Ex-DEA agent: Opioid crisis fueled by drug industry and Congress

[homersapien 11,354]

This was a 60 Minutes segment yesterday.  If you didn't catch it, it's worth your time to see or read about it.  Our own pharmaceutical industry - working through our own government  - have created this problem.

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ex-dea-agent-opioid-crisis-fueled-by-drug-industry-and-congress/

Whistleblower Joe Rannazzisi says drug distributors pumped opioids into U.S. communities -- knowing that people were dying -- and says industry lobbyists and Congress derailed the DEA's efforts to stop it.

In the midst of the worst drug epidemic in American history, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's ability to keep addictive opioids off U.S. streets was derailed -- that according to Joe Rannazzisi, one of the most important whistleblowers ever interviewed by 60 Minutes. Rannazzisi ran the DEA's Office of Diversion Control, the division that regulates and investigates the pharmaceutical industry. Now in a joint investigation by 60 Minutes and The Washington Post, Rannazzisi tells the inside story of how, he says, the opioid crisis was allowed to spread -- aided by Congress, lobbyists, and a drug distribution industry that shipped, almost unchecked, hundreds of millions of pills to rogue pharmacies and pain clinics providing the rocket fuel for a crisis that, over the last two decades, has claimed 200,000 lives.   

JOE RANNAZZISI: This is an industry that allowed millions and millions of drugs to go into bad pharmacies and doctors' offices, that distributed them out to people who had no legitimate need for those drugs.

BILL WHITAKER: Who are these distributors?

JOE RANNAZZISI: The three largest distributors are Cardinal Health, McKesson, and AmerisourceBergen. They control probably 85 or 90 percent of the drugs going downstream.

BILL WHITAKER: You know the implication of what you're saying, that these big companies knew that they were pumping drugs into American communities that were killing people.

JOE RANNAZZISI: That's not an implication, that's a fact. That's exactly what they did......

 

Read the full article, or watch the 60 Minutes segment at:

 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ex-dea-agent-opioid-crisis-fueled-by-drug-industry-and-congress/

 

 

 

[DKW 86 7,411]

Okay, call out the black helicopters on me, but...this is one story i dont find that hard to believe.

[homersapien 11,354]

5 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

Okay, call out the black helicopters on me, but...this is one story i dont find that hard to believe.

Actually, the point is that it's so easy to believe. Because it's true!  

This is what our democracy/capitalistic system has become.

The issue on the table is, what do we do about it?

  

[SaltyTiger 7,764]

10 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Actually, the point is that it's so easy to believe. Because it's true!

This is what our democracy/capitalistic system has become.

The issue on the table is, what do we do about it?

  

I have not watched or read in entirety but agree with you regarding this product Homer. Way to accessible by legitimate means IMO. 

 

[DKW 86 7,411]

Some will say it just isnt true. I do not have a problem believing this anymore. The drug and medical care companies basically wrote the ACA to their own benefit. I can see this being easily true.

[AUDub 11,131]

This is good journalism.

Marino has withdrawn his name from consideration for the drug czar nomination.

[homersapien 11,354]

14 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

Some will say it just isnt true. I do not have a problem believing this anymore. The drug and medical care companies basically wrote the ACA to their own benefit. I can see this being easily true.

Again, veracity is not the issue.  Nor is this about the ACA.

Imagine the political reaction if a drug cartel used it's money to control our government to the point they could legally develop a market for heroin, then make themselves exempt to existing federal law by paying off politicians to rewrite or nullify those laws?

That is essentially what happened.  The only difference is that instead of a foreign cartel, it was American pharmaceutical executives and instead of smuggling opiates, they were manufacturing them.

This is all a matter of record.  That it actually happened is not in question.

[homersapien 11,354]

And before someone points it out, I am fully aware that our country's history is replete with examples of big business/government corruption.  Hell, we even named a period in which this was more common than not. (The Gilded Age)

Hopefully, the pendulum will again swing back toward a more regulated environment as it did then. 

But it seems to me that things are getting - and will get - worse before that happens.  IMO, the "Citizens United" decision firmly established the foundation for corruption.

