In what is being dubbed the “largest opioid takedown” in the United States, 31 doctors spanning 7 states have been charged with prescribing drugs that are legal. However, the charges state that these doctors had illegally prescribed more than 32 million pain pills, including a dentist who unnecessarily pulled the teeth of his patients so he could prescribe pain pills.
According to the Washington Post, these arrests included doctors who prosecutors allege traded sex for opioid pain killer prescriptions. A total of 60 people were indicted, including the 31 doctors, seven pharmacists, eight nurse practitioners, and seven other licensed medical professionals. The charges stem from the government’s largest prescription-opioid takedown.
In Tennessee, a doctor who branded himself the “Rock Doc,” allegedly prescribed dangerous combinations of opioids and benzodiazepines, sometimes in exchange for sexual favors. Over the course of three years, prosecutors say he prescribed nearly 500,000 hydrocodone pills, 300,000 oxycodone pills, 1,500 fentanyl patches and more than 600,000 benzodiazepines. –Washington Post
But there are some who allege the government themselves, thanks to lobbying and Big Pharma’s money, are responsible for the opioid crisis, and they are only now trying to do damage control. This is yet another example of how the government screws up the economy and lives of the public then swoop in with some kind of “fix” that likely won’t fix anything at all.
https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/ex-dea-agent-blames-congress-and-drug-industry-for-opioid-crisis_10162017
Many of those addicted to opioid painkillers eventually take to the streets to get their drugs, where their “high” is much cheaper and more readily available. But this recent takedown did involve more than 350,000 illegal prescriptions written in Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and West Virginia, according to indictments unsealed in federal court in Cincinnati.
“The opioid epidemic is the deadliest drug crisis in American history, and Appalachia has suffered the consequences more than perhaps any other region,” Attorney General William P. Barr said in a statement.
“That is the equivalent of one opioid dose for every man, woman and child” in the region, Brian Benczkowski, an assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s criminal division, said in an interview. “If these medical professionals behave like drug dealers, you can rest assured that the Justice Department is going to treat them like drug dealers.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the opioid epidemic has killed nearly 218,000 Americans between 1999 and 2017. While deaths from overdoses reach crisis levels, many have taken their power back, and either refused opioid prescriptions or decided against filling them. Last year, the department charged 162 defendants, including 76 doctors, for their roles in prescribing and distributing opioids and other dangerous narcotics.
The arrests could leave thousands of addicts and legitimate pain patients without access to their doctors and health-care professionals. But don’t worry, the government, who caused the problem, expanded the epidemic, and is now trying to appear as though they are fixing the problem, are going to help. Federal and local public health officials say they are working together to “ensure continuity of care.”
Yeah we can lock up those doctors for frying their patients brains yet there are those who still kill and sell the organs of babies and they receive millions. Just that alone makes me believe this country will never recover. EVER.
Yet as they punish these private doctors big pharma is making billions from methadone, subutex, and suboxone they keep the opioid addicts hooked on for years through various pain clinic operators and when the addicts can’t pay they are back on the street using heroin again. I guess these people pushing dope doesn’t matter for some reason? You think it could be someone wants a monopoly on the money? Nah. couldn’t be that.
They pack them in at the methadone clinics. Somebody is making a killing off the methadone dope show. A daily dose is $13.00 currently. Wonder who these investors and owners are of these private clinics. Greedy bastards is my guess.
You’re pretty close on the mark. And MSM isn’t making big splashes in the headlines, telling people how the makers of Suboxone films are now under prosecution for lying about the drug and how hurtful it is.
Also, don’t believe everything you read right? I know for a fact that these witch hunts across the nation aren’t always on the up and up, that doctors are being targeted, ultimately creating a “genocide” of a vulnerable population for their own gain. Just because someone is charged with something doesn’t mean they did it. The numbers are so inflated from the CDC it’s cringeworthy. Calling it an “opioid” epidemic in order to lump legit chronic pain patients into the street drug category to make their numbers bigger. It angers me to see these headlines, knowing full well, from my own experiences and those of other chronic sufferers, that there is much more than meets the eye with these cases. There are people in our government that are absolutely part of this growing problem.
People who can’t defer gratification can always find an emotional outlet in any mundane activity.
They have never needed any help from their doctors, from moral vices, or from modernity.
r said, “there are those who still kill and sell the organs of babies.”
Or, they could be trusted with the responsibility of raising kids.
Alongside your kids.
The child born into crime and poverty without the traditional Father/Mother nuclear family raised in three generational welfare may not be absolved from a drug dealers career but its understandable. On the other hand a Physician, certainly an individual of higher than average IQ, academic discipline, a high income in the $200+K range and up and needless to say lots of time and treasure expended to get there selling their position reeks of pure callous greed.
