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Comment by AndrewBissell | Hacker News Reader

Says a lot about our ruling institutions that the headline is this and not "The Sackler family's plan to ride out the next 30 years in federal prison."

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What I find interesting is how the story is framed. In particular why do articles about corruption in the US (and other first world countries), never feature the word "corruption" explicitly? It is implied that there is corruption but it is never explicitly stated. If this article was about some less developed country, the word would appear endlessly throughout the text. Seems like western journalists have bias when it comes to using that word.

My guess is to avoid risk of defamation lawsuits. I know in the states a lot of publications are careful how the phrase things to avoid even the risk of a lawsuit regardless of if it would be a legitimate claim.

The oligarchs who own the media companies don't want to offend their friends.

Ruling institutions collude with the powerful and the uber wealthy. The way this happens in through layers of indirection: ex-DOJ prosecutors as partners at big law firms, revolving door, etc.

The rule of law is for everyone else.

It's so sad that we have had so little ability to put people behind bars for how they have profiteered off of addicting and killing people.

One of several reasons this happens is because debilitating the company is like completely skipping an antitrust hearing and granting the remaining companies closer to a monopoly.

The government feels like reining in the remaining company's behavior in the future will be that much harder, while the service for customers and society will degrade to that much worse and egregious.

Yes, the concept is stretched when half a million people are dead, and many of the others are now addicted to fentanyl as the country has devolved into a narcostate with poisoned supply chains. If you want to understand how we get here, you have to understand the psychology of the governments instead of oversimplifying it with "corruption" because such a simplified view will cause the wrong and ineffective public policy changes to occur, making those dead and dying people's lives be in vain.

Where on the line ranging from opioids through tobacco through sugar through fast food through alcohol through 1970s food pyramid through steak through salads should we place the point representing “everyone who profited from items to the left of here shall be sent to jail”?

I've never had debilitating, long-term pain. Have you? I think it's remarkably sadder that people have to deal with pain like this. And you jump right to wanting to lock up people and take your revenge. Isn't that a rather sad state of affairs?

I've been in the presence of people who need pain medicines like OxyContin and who are not able to continue living without it. Not because they're addicts, but because they have horrendous medical conditions caused by all sorts of things, ranging from US armed conflict all the way to cooking accidents while on the job at a restaurant.

For however many people you think are addicted and killed by drugs like OxyContin, there are far more people that are in need of drugs like these through no fault of their own, and often times, directly due to the very same politicians who are now celebrating this "takedown" of Purdue.

The difficulty one of these individuals had in obtaining their necessary Oxycodone during the COVID-19 lockdowns resulted in him attempting suicide. This person is not alone in this dilemma. The ridiculous scapegoating and guilt-tripping of this drug has led to the ruination of countless lives as well. Many people are suffering right now because some people think it's a corporation's fault when they choose to put a highly effective narcotic into their system.

We can't send people to foolish overseas conflicts, require people to engage in dangerous jobs like oil rigging and construction work, and then not give them medicine to make their on-the-job injuries livable. Doctors are the ones who make decisions about what to prescribe - they are the ones who commit the fraud of prescribing unnecessary medicines. If you're truly so eager to throw someone into a cage for their terrible crimes against humanity, you may want to start with the doctors and politicians before the wealthy, greedy Sacklers. I know that doesn't fit into the neat little boxes on top of which people love to grandstand these days, but the truth is a lot more valuable than filthy, emotionally-driven platitudes.

You've missed the point. There would be precious few who would deny narcotics to those who really need them. They are often the only effective line of pain relief for severe pain and they are on WHO's list of essential drugs!

You seem to have not considered these points:

(a) The intrinsic nature of narcotics requires them to be managed with great care. This means the dose has to be accurately titrated sufficient to kill pain and no more or addiction results. These facts have been known by the medical and pharmaceutical industries for over 100 years, also the FDA knew this but seems to have forgotten when it was lobbied. (I'm oversimplifying the facts here but it'll have to do.)

(b) Sacklers/Purdue were fully aware that intrinsic nature of narcotics requires them to be managed with great care. As this info is in almost every medical text on the planet that deals with the subject, similarly every pharmacopeia text on the subject. (Check for yourself.)

(c) Sacklers/Purdue deliberately ignored these well established medical facts about narcotic addiction so as to proffer from drug sales. They willfully pushed OxyContin use to levels well in excess of that recommended by medical best practice. Thus, it hugely increased the numbers of opiate addicts than there would otherwise have been.

(d) As I've said above, many medicos were complicit with Purdue and deserve to lose their license to practice.

(e) As I also said above 'before OxyContin, there were any number of narcotic painkilling drugs from those that have to be injected to ones that can be swallowed as a tablet or capsule that are made by more reputable drug companies (and have been for decades). OxyContin didn't offer anything over these earlier drugs.' Doctors, pharmacists and the FDA knew this too, yet they deliberately threw away their Hippocratic Oath and 'mistreated' their patients for a few cheap shekels.

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