If Americans simply roll over and shrug this off as business as usual, I don't hold hope for our future or for democracy in general.

Have we really gotten to the point where we allow big business (big money) control our government to the extent they reap profits from deliberately and directly killing fellow Americans via the addictive products they are pushing?

If we don't change, we are doomed as a country.  For example, we need to seriously address the role of money used as direct political influence.  We need to seriously address the inherent conflicts of interest and corruption represented by the revolving door between government officials and industry.

We need to repeal Citizens United.  Money is not protected speech.  Corporations are not citizens.  Money is the fuel of political corruption and we need to come to terms with that fact.

Considering the makeup of the SCOTUS,  I am not optimistic.  

[DKW 86 7,411]

36 minutes ago, homersapien said:

Again, veracity is not the issue.  Nor is this about the ACA.

Imagine the political reaction if a drug cartel used it's money to control our government to the point they could legally develop a market for heroin, then make themselves exempt to existing federal law by paying off politicians to rewrite or nullify those laws?

That is essentially what happened.  The only difference is that instead of a foreign cartel, it was American pharmaceutical executives and instead of smuggling opiates, they were manufacturing them.

This is all a matter of record.  That it actually happened is not in question.

homer, i am agreeing with you, i dont 100% agree with the veracity because this sounds just way too black helicopterry.  After the ACA and the phenomenal amount of cash that was made off of it, I can easily see it being that way. Pharma, Insurance, Hospitals made bank on it. 

[homersapien 11,354]

57 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

homer, i am agreeing with you, i dont 100% agree with the veracity because this sounds just way too black helicopterry.  After the ACA and the phenomenal amount of cash that was made off of it, I can easily see it being that way. Pharma, Insurance, Hospitals made bank on it. 

Again, no one has disputed this happened as reported. It's a matter of record. Why are you suggesting it may not be true?

Again, this has nothing to do with the ACA. Nothing. Why do you keep referring to the ACA?

Did you even watch the 60 Minutes segment or read the WaPo article?

[DKW 86 7,411]

wth are you doing?  I AM AGREEING WITH YOU!!!!! Please just drop it. This just sounds way too black helicopter to the rest of the world. I am 100% truthfully and factually pointing out that the ACA, how this gets done, was the mechanism for implementation. Add in a ton of lobbying money and this is of course going to happen. 

[homersapien 11,354]

3 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

wth are you doing?  I AM AGREEING WITH YOU!!!!! Please just drop it. This just sounds way too black helicopter to the rest of the world. I am 100% truthfully and factually pointing out that the ACA, how this gets done, was the mechanism for implementation. Add in a ton of lobbying money and this is of course going to happen. 

Oh, so now it's the "rest of the world" who won't believe it? 

You said several times you doubt the veracity of this story.  It's a waste of time to argue about whether or not it happened.  It's a matter of record.  If you want to make an argument that none of this is true, then make it.

Secondly this has nothing to do with the ACA.  You keep bringing the ACA up as if that were an essential mechanism that allowed this to happen. That's not true.  If you think the ACA was a key factor, then explain how.

Again, did you watch the 60 Minutes segment?  Did you read the WaPo article?   Can you show me where either mentioned the ACA as a factor?

 

[DKW 86 7,411]

The ACA is widely recognized as just one more of hundreds of methodologies used to make money in the Medical Industry.

[homersapien 11,354]

1 hour ago, DKW 86 said:

The ACA is widely recognized as just one more of hundreds of methodologies used to make money in the Medical Industry.

So explain the critical role the ACA played in this case.

Look, I get it you want to talk about the ACA.  But at least start a different thread to do so.  This topic has nothing to do with the ACA. 

Why are you blowing smoke about this?  This is about a deliberate, coordinated attempt by a specific industry to push opioids on the public and then colluding with politicians to avoid legal responsibility for it. 

Your apparent attempt to 'normalize' it is part of the problem.

 

[homersapien 11,354]

This should be interesting considering that Trump's choice to lead the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.), withdrew his nomination Tuesday amid accusations he helped drug distributors pass an industry-friendly law that hobbled the DEA’s efforts to halt the spread of the opioid crisis.

