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from the little-call-flood-for-big-pharma dept.
Addiction to heroin and other opiates is a growing problem in the USA, as Presidential hopefuls have learned from Q&A sessions with voters on the campaign trail (previous SN story here).
Tired of encountering dead bodies, the police department of Gloucester, MA (an old city with a large commercial fishing industry) decided to appeal for the public's help in a rather interesting way, via a department Facebook post:
Gotta go make some calls.....
Top 5 Pharmaceutical CEO Salaries:
5. Eli Lilly - John Lechleiter $14.48 million
jlechleiter@lilly.com 317-276-2000
4. Abbott Labs - Miles D. White $17.7 million
miles.d.white@abbott.com 847-937-6100
3. Merck - Kenneth C. Frazier
$25 million + cool private jet.
ken.frazier@merck.com 908-423-1000
2. Johnson & Johnson - Alex Gorsky $20.38 million
ceo@jnj.com 732-524-0400
1. Pfizer - Ian Read $23.3 million
ian.read@pfizer.com 212-573-2323
They're all on Forbes Top 100 CEO salaries as well.
In 2013 The Huffington Post reported that the 11 largest pharmaceutical companies made $711 BILLION in profits in the last decade while their CEO's made a combined $1.57 BILLION in the same period.
Now...don't get mad. Just politely ask them what they are doing to address the opioid epidemic in the United States and if they realize that the latest data shows almost 80% of addicted persons start with a legally prescribed drug that they make. They can definitely be part of the solution here and I believe they will be....might need a little push.
takyon: A newer Facebook post says that Pfizer is in contact with the Gloucester Police Department.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @02:30AM
It should all be legalized anyway.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SubiculumHammer on Sunday September 20 2015, @02:34AM
To be clear, AC poster probably meant 'remove laws that make drugs illegal' since all things not prohibited by law are automatically , by default, 'legal'
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday September 20 2015, @02:45AM
Junkie fagbastard cuck Krauts.
AhhahahHAHHAHAHAAHHAAHHA.
(Score: 2, Funny) by SubiculumHammer on Sunday September 20 2015, @02:59AM
The fuck?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday September 20 2015, @05:05AM
You're kinda new here, so I'll fill you in. Ethanol Fueled has his lucid moments. As often as two or three times a week, he makes a post that people can understand. Well - that's on a good week. The rest of the time, well, he is ethanol fueled. http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/197/3/200 [rcpsych.org]
Be kind to him - he doesn't have much of a life expectancy.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheRaven on Sunday September 20 2015, @10:59AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday September 20 2015, @07:58PM
Perhaps it should be legalized, but it's quite important that it not be allowed to be advertized. For this reason I'm generally in favor of keeping it illegal, but making the penalty for possession $0.25, and possession for sale a penalty of $5.00.
There may be a better way to accomplish the same end, but I don't know what they are. Certainly tobacco and alcohol are too advertized to fit what I deem reasonable.
OTOH, there should be a STRONG penalty, say 10 years without parole, for selling adulterated addictive drugs. (E.g., tobacco mixed with any ingredients that are not clearly revealed to the purchaser, probably on a label.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Tuesday September 22 2015, @02:00PM
I think the way they do cigarettes here in the US is a pretty good option. Can't advertise on TV, can't advertise on radio, can't sponsor events, can't give away samples, can't sell from vending machines, have to put warnings on every ad and every package, can't market or sell to children....About the only place they *can* still advertise is in the window of the shop that sells 'em. And maybe magazines?
Some exec just got 28 years for selling adulterated peanut butter. I don't think we need new laws here, just make sure the existing ones are enforced.
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Sunday September 20 2015, @02:48AM
Gloucester Police will meet with big pharma after Facebook post [boston.com]
On Friday, the department sent out another Facebook post announcing that Pfizer, a pharmaceutical corporation headquartered in New York City with research headquarters in Connecticut, called the department to set up a meeting
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @02:56AM
To do what? Donate to the police retirement fund to shut them up?
(Score: 2) by iwoloschin on Sunday September 20 2015, @12:42PM
Presumably promise that they're working on a great solution that will be ready in about 5 years.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Monday September 21 2015, @03:25AM
How about donate to lobbying for legalization and thus better control of the opioid problem?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Sunday September 20 2015, @02:56AM
If heroin weren't so damn costly, largely because of its illegality, addicts would get their fix and get on with their day. They wouldn't be overdosing because the medicinal grade stuff is consistently pure, not filled with corn starch and fentanyl and other crap. That's why Keith Richards is still alive but Layne Staley isn't.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @03:04AM
Use might climb a little with legalization, but social cost of that use will decline with legalization...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Francis on Sunday September 20 2015, @03:56AM
Why would that happen? Prescription drugs are pure and a known quantity and people still have huge problems with those.
