Given the recent post and discussion on this post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28547864) yesterday regarding the FDA oversight of the opiate epidemic, found this article relevant and a small encouraging sign.
Do you think the evidence supports piercing the corporate veil? I am not sure that it does, and think that if this deal is blocked, the Sacklers may not end up putting any private money in.
The problem here is not about laws “failing to keep up” with morals. It’s legal structures being abused to get away with immoral activities. This isn’t the first or last such case where that’s happened.
Based on, but not the same as. "these guys did a bad thing but technically didn't break any laws, let's punish them anyways" might be moral, but is against the rule of law.
It gets a little tricky here because in the US (and Canada) ex post facto laws are only forbidden in criminal matters. Laws may be applied retroactively in civil matters (Calder v. Bull).
Further, at least in Canada, parliament can institute ex post facto laws by invoking the nothwithstanding clause. Always a little hairy politically, but legal and compatible with the rule of law.
[edit] I would further argue that ex post facto laws in general are immoral.
Disagree. The JD is limited by the legal realm, but should strive for moral outcomes.
In this case, is there a more moral solution that remains within the realm of legal? Perhaps not, but I'd like the JD to try, since the proposed solution strikes me as allowing the Sackler family to profit massively off immoral activities.
IMO (as a layman, not a lawyer), I'm unclear on why a corporate bankruptcy settlement involves immunity for the Sacklers. If we are not allowed to pierce the corporate veil, it should go both ways. If they want to keep their fortunes, they should remain open to civil suits. Alternatively, they can forfeit the vast majority of their fortunes in return for immunity from future suits.
That's a really good question! I'm just a medical researcher who read Empire of Pain and I don't understand enough about bankruptcy law to give an informed opinion either way. However, I did hear a pretty amusing joke recently saying that Bankruptcy attorneys are the nephrologists of law, which means they're huge wonks & specialists in a very narrow section of their field.
I would assume that if they are found guilty of criminal negligence, fraud, or something else that would land them in jail, they would also likely lose a civil suit with a related cause of action.
Hopefully prison, not jail, and they can spend it all they want on commissary. That little TV won't make you forget you're there, believe me.
Just my opinion, but the only justice here is to take their wealth away. A prison sentence is pretty meaningless unless they're in for life, which of course we all know a few years is the more likely reality (and I'm not advocating for life either).
I agree with you. However unlikely, I simply see a prison sentence as the most likely "real" punishment.
The reason I say "real" is because even if we meant to take "all" of their wealth, what are the chances we actually get all of it? And without getting all of it, a seemingly negligible amount of cash, like 10MM which is <0.1% relative to >10,000MM, can still make the crime "worth it."
With money, their external representatives can purchase the jail/prison and thus turn the jail into a kind of holiday resort for the rich. It'd be like house arrest.
What kind of evidence are you expecting to be discovered? Teleconferences where they discuss intentionally killing people by causing overdoses?
I am almost certain that the Sacklers thought they were producing drugs which would relieve pain and help end-users live happier and more productive lives. This may have been self-deception, but I don't have the knowledge to do a cost-benefit analysis of this situation (though I'd be interested to see one on opiods).
Purdue, the company, has pleaded guilty to two crimes. Presumably there is plenty of evidence of criminal activity. The question is whether and to what extent the family members, as individuals, might be criminally (or civilly) responsible.
Which is the root of the problem. The Sacklers get throw the company under the bus and walk away with billions in ill-gotten gains. A company shouldn’t be capable of committing crimes - there has to be at least one person who caused the company to do illegal things.
>there has to be at least one person who caused the company to do illegal things.
People do get convicted of misconduct at a corporation. It's just that in some (most?) instances, the criminality is so diffuse that you can't convict anyone of anything, so you end up convicting the corporation instead.
So then everyone should be convicted/sentenced to prison for the crimes of the corporation they are a part of in proportion to their ownership and/or control over the corporation.
>What kind of evidence are you expecting to be discovered? Teleconferences where they discuss intentionally killing people by causing overdoses?
I am not a lawyer, but I don't think the state needs to prove intent to kill. It could have been negligence, eg they knew people were getting addicted but declined to change their aggressive marketing tactics.
AH, Just the person I have in mind for my Florida waterfront property. Only 6 feet deep at the shore at low tide.....
