"The founder of an Arizona-based pharmaceutical company has been charged with spearheading a 'nationwide conspiracy' to illegally distribute fentanyl, a powerful prescription painkiller."

WaPo reports on the charges against the billionaire, John Kapoor, founder of Insys Therapeutics:

Kapoor’s company manufactured Subsys, a type of fentanyl that is sprayed under the tongue. It is meant exclusively for cancer patients who are carefully monitored. Prosecutors allege Insys was not pleased with its sales numbers, and aggressively marketed the drug for use in other patients. That allegedly included the use of bribes and kickbacks, typically in the form of expensive dinners for doctors.

“As alleged, Insys executives improperly influenced health care providers to prescribe a powerful opioid for patients who did not need it, and without complying with FDA requirements, thus putting patients at risk and contributing to the current opioid crisis,” said Mark A. McCormack, Special Agent in Charge of the FDA Office of Criminal Investigations’ Metro Washington Field Office....

Meanwhile, in The New Yorker, there's "The Family That Built an Empire of Pain/The Sackler dynasty’s ruthless marketing of painkillers has generated billions of dollars—and millions of addicts," by Patrick Radden Keefe:

A 1995 memo sent to the launch team emphasized that the company did “not want to niche” OxyContin just for cancer pain. A primary objective in Purdue’s 2002 budget plan was to “broaden” the use of OxyContin for pain management.... In its internal literature, Purdue similarly spoke of reaching patients who were “opioid naïve.”...

Purdue had a speakers’ bureau, and it paid several thousand clinicians to attend medical conferences and deliver presentations about the merits of the drug. Doctors were offered all-expenses-paid trips to pain-management seminars in places like Boca Raton. Such spending was worth the investment: internal Purdue records indicate that doctors who attended these seminars in 1996 wrote OxyContin prescriptions more than twice as often as those who didn’t. The company advertised in medical journals, sponsored Web sites about chronic pain, and distributed a dizzying variety of OxyContin swag: fishing hats, plush toys, luggage tags. Purdue also produced promotional videos featuring satisfied patients—like a construction worker who talked about how OxyContin had eased his chronic back pain, allowing him to return to work. The videos, which also included testimonials from pain specialists, were sent to tens of thousands of doctors. The marketing of OxyContin relied on an empirical circularity: the company convinced doctors of the drug’s safety with literature that had been produced by doctors who were paid, or funded, by the company....

The sales force was heavily incentivized to push the drug. In a memo, a sales manager in Tennessee wrote, “$$$$$$$$$$$$$ It’s Bonus Time in the Neighborhood!” May, who was assigned to the Virginia area, was astonished to learn that especially skillful colleagues were earning hundreds of thousands of dollars in commissions. One year, May’s own sales were so brisk that Purdue rewarded him with a trip to Hawaii. As prescriptions multiplied, Purdue executives—and the Sackler family members on the company’s board—appeared happy to fund such blandishments. Internal budget plans described the company’s sales force as its “most valuable resource.” In 2001, Purdue Pharma paid forty million dollars in bonuses.....

Yesterday, President Trump declared a national emergency (NYT), but spoke in terms of reaching the addicts (as opposed to arresting the billionaires):

To combat the epidemic, the president said the government would produce “really tough, really big, really great advertising” aimed at persuading Americans not to start using opioids in the first place, seeming to hark back to the “Just Say No” antidrug campaign led by Nancy Reagan in the 1980s.

“This was an idea that I had, where if we can teach young people not to take drugs,” Mr. Trump said, “it’s really, really easy not to take them.” He shared the story of his brother Fred, who he said had struggled with alcohol addiction throughout his life and implored Mr. Trump never to take a drink — advice the president said he had heeded. “We are going to overcome addiction in America,” the president said.

It’s really, really easy not to take them.... I know that's out of context from the entire speech and the NYT is trying to make him seem like an idiot. He knows very well how hard it was for Fred, and he said so repeatedly.

Here's the full speech:



ADDED: Hearing Trump going on about how he's never used drugs or drink, a million substance-influenced Americans have the same thought: If kids look at him as what happens to you if you don't drink or use drugs, he's a walking pro-drug, pro-drink advertisement.