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Comment by kolbe | Hacker News Reader

At least one step in the right direction. But we're still pretty far from reaching some parity with the idea that it's often a life sentence to be driving in a car with someone who commits a murder if you're poor and black, but it's some soft white collar club fed crime to get thousands addicted to your drug, take their money, ruin their families for years and eventually take their lives.

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Let's keep comments relative please. Systemic racism is a problem but has nothing to do with Insys.

Should I choose some other crime to compare it to? Ok, how about the fact that possessing this guy's drug without a prescription would land a white guy in jail faster than Kapoor's going to get there for peddling it to hundreds of thousands of people?

You don't need to get hung up on the crime that I'm juxtaposing it with. Just notice the gulf between some types of justice and others.

A case is being made regarding relative punishments. I find this is an entirely appropriate time and location to bring this argument, given that the main criteria for comments is that they are substantive and contribute. I think this one contributes by starting an interesting side conversation, which are in my opinion one of the best parts of HN.

If you don't want to take part, just click the [-] to collapse the thread and ignore it. If you take issue with the actual content of the comment, a bit more information on why you think it has nothing to do with a case where a high placed executive might face relatively minor punishment for, as the GP puts it, getting "thousands addicted to your drug, take their money, ruin their families for years and eventually take their lives." might help clarify that stance.

There are so many new faces in this thread and they all want to refocus the conversation on other hot button topics. Why is this?

This guy works in HR.

I can choose not to buy and take opiates. I can't choose to not be murdered.

Murderers are much worse, and prisons better serve their purpose when they're used for murderers and their accomplices than when they're used for white collar crime.

Spoken like someone who’s never had major surgery or trauma.

Exactly.

I know some pretty tough guys. One of which took a gunshot wound and barely needed any recovery time.

This same guy got in a car accident that ruined his back. After some surgery, he tried to not use opioid pain killers, but he described it as maddening. It's not the pain that brings you issues, it's the constant dull, aching pains that give your life grief.

He started taking prescribed opioids for it. When it came time to ween off of them, he said it was like looking into a void where he had two exceptionally clear choices: continue using opioids, or struggle to get off of them. He picked the latter and is opioid free for a few years now. He said it was the hardest thing he's ever done.

He's just happy to say that he doesn't need them anymore.

When I was 19 I messed my back up very badly on the job. The company tried very hard not to take responsibility for it, going so far as court with dueling doctors.

The fact I refused opiods for my pain was used against me, "If it's so bad why aren't you taking the pain medications?"

My lawyer told me that if I had taken them I likely would have gotten 50% more int he settlement. I don't regret it though. Addiction is a major problem in my family.

So always get the script, then flush them?

A strategy defeated by a single question under oath: “And were you taking the drugs as prescribed?”

I think that future generations may look at how we were forced to deal with pain in much the way we look at pre-anesthesia surgery.

Back pain is somehow more personal, emotional. For me, it’s much harder to ignore, suffer.

Eh. The scale is not really comparable. People who create systemic problems that are difficult to fix pose a much greater threat to society than people who murder individuals.

I'm not saying to go easy on murderers. The opposite: I'm saying that we should take the former even more seriously.

Fentanyl is an incredibly potent and addictive drug.

I don't understand why this needed to be on a throwaway account?

The account you're responding to is over 3 months old, which, while not as old as some, doesn't appear to have been created purely for this conversation. There are quite a few members on HN whose accounts appear to have originally been created as a throwaway that have gone on to use it as their main account. Let's err on the side of giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Fair point - I didn't check age.

It's not a great societal practice that we demand everyone be smart enough to defy medical decree in order to remain safe. I know you 140 IQ antisocial introverts always want to structure society as a kleptocracy for the intelligent, but that would be a shit place to live.

White collar crime can do far much more societal damage than a single murderer can. I don't see any reason they both can't share prison.

Choice is irrelevant unless it’s an informed choice. It’s impossible to make an informed choice when people keep the information from you.

These people are responsible for hundreds or thousands of deaths. It’s a little less direct than shooting someone in the face, but it should still be considered mass murder.

Would you like this new kind of aspirin? Its totally worry-free as several neutral studies will tell you? Its relative cheap and has a cool name- PuffThePinkDragon.

A major part of this scandal is the fact that Insys' bribery led me patients to be misled in their choice, by the doctors they trusted for expert advice.

In this case doctors were pushing drugs on patients....for some folks, you can't choose not to be addicted after taking it for a length of time.

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