Perhaps, just perhaps, the problem here is that people are willingly ingesting substances that are known to be toxic in quantities above and beyond what anybody in their right mind would be taking. Legalization doesn't fix that.
Legalization may or may not be a part of the solution, but it's insane to suggest that legalization alone is going to have any positive impact.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Adamsjas on Sunday September 20 2015, @04:36AM
Maybe they suggest legalization AND regulation?
Whiskey is legalized. It also is regulated, inspected, tested, etc.
With legalized marijuana, Washington and Colorado also enacted quality standards, testing requirements etc. Legalization doesn't necessarily mean a free-for-all.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Sunday September 20 2015, @06:21AM
And still, alcohol is abused. The posts were implying that legalization would result in all those problems going away.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday September 20 2015, @09:18AM
The posts were implying that legalization would result in all those problems going away.
The posts implied no such thing.
They were simply saying that things might be a whole lot less deadly, even if you ended up having a certain percentage of high functioning heroin addicts [westgroveclinic.com] around.
Personally, I suspect there would be a lot more people that society would have to take care of (financially and emotionally) forever, which would consume far more than those people could ever return to the community by their input. Still they might contribute something.
I doubt legalization would ever work as a continuing solution, either for an individual addict or society as a whole. Probably there would be fewer overdose deaths, but a lot more people would get drawn into it. Still I can see that there might be other solutions that the never ending war on drugs, which seems to put a lot of people in prison that society has to take care of (financially and emotionally) forever.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Sunday September 20 2015, @05:26PM
Portugal says you are wholly and totally wrong.
If you have the time, this debate between Glen Greenwald and GWB's drug czar is amazingly good: https://vimeo.com/32110912 [vimeo.com]
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday September 20 2015, @05:27PM
I should have mentioned in my post that Portugal decriminalized ALL drugs 2001.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday September 20 2015, @06:35PM
It's also dishonest of you to suggest that the same results would occur elsewhere just merely by decriminalizing the drugs. It's not a matter of criminalization that leads to all the misery, criminalization only causes some of the misery. Assuming that a different culture's solution would work without having to examine our own culture is naive at best and dangerous at worse.
I'm open to the idea of legalization, but the arguments being used are junk. I'm not aware of any countries with similar cultural institutions to the US decriminalizing all drugs.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday September 20 2015, @09:14PM
Oh get real. Portugal isn't a suburb of Timbuktu -- it's a former colonial power, constitutional republic, there's separation of church and state, and it's a modernized EU member nation. Your arguments just echo the fear-mongering of prohibitionists, but prohibitionists, whether motivated by money or moralism, are just wrong according to the evidence. Sure, you can trot out a parade of horrors, but just alcohol prohibition in the US, the cure was way worse than the problem.
And that bit about Portugal being so different -- damn, I suppose if you were shown evidence that shooting German in the head was fatal, you'd have to test it out on Swedes, because you know, different culture.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tathra on Monday September 21 2015, @05:20AM
wrong. even cops agree [www.leap.cc] that criminalization causes the most misery surrounding drugs by a long shot.
(Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Sunday September 20 2015, @04:59AM
No one is going blind due to illegal alcohol, at least in America. Where does it happen? Places where it is illegal.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by tathra on Sunday September 20 2015, @05:09AM
not since the 1920s anyway, you know, when authorities were deliberately adulterating ethanol to poison drinkers.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday September 20 2015, @06:32PM
That still happens in the US. It's rare, but there are still folks out there that produce bad moonshine. That's not a function of legality, in places where moonshine is common, you buy based upon the reputation of the seller. Sure, you might be the unlucky sod that winds up going blind, but that's usually avoidable if you've got an understanding of the processes being used and you're dealing with a seller that lives in the commnity.
As far as blindness goes, compared with liver disease, suicide and accident, blindness is a relatively minor problem. And in most cases, it's not even a real problem as long as you're careful about where you get the alcohol from.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @05:07AM
Heroin is a lot cheaper than most diverted pharmaceuticals. Dilaudid and Opana are really the only ones that compare to heroin in cost:potency.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday September 20 2015, @06:09AM
Were it not so inexpensive and readily available Portland's pushers would not be begging for spare change on the street.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday September 20 2015, @06:47AM
Not to mention these self righteous pricks cause good people to really suffer. My grandmother died of cancer in agony because all the docs were afraid to prescribe meds that would work because they were afraid of being flagged by the feds. So I have to wonder how many of these people on illegal drugs are on them because they are in REAL PAIN and cannot get shit from a doctor for fear of getting flagged. I know it took my cousin nearly a decade to get put on morphine, and it took him being taken to a shrink because he was hollowing out a bullet to blow his brains out before a doctor took him seriously. He has arthritis in his spine, a scan showed his pain centers were lit up like a xmas tree, yet docs would only give him a Tylenol II and tell him to "learn to live with it".