I say that because of your belief in the humanitarian nature of the sacklers.
The sacklers wove a web of fraud and arm's length de-facto murder that they need to be tried, one at a time for them, with no trial bail allowed.
I fully expect the sacklers to run for it one day to a place they can not be extradited from, or even vanish off shore if it looks like they will ever get called on to pay for their crimes. Without their actions perhaps 400,000 to 450,000 of their victims might be alive.
They were, for the most parts, people led down a garden path of inexorable addiction and death. There are a few million, who were damaged, but lived. (why do you think the sacklers want immunity forever?)The toll of human suffering and death that leads directly to their front door - that is what the Justice Department knows and pursues. They were not criminals - at the start, they followed the $$, to our cost.
Some people can resist addiction - cold turkey people, like me. I had flesh eating disease after my legs being crushed in a car accident. (pix available, PM me, I still have persistent muscle loss areas) They used, on me, a cocktail of antibiotics fed by an auto-pump, that also created intense pain. The infection was defeated, and the pain was suppressed by oxy-contin.
After the infection subsided and the pain left, the oxy-contin was cut off by the doctors. It was then that I felt what addiction was like - intense fidgets(but no more pain), twitch, sleeplessness, etc. I was one of those who are capable of cutting it off, cold turkey, which is what I did. After 2 weeks it was gone. I still have some of the pills left - in case the pain returned.
Apparently a high % of people can not self cold turkey like I can. I also do not drink at all, never liked booze in any form. I could never understand alcoholics either? If I have 8 drinks, I get woozy, lose co-ordination etc - it is pleasant, being drunk, but I can take it it leave it.
I suspect that alcohol and oxy-contin addicts must get a supreme pleasure - I pleasure I do not get. It is possible that if I got the intense addict's pleasure that I would also be unable to resist it as well, I am lucky to be in that segment of mankind that does not get this intense pleasure - if only we could bottle it and end addictions??.
Sorry for the rant, but I hate to see the sacklers skate free with their billions, which others suffered and suffer on.
sackler = lower case, they are low grade people in all respects.
what are you expecting to turn up? Documents/recordings that say "yep we totally knew that oxycotin was addictive and we're moving profits out with the goal of hiding them from creditors"?
"[W]hat do you think is going on in all of these courtrooms right now? We’re rich? For how long? Until which suits get through to the family? I think [the investment banker’s] advice was just violated in a Virginia courtroom. My thought is to lever up where we can, and try to generate some additional income. We may well need it. . . . Even if we have to keep it in cash, it’s better to have the leverage now while we can get it than thinking it will be there for us when we get sued."[1]
If that's really the best quote the prosecution can come up with, I can see why the state settled. I suppose you can see this as the smoking gun, if you were already convinced of it, but from a skeptical reading it's really not that obvious. Are they talking about hiding money from creditors? Or just finding other ways of making money now that their previous money-maker (perdue pharma) is going under? Is the state going to convince the jury of that better than the defense?
> Are they talking about hiding money from creditors? Or just finding other ways of making money now that their previous money-maker (perdue pharma) is going under?
The investment banker's advice was "the one thing you don’t want to do is to become poor". Purdue Pharma going under wouldn't make them poor. So it couldn't mean the latter.
Sackler referred to the Virginia courtroom where Purdue Pharma's parent company admitted to fraud and agreed to pay $600 million. And "all of these courtrooms". Not to operating losses or any such thing.
> Is the state going to convince the jury of that better than the defense?
>> what are you expecting to turn up? Documents/recordings that say "yep we totally knew that oxycotin was addictive and we're moving profits out with the goal of hiding them from creditors"?
Just like with tons of other cases, the actual thing people trip on are entirely ancillary -- tax evasion, wire fraud, embarrassing emails, obstruction of justice. I'll bet there are a dozen obstruction of justice charges that can be levied if you search thru emails.
Again, they are getting white-glove treatment, so we havent bothered to look for the stuff that will force a more reasonable settlement for the millions of innocent victims.
And the response to that is that they're well funded to resist those attacks by the government, so it will end up being a drain on resources on both sides. legal MAD, if you will.
Prosecutors do have those tools, though? I mean, in the specific case of wire taps, we probably wouldn't even have that word it the corresponding investigative tool did not exist.
