OxyContin Makers Admit Deception - washingtonpost.com: "The manufacturer of the potent painkiller OxyContin and three current and former executives at the company yesterday pleaded guilty to falsely marketing the drug in a way that played down its addictive properties and led to scores of people becoming addicted, prosecutors said."
The Washington Post doesn't go into much detail on the impact of Purdue Pharma's evildoing. Here's a snippet out of a 2001 Guardian article:
In this part of West Virginia, and the neighbouring hill counties of Virginia and Kentucky, they call it "hillbilly heroin" or "poor man's heroin". They also call it a plague. In the past two years it has caused scores of deaths in the region in the form of overdoses, suicides and car wrecks. In the words of Michael Pratt, a Kentucky prosecutor trying in vain to combat its influence: "The bodies are stacking up like cordwood".
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2 comments:
Thanks for posting this. It's important for us to show the human side of the oxycontin problem, and I'd noticed that many of the news stories were leaving it out. My husband's heroin addiction started with oxycontin, and progressed...I'm glad these guys are going to have to pay.
I think actual justice would have to involve the restoration of balance which is impossible. We cannot resurrect the dead. We can't even heal the families.
I see two remaining avenues; vengeance and understanding.
I don't dismiss vengeance. I just retired after 26 in the military. Vengeance, when exacted with forethought and discipline, has a place. Fear might not be the best way to control behavior but it does work.
The long term solution is understanding. We may never be able to heal your hurt or make your husband well again. But maybe we as a society can learn from our mistakes and be better neighbors to the next family that has to go through this.
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