So everytime I see articles like this all I can think of is my grandmother suffering and hope they all DIAF, preferably after getting third degree burns and being refused pain meds.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday September 20 2015, @09:24AM
Docs seem fairly quick to prescribe Oxy. Probably renewing a prescription is hard.
I know this guy who had open heart surgery this summer and was prescribed a substantial amount of Oxy, but ended up using exactly 4 of them.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday September 21 2015, @01:54AM
Bet it was on the coasts, in the breadbasket and bible belt? You can get an arm ripped off and will be given Tylenol II. The feds in different districts seem to react VERY differently to the same actions, I know of at least 3 docs that have had to have serious fights with the feds to protect their licenses simply because they were taking care of people that were seriously fucked up.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday September 20 2015, @09:53AM
addicts would get their fix and get on with their day
Well, they'd get their fix, anyway.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @03:00AM
I was recently looking into the link between street opiates like heroin and prescription opiates like oxycontin.
The best evidence I found [jamanetwork.com] is that there is a near constant rate of new users and that restricting access to prescription opiates just causes a 1:1 increase in the use of heroin. [silverchaircdn.com] I think it is total bullshit that big pharma is profiting, it ought to be handled by non-profits without a vested interest in keeping users hooked. But it seems like all that's going on here is an attempt to restrict prescription opiates with little thought being put into things like harm minimization, detox and diversion programs. So back on the merry-go-round it is.
(Score: 2) by BK on Sunday September 20 2015, @03:56AM
It? Do you mean R&D? Manufacture? Distribution? Maybe all of them?
See, here's the thing: Just because an organization is "non-profit" doesn't make it all socially perfect and inoffensive to all. And non-profits are still profit driven... it just looks different on paper. Non-profits can still have big CEO salaries and private jets and fleets of cars and (hookers and blow for the) weekly company parties (err... "training").
I 'think' you are suggesting making a lucrative market into a lucrative monopoly market (with a feel-good mission statement) and expecting that this will make things better. I think you'll find that, if this is the case, you should expect the opposite result.
Honestly, I'm not sure what you're really trying to solve here, so I can't offer more.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @05:08AM
Blah, blah, blah. Non-profits are imperfect. Gold star for you!
> Honestly, I'm not sure what you're really trying to solve here, so I can't offer more.
The problem I am trying to solve is that Big Pharma markets this stuff - they have all the incentives to create and maintain demand rather than reduce it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by BK on Sunday September 20 2015, @06:03AM
There is demand because people are in incredible pain and want it to stop. The product sells itself. Profit incentives aren't the main issue here.
The options are:
1) Allow doctors legal options to deal with incredible pain.
2) Prohibition: Force doctors or patients to seek alternatives which may not be legal.
So it would be better if [feel good, corrupt, monopoly] Pharma did it?
Or Little Pharma?
Or Canadian Pharma?
Or Billy May?
Or Jose's Cartel?
Or Josh on the corner?
If you don't let someone make and market the stuff legally, you'll just make a bigger mess when folks find an alternative.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @06:12AM
There must be a way to engineer drugs that have the same or better pain killing properties but not the addictive? Maybe some of the profits could be used to do just that, instead of paying the CEO tens of millions of dollars per year.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Sunday September 20 2015, @12:42PM
Doesn't work that way. My understanding is that the bigger problem is the psychological addition, not the physical. Which is to say: Someone likes being zoned out, and they will damn will find some drug that zones them out. Opiates happen to be an easy and (comparatively) safe way to achieve this.
If someone wants to get high, and does so in a way that doesn't affect other people, why is this anyone else's problem? If it becomes a problem, because they lose their job or whatever, then counseling and treatment is still better than driving the problem underground by making it illegal.