But we also have laws around when they can and can't be applied. There are standards of evidence and suspicion that must be reached. Due process exists even for billionaires. Also, prosecutors or investigators might not use those tools if they doubt useful evidence would be uncovered.
Civil suits and criminal cases have different standards of evidence. It maybe that the Sacklers could not be convicted of a felony crime but *may be convicted in a series of massive civil suits.
>> As usual, you can't make a criminal case if you don't use the tools we give prosecutors to make cases. Where are the home searches? The wiretaps?
Those tools (and criminal proceedings) are usually reserved for persons of color. For everyone else, we have white glove treatment. The best hope we have to prosecute the Sacklers properly is if one of them converts to Islam, then you'll see the gears of justice turn.
Nothing will happen. Nothing ever does with the Chickenshit Club [0]. In my opinion the entire family should be publicly hanged for their egregious crimes. Something like that would at least be burned into other's minds and hopefully influence them for the better. At the very least, it'd be a brief moment of catharsis and reckoning for those who had problems struggling with opiate addictions.
The Purdue (et al) dosing schedule was engineered for maximal addiction similar to how cigarettes chemistry was. We used to dose these things on 4 hour intervals and the move to 12 hour was done for business reasons: neurology gets more addicted that way.
US legal system is really fascinating. How can bankruptcy of one legal entity (Purdue Pharma) immunize other legal entities, that are not direct part of that bankruptcy deal (Sackler family members), from being sued (no matter if they are guilty or not).
Very fascinating...
It's not clear that it can immunize other legal entities. That's precisely what the dispute referenced in the source article is about - the Justice Department believes that it can't.
I think the question the parent is asking is how should the bankruptcy of one entity (Purdue Pharma) be allowed to protect individual members of the Sackler family?
The answer is, of course, that prosecutors have quite a bit of leeway in coming up with deals that will get the best outcome that they think they can get. But I agree that it doesn't feel right, that the Sacklers can further use their corporate structure to protect them from their actions.
> I think the question the parent is asking is how should the bankruptcy of one entity (Purdue Pharma) be allowed to protect individual members of the Sackler family?
I thought the settlement was between the government and the Sacklers directly?
>Under a separate civil settlement, individual members of the Sackler family will pay the United States $225 million arising from the alleged conduct of Dr. Richard Sackler, David Sackler, Mortimer D.A. Sackler, Dr. Kathe Sackler, and Jonathan Sackler (the Named Sacklers).
> That's what a bankruptcy is? It "immunize" you against past liabilities.
Usually financial liabilities. Also, "you" is different here -- Purdue Pharma is the bankrupt entity, but the Sackler family is shielded. Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers are distinct legal entities.
> Also, "you" is different here -- Purdue Pharma is the bankrupt entity, but the Sackler family is shielded. Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers are distinct legal entities.
Prosecutors in the US are given leeway to make deals under the law that benefit the people. I am not sure of the details, but it often happens that companies indemnify executives (i.e. promise to pay legal expenses incurred defending behavior associated with working at the company). That means that suing the Sackler heirs (especially if unsuccessful) might diminish the funds available to recover from Purdue, since Purdue would be paying the Sackler legal fees. If the prosecutors believe that probability of a successful suit against the Sacklers is low enough, they may do an expected value calculation where they value the private contributions of funds from the Sacklers under the settlement more highly than what they expect to recover in the event of a lawsuit against the Sacklers.
I think you make a good point that is worth talking about but also it seems unfair to compare the two, in that manner at least. Both are awful but the way that opiates kill and really destroy lives, relationships, families, etc. is really on a different time span and level.
It is a really fair question. I think there are two lenses. Tobacco does kill people in large numbers although it seems to largely cause issues at the end of their lives. Tobacco also reduces life expectancy, but not as much as opiod users. What I saw said a heavy smoker loses ~13 years and a heroin user ~18 years. Not sure about lighter smokers.
The issue with oxycontin is it helped create a massive generation of addicts who have all sorts of other things associated with them like: rehab, homelessness, and crime. So I'm not sure of the total impact, but likely much higher per person.
From everything I've heard, Purdue Pharma knew about the street abuse and at best did nothing, from their end, it probably drove up their sales too. People going through their legit Rx slightly faster because some of their pills were resold (yes, illegally) refilled sooner. Plus, let's not forget Purdue Pharma marketed these as not as addictive - which likely created and sustained the street markets.