Society is lost because Americans rejected Jesus a long time ago.
Have some sympathy for the poor doctors!!
I had a girlfriend who was a former dancer (Broadway etc.). She had to leave the profession because of a back injury so she got a job working for a big Swiss pharma.
After we broke up we met again a couple years later to chat. She was gorgeous: she still had that tight dancers body, large breasts and a healthy, freckle-faced look that showed off her sporty lifestyle. And she told me what she did at work. Wow!! She was hired because she was hot and her job was to develop contacts with doctors and flirt. But if it took more than that to get them to push opioids then she would go the extra mile and bang them. For her it was like being a nurse (“Hey, they have to wash people’s butts and all – this is waaaaaay more fun!”).
At that point I understood how these tragedies happen. Doctors are human in the end. Throw enough beautiful babes at them and they will buckle.
Lol,you know how it works Frank..
A friend of mine jokes that if you want to see the most beautiful men and women in the world just go to the doctor and pay attention to the pharmaceutical sales reps that walk in..
I’m guessing opioids come from opium, as in Afghanistan where the US military harvests the heavily expanded production since they have been there. So the military secures the product to support big pharma in one huge circle jerk of corruption. Back during my service in Vietnam, the MPs were the big opium users.
Spot on sir
Yes, CIA moved poppies from Afghan. to Incirlik before that base closed to move the product to labs around just outside the base. Now they go to Italy.
A young man in my neighborhood who works as a pharmacist said to me once, ” ‘X’, you’d be surprised how many of our neighbors are taking pain meds…. and are addicted”. The problem is more than that. For if one med is no longer available, these people are going to turn to some other, any other, even illegal and questionable alternatives. Their lives spiral downward and out of control. They’ll sell anything, betray anybody, become whatever they must to kill the need. I’ve no sympathy left. And worse, the rehab/recovery rate and system is deplorable. Crime rates increase in all categories in parallel with the widespread nature of this plague. Government doing something? What a joke. I don’t know the answer to it; but, I do know that lives are ruined simply by the association with any person who is unable to just never get on the stuff from the git-go. I’m sure there’ll be those who offer some other drug as the solution. An endless cycle to death that as far as I’m concerned. Trading one chemical master for the next.
“You’d be surprised how many of our neighbors are taking pain meds”
It’s not just your area,it’s everywhere..
If you take pain meds daily, and have been for months or years,guess what? You are ADDICTED..Don’t think so? STOP taking the pain meds for just 2 days and see what happens..Those hot/cold flashes,nausea,body aches,night sweats,diarrhea,vomiting,that’s called being “DOPE SICK”..
Actually not even close to 2 days, try 8-12 hours, give or take a little bit. What a massive train wreck like everything else around this falling apart, sinking ship know as America.
Correct, anyone taking opiates for a lengthy period will get “Dope Sick” however there is a distinct difference between addiction and dependence. People who suffer severe chronic pain most often do not take opiates to get high and would not take them if there were an alternative that actually worked. They are dependent on their medications so as to not suffer and are at low risk of overdose. The benefits outweigh the risks!
The person who is drug seeking to get high, will seek out whatever substance they can to get high. They are addicted to the high. They have addictive personalities. They are at risk of overdose and will do anything to get high.
Lumping chronic pain sufferers who are dependent on pain meds in the same category with addicts who just want to get off is not right
They’ve known how addictive opium is for centuries. So no one can claim they are shocked by this epidemic. This is all about control. Methadone clinics are highly monitered and springing up everywhere. The end plan is to control effective pain medications and make it nearly impossible for those who really need it to get it. They are also taking business away from street dealers because certain pain killers are scarce. Heroin is plentiful and some folks will turn to it as a last resort if they can’t get prescription pills from doctors or dealers.
In countries where opiates, schedule drugs are legal or easy to get, the problems appear to be none. In all problems with society and culture, it seems to always revolve around money and power. In the US, black market drug dealers are making one million us dollars every week. These black market dealers get traced back to authority figures, sherrifs, politicians, mayors, people of high authority. Then they farm out the illegal aspects to others willing to take the risk.
If all of these drugs were legal and over the counter, at least we as a society can observe the sales and distribution. We can assure of content and correct amounts, for overdoses appear to be common from street drugs with no known amount within the package.
By itself, using drugs is a self crime. The black market aspect is the society crime . Yet, a million per week is a lot of money and there are people that will break the law for that amount of money.
So, those making these large amounts of money, push the keep drugs illegal agenda, and the “drug addicts” terminology
so that they can keep their business booming.
The price of illegal drugs is to high for any society. And making drugs legal and over the counter, would put it in the open and spread the wealth.
1. NAFTA
2. 9 million lost jobs
3. Societal collapse followed by depression/opioids
4. Starvation, cannibalism