<story><title>DOJ: Billionaire pharma owner fueled the opioid epidemic with bribery scheme</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/doj-billionaire-pharma-owner-fueled-the-opioid-epidemic-with-bribery-scheme/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alkonaut</author><text>I trust this guy will get what he deserves, but surely there should be other people falling here?&lt;p&gt;Usually it&amp;#x27;s the &lt;i&gt;taker&lt;/i&gt; of bribes that is the biggest criminal. Any doctor who can be shown to have given addictive opioids to people that aren&amp;#x27;t terminally ill should be investigated.&lt;p&gt;This is completely regardless of whether it was the &amp;quot;standard practice&amp;quot; at the time, or whether some pharmaceutical sales rep told them it was a good idea.&lt;p&gt;If just a couple of hundred doctors would lose their license and a few dozen end up in jail, that would make some headlines and perhaps make other doctors think twice before prescribing oxycodone to someone with normal back pain. Doing that is like amputating someone at the hip for toenail fungus.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pjc50</author><text>&amp;gt; Any doctor who can be shown to have given addictive opioids to people that aren&amp;#x27;t terminally ill should be investigated.&lt;p&gt;This is a &lt;i&gt;terrible&lt;/i&gt; idea. All opioids are theoretically addictive. They&amp;#x27;re also the most effective painkillers. Even cocodamol is an opiate. Escalating the War on Drugs like this is just going to leave a whole load more people in treatable pain.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s a complex problem, but I think this Vice article is a good summary of how the UK has avoided a comparable crisis: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.vice.com&amp;#x2F;en_uk&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;ppm5eg&amp;#x2F;the-truth-about-oxycodone&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.vice.com&amp;#x2F;en_uk&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;ppm5eg&amp;#x2F;the-truth-about-ox...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>DOJ: Billionaire pharma owner fueled the opioid epidemic with bribery scheme</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/doj-billionaire-pharma-owner-fueled-the-opioid-epidemic-with-bribery-scheme/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>alkonaut</author><text>I trust this guy will get what he deserves, but surely there should be other people falling here?&lt;p&gt;Usually it&amp;#x27;s the &lt;i&gt;taker&lt;/i&gt; of bribes that is the biggest criminal. Any doctor who can be shown to have given addictive opioids to people that aren&amp;#x27;t terminally ill should be investigated.&lt;p&gt;This is completely regardless of whether it was the &amp;quot;standard practice&amp;quot; at the time, or whether some pharmaceutical sales rep told them it was a good idea.&lt;p&gt;If just a couple of hundred doctors would lose their license and a few dozen end up in jail, that would make some headlines and perhaps make other doctors think twice before prescribing oxycodone to someone with normal back pain. Doing that is like amputating someone at the hip for toenail fungus.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>propman</author><text>2 doctors who prescribed the 10,000x more potent than morphine that is only approved for late stage terminal cancer, note this is far far more potent than any other opioid. The doctors prescribed it for knee pain, minor injuries, headaches, minor Joint pain, any and everything and they owned their own pharmacy which essentiallY just sold that and one other opiodmillegally. 81 witnesses came forward showing how addicting themselves to this insanely worse than opiod substance ruined their lives.&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile one doctor had 23 Lamborghinis, many beach front condos and 2 doctors prescribed 1&amp;#x2F;3 of the total prescriptions in the world. Both serving 20+ years sentenced last year, NPs who pushed all this got 3 years, almost every executive has been charged and trial 2018</text></comment>