Also, just because something else (tobacco) is more deadly doesn't mean we should turn a blind eye to everything to that is less deadly.
My point is that the tobacco companies did all of this stuff, too, including the marketing-via-doctors route.
They're still around, operating, and legitimate, and causing 7x the destruction of human life of this so-called "epidemic".
Either both are wrong, or neither are.
Personally I have an extremely unpopular opinion regarding culpability for the damage here, but I'll be satisfied if we as a society can simply agree that both are wrong, or neither are, but if one is wrong, then so must the other be.
If they're both wrong, we should be at least 7x as angry and actionable against big tobacco (but rationally, quite a bit more, as they have been killing people, including those nearby who don't choose to consume the drug, at a higher rate for a much longer period of time).
If neither of them are wrong (and cigarettes should still be available for sale) then we should put down the Purdue pitchforks.
I think you have a valid point - I guess you could argue that Big Tobacco, while still in existence and still a huge enterprise did have somewhat of a reckoning in the 1990s. With that in mind, Purdue Pharma did this after the legal boundaries had been tested and defined by prior caselaw.
I also don't believe cigarettes can kill you or make your life and the lives of those around horrible as fast as opiates can. There are many offramps for cigarettes. But, to your point, I don't know that that should make a difference.
Tobacco addiction cannot be compared to something like opiates. The cost is often on the individual as smokers normally work. Opiates make people spiral out of control quickly and the dependency is so high they will literally do anything for the next pill. They often become homeless and without any health insurance. They overdose multiple times ending up in critical care/ICU.
A better legal drug to compare could be alcohol, however, your doctor wasn't marketed to give you vodka for your back pain. There was a time were doctors were giving out opiates like candy, this opiate epidemic has been created by big pharma and doctors. I was prescribed opiates for muscle strains and the first few times you take them it feels so good. However, tolerance builds really quickly and people who have a tendency to abuse substances will instantly get hooked.
It’s worth pointing out that tobacco use is currently declining. It kills a lot of people yes, but most of the deaths are distributed towards older populations. Combine these two factors, and you’d expect tobacco deaths to slide in the next few decades as we start running out of older smokers and newer generations smoke less on average than their parents did.
On the other hand opiate addiction came out of nowhere, and surpassed vehicle related deaths before anyone noticed. It kills much more randomly, and the problem seems to be getting worse. Expecting opioid death numbers to get worse in the near future isn’t unreasonable. It wouldn’t surprise me if opioids end up killing more per capita than nicotine does in the near future.
Also, there’s a pretty stark difference between the impact on life of these two substances aside from the mortality risk. While smoking does reduce quality of life, not many people end up in jail or homeless because of their nicotine addiction.
Yes. I do think the cost is really incredible. even if we were to get their entire 11 billion immediately it wouldn't begin to cover the costs (pisses me off the most they get many years on this proposal to pay it, they'll likely make more profit from investments than they will pay back....)
Opiates do kill too many people but there are more social externalities than tobacco. I think (hopefully) the 2nd hand smoking effects have diminished, though I'm sure kids in homes are still exposed.
But opiates touch everyone that knows an addict or is related to one.
And the cost of theft, homelessness, HIV/hep infections, blood infections, huge amount of overdose calls.
But I agree the costs of tobacco are huge. And the costs of the oil & gas industry's behavior are even bigger than all of these combined.
That deal "avoids costly litigation", so say various "states' attorney generals". It's funny how those same AGs strong-arm the little people every single day, put them in jail before trial, and then offer them a choice: plead guilty, get time served, and go on your way. Or, plead not guilty, make bail, if you can, and get your ass handed to you because you can't afford a competent attorney and our judges and cops collude to make it impossible to get justice. If you can't make bail, then you will rot in jail until your first hearing, weeks from now, and you'll get an overworked public defender and get the same result. What do you choose?
The Sacklers need that kind of choice.
EDIT: The DoJ needs to confiscate their assets under current DEA assert forfeiture law, the same one the local cops use to steal from ordinary people without cause. Then arrest them. Let's see how long the litigation draws out under those circumstances.
