. A gift to the industry,” he added.

After heading the diversion office for a decade, Rannazzisi retired in 2015 — likely disgusted over legislators’ dedication to the legal drug industry, rather than the people whose interests they’re ostensibly obligated to protect.

“The bill passed because ‘Big Pharma’ wanted it to pass,” he told the Guardian in no uncertain terms. “The DEA is both an enforcement agency and a regulatory agency. When I was in charge what I tried to do was explain to my investigators and my agents that our job was to regulate the industry and they’re not going to like being regulated.”

Big Pharma relies overwhelmingly on lobbyists filling the coffers of politicians to ensure they ignore the crisis gripping the nation. As the Center for Public Integrity found, the Guardian noted, Purdue Pharma — at the heart of the epidemic for its highly-addictive drug introduced in the late 1990s, OxyContin — spent a breathtaking $740 million in the last ten years on congressional lobbying efforts.

However, Big Pharma’s power to influence policy and legislation extends far beyond simple but effective lobbying — the government-run Interagency Pain Research Coordinating Committee (IPRCC) has been accused by Sen. Ron Wyden of being a tool to “weaken” CDC guidelines for limiting overprescribing of opioids.

Wyden wrote to Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell of his concerns the IPRCC had been staffed with ‘experts’ with conflicts of interest for their close ties to Big Pharma, including a scientist with a $1.5 million endowment from Purdue, reported the Guardian.

“You’ve got a panel that’s certainly got a fair number of people that have a vested interest in this problem of overprescribing. That’s something you’ve got to root out,” Wyden asserted. “The role of the pharmaceutical companies on these advisory panels troubles me greatly. Science is getting short shrift compared to the political clout of these influential interests.”

Families of countless addicts and victims of the opioid industry would undoubtedly find the direct influence of Big Pharma’s pro-opioid cash appalling — yet it continues to this day. Policies and legislation have not yet been given the appropriate funding needed to effectively combat the problem, which swirls out of control while politicians and drugmakers reap blood-tainted profits.

“Corporations have no conscience,” Rannazzisi flatly told the Guardian. “Unfortunately, with my job, I was the guy who had to go out and talk to families that lost kids. If one of those CEOs went out there and talked to anybody, or if one of those CEOs happened to lose a kid to this horrible, horrible domestic tragedy we have, I’d bet you they’d change their mind.

“When you sit with a parent who can’t understand why there’s so many pharmaceuticals out in the illicit marketplace, and why isn’t the government doing anything, well the DEA was doing something. Unfortunately what we’re trying to do is thwarted by people who are writing laws.”