 

Blindsided Trump officials scrambling to develop opioid plan

It's unclear to officials when Trump's promised emergency declaration will be formally announced or how it will be carried out.

President Donald Trump overrode his own advisers when he promised to deliver an emergency declaration next week to combat the nation’s worsening opioid crisis.

“That is a very, very big statement,” he said Monday. “It's a very important step. ... We're going to be doing it in the next week.”

Blindsided officials are now scrambling to develop such a plan, but it is unclear when it will be announced, how or if it will be done, and whether the administration has the permanent leadership to execute it, said two administration officials.

“They are not ready for this,” a public health advocate said of an emergency declaration after talking to Health and Human Services officials enlisted in the effort.

Trump’s off-script statement stunned top agency officials, who said there is no consensus on how to implement an emergency declaration for the drug epidemic, according to interviews with officials from the White House, a half dozen federal agencies, state health directors and lobbyists.

Trump had previously promised an emergency declaration in August, after his handpicked opioid commission headed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie made it an urgent recommendation. But the commitment quickly got bogged down in White House infighting and concerns about the order’s scope and cost.

Read the rest of the article at:

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/20/trump-opioid-plan-blindsides-advisers-243974

[homersapien 11,354]

DEA Stopped Suspending Suspicious Drug Distributors Before Pro-Pharma Law Passed

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) essentially stopped suspending pharmaceutical distributors that shipped suspicious volumes of opioids even before Congress passed a law effectively eliminating that power, according to testimony before a congressional committee hearing Wednesday.

The DEA issued 65 immediate suspensions against suspicious drug distributors in 2011, but that quickly dropped to just five in 2015, Deputy Assistant Administrator Neil Doherty told the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The number of suspensions rose to nine after Congress passed a law that made it extremely difficult for the DEA to issue those orders.

“Those started declining before the law was in effect in 2016,” Vermont Democratic Rep. Peter Welch said during the hearing. “The law was not what caused the decline of that tool.” (RELATED: DEA Chief: Pharma-Backed Law Hasn’t Hurt Agency’s Fight Against Opioids)

Welch was one of the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act’s cosponsors, and received nearly $39,000 in campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical industry. A chart depicting the suspension orders’ decline was displayed while he spoke. (RELATED: Congressman Weakened DEA So Patients Could Get Pain Meds. It Didn’t Really Work.)

“What led to the decline before the law was enacted?” committee chairman Greg Walden, an Oregon Republican, said at the hearing. “Why did the agency stop using that tool or dramatically reduce using that tool?”

DEA officials were facing internal pressure that made it more difficult to issue the suspensions, and were required to present greater and greater evidence to support the orders, a recent Washington Post/”60 minutes” investigation showed. The news outlets also showed that dozens of DEA employees left their jobs for the pharmaceutical industry, who then contacted high-ranking agency officials.

The DEA, in one case, suspended a drug distributor that shipped 11 million opioid pills to a community with a population of 25,000, according to the media investigation. In another, Walgreens pharmacies were selling 1 million opioids in a year — nearly 14 times a typical drug store.

Doherty twice declined to tell the committee that the law was preventing the DEA from responding to the opioid crisis. Instead, he said the DEA was “happy to work with Congress” to ensure “we have the most updated and applicable tools.”

The law required the Department of Health and Human Services, in coordination with the DEA, to release a report in April 2016 on numerous topics surrounding the opioid epidemic, including how effectively the government was combatting illegal prescription painkiller dealing.

Tennessee Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn, another cosponsor for the bill who received $120,000 from the pharmaceutical industry, questioned why the report was being delayed.

“You’ve heard the frustration from the panel of not getting information from the DEA that we need,” she said, continuing a bipartisan line of questioning from Walden and other committee members about why the agency was stonewalling opioid-related requests from the panel. (RELATED: DEA Could Face Subpoena For Stonewalling Congress In Opioid Fight)

“It’s my understanding that HHS has the lead to this report,” Doherty told her.

The WaPo/”60 Minutes” investigation pegged Blackburn as one of the major supporters of the bill. She recently announced a senatorial bid.

The DEA negotiated the language of the legislation of the bill, according to Doherty.