Which specific crimes were committed by which specific Sacklers? I'm sympathetic to the idea that they might have done something wrong, but the impulse to throw people we don't like in jail now and figure out what they did wrong later is very dangerous, and even if other people are treated that way it isn't an excuse to further indulge it.
The wealthy should suffer no more, or less, than ordinary folk. Our justice system is broken, and yet that breakage does not touch the Saklers. Maybe if it did, there'd be a cry for change from the people who can afford to spend the dollars needed to change the system.
I think this comment clearly illustrates the danger I mentioned; "they must have committed some crime" inevitably and often immediately turns into "it doesn't matter whether they committed any specific crime". If we turn the justice system into a purely political exercise, not even aspiring to the ideal of punishing people for specific crimes they've committed, what would the basis of a cry for change be?
They knew Oxycontin was addictive and claimed that it wasn't. They knew the deadly impact their drug was having on large groups of people, and yet did nothing to mitigate the impact.
These are very serious crimes. Indeed, even if they were not, harming society in this way should be criminalized.
I say this despite being pro-legalization. The issue isn't the drug itself, it's the lying, the undermining use of institutions like your family doctor, the FDA, to push this drug as if it were harmless, and to sit back and watch it take its toll, rolling in dough. It hurts.
From everything I've read - which is a lot - I think the criminal case under the law is less clear than say John Kapoor & Insys (who are in jail). But it seems the civil cases are much stronger, which is why this settlement is so shocking.
the Sacklers have tight control and micro managed decisions it's their intention & action. But Purdue was smart enough not to make spreadsheets tracking doctor bribe ROIs ...
I'm interested in why there isn't more info/investigation on the revelation in Gibney's doc that a Purdue exec sat in a motel room with the regulator in charge to write the original oxycontin label, which was then approved with very very questionable language. That potentially less addictive language was the entire lynchpin of their (minimally moral) crimes. Especially with any future revolving doors or benefits.
I guess it would be worse if this were criminal litigation and not civil litigation, but it's still kind of incredible to see such a naked admission that if you can outspend the attorney general's office, you'll get special treatment.
State/local prosecutors would rather go against an overworked overworked public defender than a well funded legal team from a firm that can eventually offer them a job.
Fortunately, federal prosecutors love going after high profile individuals and aren't scared of their lawyers.
Any idea why a state prosecutor hasn't tried to get a felony criminal charge on some of the Sacklers? At least tried to get them in jail? Seems like it would be low risk. If you succeeded you're a hero and if you failed nobody would be surprised.
And either way, you end up a lifelong target of these specific billionaires. Plus any other billionaires who don't like the idea of accountability. Plus their minions, fellow travelers, and all the people who believe billionairehood is their true destiny.
"get an audience for our patent infringement suits so that we are feared as a tiger with claws, teeth and balls, and build some excitement with prescribers that OxyContin Tablets is the way to go." - Richard Sackler, 1996 email
Patents create an awful incentive structure. In medicine, a deadly one.
Can they do anything about the judge who approved something so unfair? My understanding is that that judge has a history of allowing this type of thing.
As an aside, I've always had a problem with the phrase "Big Pharma". There seems to be this incorrect understanding that Pharma companies are anywhere close to the size of other mammoth companies from different industries.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 159 ms ] threadThe bankruptcy proceedings have been absurd in this case particularly due to the litigation shield for the Sacklers so a renegotiation would be huge. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-09-01/sackler-f...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piercing_the_corporate_veil#Un...
Morally, absolutely. The Sacklers cannot be allowed to walk away with billions AND immunity from future suits.
Further, at least in Canada, parliament can institute ex post facto laws by invoking the nothwithstanding clause. Always a little hairy politically, but legal and compatible with the rule of law.
[edit] I would further argue that ex post facto laws in general are immoral.
In this case, is there a more moral solution that remains within the realm of legal? Perhaps not, but I'd like the JD to try, since the proposed solution strikes me as allowing the Sackler family to profit massively off immoral activities.
IMO (as a layman, not a lawyer), I'm unclear on why a corporate bankruptcy settlement involves immunity for the Sacklers. If we are not allowed to pierce the corporate veil, it should go both ways. If they want to keep their fortunes, they should remain open to civil suits. Alternatively, they can forfeit the vast majority of their fortunes in return for immunity from future suits.
Interested to see other replies re: your comment!
