The untold story of the doctor who fuelled a drug crisis

It was frustrating to read this article.

Drug laws (especially here in the UK) are doing nothing to keep people safe against pharma companies and at the same time lynching people for a bit of weed.

Under-regulated/-prosecuted greed can and does cause a lot of damage.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/special...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inequality_for_All

The motivations seem so confusing. It says this doctor sacrificed his reputation by providing fake fentanyl prescriptions for $33k/yr. Most physicians make 10x that. Really strange.

A quote near the end that really struck me:

Ibbott, who retired in 2019 after 30 years’ service, suggested that he knew there was a larger web of offenders, but his resources were limited. “If I had enough time, I could have taken out all the other potential doctors and traffickers,” he says. “But resources are always limited, and cases pile up. I don’t want to spiderweb an investigation where I have 1,000 people before the courts, because the courts are going to say, ‘Well, we’re going to deal with seven of them. So pick your favourite seven.’ ”

Until recently, the college was also limited in its disciplinary powers. Among the five doctors linked to El-Azrak’s practice, one was temporarily suspended and two have been verbally cautioned by the college; all three continue to practise in the GTA. One of the three—a professor emeritus with the University of Toronto—remains licensed, but is no longer allowed to prescribe narcotics. The other two doctors are no longer licensed, though not as a result of their opioid prescription practices. One source, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, explains, “By and large, the college just wants to get bad doctors out in the fastest way possible. They’re less concerned with getting a scarlet letter onto the doctor’s profile.”