Really, it comes back down to that old definition by Mencken: "Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @01:57PM
Is prescribing opiates and/or opiate derivatives illegal or something...? Morphine and its ilk are certainly available fairly easily over here, although it's prescription is exceedingly closely monitored - mostly to make sure it's having the desired effect and that the recipient doesn't get hooked. Codeine, in the form of co-codamol, is available over the counter and those really lucky people suffering things like gunshot wounds, surgical recovery or terminal cancer will get diamorphine hydrochloride, aka medical-grade heroin. A friend of mine was absolutely flabbergasted to see his wife given pethidine during childbirth and stupefied to discover they also gave out heroin for extreme pain in childbirth; as with all of this stuff, it's given under close supervision.
Opiates are (relatively) cheap and effective and as long as the dose is sensibly managed there's little to no risk of habit forming or addiction; what's the problem?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @05:58PM
Basically. To prescribe Scheduled drugs (all painkillers), you have to get permission from the Drug Enforcement Agency, and they decide how much you are allowed to give, and if you are even allowed to prescribe it in the first place. If you think your patient is in pain and needs painkillers, or more than the DEA says they should get, you get a one-way trip to prison and lose your medical license.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @06:55PM
That's fucking insane.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @02:38PM
God, for someone so fucking smug, you are so fucking stupid.
I will repeat the key part of my post that you completely ignored so that you could go on your pseudo libertarian red herring rant.
> they have all the incentives to create and maintain demand rather than reduce it.
Address that point and then you can feel all superior. Until then, go do your masturbating in the corner. You doing it out here is just obnoxious.
(Score: 2) by BK on Sunday September 20 2015, @05:01PM
Yep. The incentives are there and they follow them all the time. Just the other day I saw an internet advert that promoted lifting with you back, not your legs, because there's opiates for that. And another on TV recommending unnecessary invasive surgery because opiates. And on the radio last night I heard an offer to "become deaf in style" to escape the honey-do list.
There are drugs that "Big Pharma" has to create markets for. These are not them.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @07:23PM
It isn't about advertisements on tv. Its about seeding doctors with manipulative studies, junkets and free samples. So that not only do they push the opiates, they are disinterested in and often ignorant of treatments that don't depend on opiates or that use them as secondaries rather than primaries.
Guys like you are why I stopped calling myself a libertarian. You think you know everything, but its just teenage logic where you are ignorant of your ignorance.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Sunday September 20 2015, @06:25AM
So what do they want big pharma to do, exactly? Stop producing legal drugs that are used for severe pain?
No so long ago there was a car accident near my house. I was helping the woman lying on the road with the broken hip. No idea how she got there - the car was quite a ways a way. She was in serious pain, and couldn't stand to be moved, until the ambulance came up and shot her full of painkillers. Were they supposed to say "here, take an aspirin"?
Presumably, we have all heard of the problems that pain management patients have getting legal pain killers, because their physicians fear being targeted by the DEA.
The problem isn't the legal medication. Whatever the solution to drug abuse is (legalization, War-on-Drugs, or something else), it certainly does not involve further restricting the production and use of legal, necessary drugs.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2015, @12:01AM
The problem IS the legal medication. Addiction is not medically dangerous, if treated as a medical condition. The legal and illegal medications simply cost too much. They are after all herbal medicines at their base. This is due to the War on Some Drugs. It is also a war on Physicians, who live in fear of the DEA, and a war on people who are in pain. "Those people" are considered by society to be expendable. Just legalize all of those drugs. Keep the corrupt, incompetent, stupid govt. out of it. In the UK, heroin addicts got their daily dose from the Health Service, and led normal lives, holding jobs, raising families, and paying taxes. Most addicts will eventually taper themselves off unless the Prison-Industrial Complex gets them first.
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Sunday September 20 2015, @01:20PM
It's only been thousands of years. People like drugs, including:
Alcohol
Tobacco
Marijuana
They will continue doing them, and when certain forms are made difficult(illegal) they will find NEW forms. Crack down on Marijuana and you get "Spice". Spice is much, much worse for you..so who is being protected, exactly?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Sunday September 20 2015, @05:46PM
Spice isn't so bad, you get to see the future, though you're eyeballs turn blue.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 20 2015, @03:26PM
The drug companies bribe the gatekeepers (doctors, pharmacists, bureaucrats), and the patients do what they're told by their care providers.
Some (*cough* Eli Lilly) even send out unsolicited "free samples" - the first one's always on the house.
Nice. [huffingtonpost.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 21 2015, @12:24AM
Nice police have found the criminal mastermind behind the mayhem in their fair city!
They were hiding in plain sight!
Scapegoating is eeeeaassssyyyyyy once you decide to do it...
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Monday September 21 2015, @06:31PM
I'ts just so much fun to watch someone you love in agony because doctors will not treat them due to the campaigns of well meaning idiots that think they can protect people who CHOSE to do drugs like Heroine.