The precedence that we will not tolerate crimes as a path to unimaginable wealth is worth more than they could bankroll.
Just my opinion, but the only justice here is to take their wealth away. A prison sentence is pretty meaningless unless they're in for life, which of course we all know a few years is the more likely reality (and I'm not advocating for life either).
The reason I say "real" is because even if we meant to take "all" of their wealth, what are the chances we actually get all of it? And without getting all of it, a seemingly negligible amount of cash, like 10MM which is <0.1% relative to >10,000MM, can still make the crime "worth it."
You can't just go "maybe discovery in this civil case will reveal the criminal conspiracy" and then go "eh, guess not".
I am almost certain that the Sacklers thought they were producing drugs which would relieve pain and help end-users live happier and more productive lives. This may have been self-deception, but I don't have the knowledge to do a cost-benefit analysis of this situation (though I'd be interested to see one on opiods).
It's much easier to convict the corporation than its members.
People do get convicted of misconduct at a corporation. It's just that in some (most?) instances, the criminality is so diffuse that you can't convict anyone of anything, so you end up convicting the corporation instead.
I am not a lawyer, but I don't think the state needs to prove intent to kill. It could have been negligence, eg they knew people were getting addicted but declined to change their aggressive marketing tactics.
what are you expecting to turn up? Documents/recordings that say "yep we totally knew that oxycotin was addictive and we're moving profits out with the goal of hiding them from creditors"?
[1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1329736/downl...
The investment banker's advice was "the one thing you don’t want to do is to become poor". Purdue Pharma going under wouldn't make them poor. So it couldn't mean the latter.
Sackler referred to the Virginia courtroom where Purdue Pharma's parent company admitted to fraud and agreed to pay $600 million. And "all of these courtrooms". Not to operating losses or any such thing.
> Is the state going to convince the jury of that better than the defense?
There's 1 way to find out.
Just like with tons of other cases, the actual thing people trip on are entirely ancillary -- tax evasion, wire fraud, embarrassing emails, obstruction of justice. I'll bet there are a dozen obstruction of justice charges that can be levied if you search thru emails.
Again, they are getting white-glove treatment, so we havent bothered to look for the stuff that will force a more reasonable settlement for the millions of innocent victims.
And the response to that is that they're well funded to resist those attacks by the government, so it will end up being a drain on resources on both sides. legal MAD, if you will.
But we also have laws around when they can and can't be applied. There are standards of evidence and suspicion that must be reached. Due process exists even for billionaires. Also, prosecutors or investigators might not use those tools if they doubt useful evidence would be uncovered.
Certainly this sounds weird, but there's very clear president. OJ Simpson was both acquitted in criminal court and convicted in a civil suit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._J._Simpson_murder_case#Civi...
Those tools (and criminal proceedings) are usually reserved for persons of color. For everyone else, we have white glove treatment. The best hope we have to prosecute the Sacklers properly is if one of them converts to Islam, then you'll see the gears of justice turn.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Chickenshit-Club-Department-Prosecute...
must read: https://www.latimes.com/projects/oxycontin-part1
Tobacco is a large, legitimate, and continuing industry in the US. If you wish this to end, that may not be the comparison you wish to invoke.
The answer is, of course, that prosecutors have quite a bit of leeway in coming up with deals that will get the best outcome that they think they can get. But I agree that it doesn't feel right, that the Sacklers can further use their corporate structure to protect them from their actions.
I thought the settlement was between the government and the Sacklers directly?
>Under a separate civil settlement, individual members of the Sackler family will pay the United States $225 million arising from the alleged conduct of Dr. Richard Sackler, David Sackler, Mortimer D.A. Sackler, Dr. Kathe Sackler, and Jonathan Sackler (the Named Sacklers).
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-...
Purdue and the Sacklers faced federal suits from DOJ and its offices, which were tentatively resolved by the settlements you linked.
Separately, Purdue is now in bankruptcy proceedings, to which the federal, state, and local governments are party because of their suits.
The Sackler immunity request is part of the bankruptcy proceeding, not the DOJ settlement.
My guess is still the same. It's referred to "the perdue pharma bankrupcy" by the media, but technically the defendants involve the sacklers as well.
Usually financial liabilities. Also, "you" is different here -- Purdue Pharma is the bankrupt entity, but the Sackler family is shielded. Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers are distinct legal entities.
Can you link the docket?
It is also important that the government reflect on its on role in letting this get as bad as it did.
Tobacco kills 7x as many people as opiates in the USA every day/week/month.
Is the loss of human life from the sale (without a prescription!) of tobacco in the usa a credible figure?
The issue with oxycontin is it helped create a massive generation of addicts who have all sorts of other things associated with them like: rehab, homelessness, and crime. So I'm not sure of the total impact, but likely much higher per person.
They're still around, operating, and legitimate, and causing 7x the destruction of human life of this so-called "epidemic".
Either both are wrong, or neither are.
Personally I have an extremely unpopular opinion regarding culpability for the damage here, but I'll be satisfied if we as a society can simply agree that both are wrong, or neither are, but if one is wrong, then so must the other be.
If they're both wrong, we should be at least 7x as angry and actionable against big tobacco (but rationally, quite a bit more, as they have been killing people, including those nearby who don't choose to consume the drug, at a higher rate for a much longer period of time).
If neither of them are wrong (and cigarettes should still be available for sale) then we should put down the Purdue pitchforks.
A better legal drug to compare could be alcohol, however, your doctor wasn't marketed to give you vodka for your back pain. There was a time were doctors were giving out opiates like candy, this opiate epidemic has been created by big pharma and doctors. I was prescribed opiates for muscle strains and the first few times you take them it feels so good. However, tolerance builds really quickly and people who have a tendency to abuse substances will instantly get hooked.
On the other hand opiate addiction came out of nowhere, and surpassed vehicle related deaths before anyone noticed. It kills much more randomly, and the problem seems to be getting worse. Expecting opioid death numbers to get worse in the near future isn’t unreasonable. It wouldn’t surprise me if opioids end up killing more per capita than nicotine does in the near future.
Also, there’s a pretty stark difference between the impact on life of these two substances aside from the mortality risk. While smoking does reduce quality of life, not many people end up in jail or homeless because of their nicotine addiction.
Opiates do kill too many people but there are more social externalities than tobacco. I think (hopefully) the 2nd hand smoking effects have diminished, though I'm sure kids in homes are still exposed.
But opiates touch everyone that knows an addict or is related to one.
And the cost of theft, homelessness, HIV/hep infections, blood infections, huge amount of overdose calls.
But I agree the costs of tobacco are huge. And the costs of the oil & gas industry's behavior are even bigger than all of these combined.
The Sacklers need that kind of choice.
EDIT: The DoJ needs to confiscate their assets under current DEA assert forfeiture law, the same one the local cops use to steal from ordinary people without cause. Then arrest them. Let's see how long the litigation draws out under those circumstances.
These are very serious crimes. Indeed, even if they were not, harming society in this way should be criminalized.
I say this despite being pro-legalization. The issue isn't the drug itself, it's the lying, the undermining use of institutions like your family doctor, the FDA, to push this drug as if it were harmless, and to sit back and watch it take its toll, rolling in dough. It hurts.
>8 hour video deposition
pass
>"transcripts of calls to the bankruptcy court from those impacted by the opiod crisis"
People calling in and saying that oxycotin ruined their lives doesn't really count as a "specific crime".
the Sacklers have tight control and micro managed decisions it's their intention & action. But Purdue was smart enough not to make spreadsheets tracking doctor bribe ROIs ...
I'm interested in why there isn't more info/investigation on the revelation in Gibney's doc that a Purdue exec sat in a motel room with the regulator in charge to write the original oxycontin label, which was then approved with very very questionable language. That potentially less addictive language was the entire lynchpin of their (minimally moral) crimes. Especially with any future revolving doors or benefits.
I guess it would be worse if this were criminal litigation and not civil litigation, but it's still kind of incredible to see such a naked admission that if you can outspend the attorney general's office, you'll get special treatment.
Fortunately, federal prosecutors love going after high profile individuals and aren't scared of their lawyers.
2. discovery doesn't exist for criminal cases. you can't ask the accused to turn up relevant evidence.
3. they probably have all the relevant evidence, from the case against perdue pharma (the company)
4. the juicy evidence that proves their guilt is probably destroyed by now, or at least stored with a privileged party (eg. their laywers).
Patents create an awful incentive structure. In medicine, a deadly one.