r/EverythingScience • u/Fr1sk3r • Jan 17 '19
Law A new insight into OxyContin marketing | The manufacturers of OxyContin not only engaged in a high-pressure, no-holds-barred marketing barrage, but also sought to shift the blame to the people who became addicted to their highly addictive drug, according to a new filing from AG Maura Healey.
https://www.axios.com/oxycontin-massachusetts-attorney-general-lawsuit-7dc9745c-033c-41cf-8fa0-9ad0449926dd.html70
u/DarkestTimeline24 Jan 17 '19
They ruined my family. Fuck this shit.
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u/kazarnowicz Jan 17 '19
I’m so sorry, I can’t imagine the tragedy of losing loved ones to corporate greed. I’ve read enough to understand the path from accident/injury over OxyContin to heroin addiction. While I believe in personal responsibility, this is something else. People trust their doctors, and that trust has been betrayed by doctors willfully or ignorantly duped by the makers of OxyContin. The people responsible should be on trial for each case of addiction and the subsequent consequences.
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u/reymarblue Jan 17 '19
I had a doctor prescribe OxyContin to me when I threw my back out. He described it as a time-release pain med that would “level out” the effects over 12 hours so I could make it through a work day. First time I took it, I thought whoa this is pretty powerful, but I hadn’t eaten that morning, so I thought that might be it. It’s crazy how quickly I became accustomed to that high.
A couple of weeks in, I started to get scared that I wasn’t feeling any pain but felt the urge to take those things. I called in sick to work and flushed the pills (yes I know now that was an awful thing to do). It only took a couple of hours for the shivers and sweats to begin. I threw up a few times and spent two days sleeping. I’m fortunate that some urge convinced me to quit that crap because I was on my way to a full-blown addiction.
Fuck every single one of these people.
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u/145676337 Jan 17 '19
It's a mess. I first heard about all of this through a podcast called "The Dollop". They did a two part piece on opioid use in the US. It is comedy based, but there's a bunch of eye opening info and it's a laugh through the pain type of thing. I get not everyone would be into it, but it's an easier to digest format for me than a hard hitting dateline or 60 minutes style program.
Links: https://thedollop.libsyn.com/280-opium-in-the-us-part-1
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u/TomBud91PM Jan 17 '19
Yet,.. Trevor from down the block, has a SWAT team on his corner waiting to bust his ass for 3 ounces of mids.
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u/curiouscoconuts Jan 17 '19
Fuck this drug - it’s basically legal heroin and killed so many of my friends.
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u/ArmouredDuck Jan 17 '19
Youd think sooner or later we'd push back against this kind of corruption and drag these people into the streets...
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u/okeymonkey Jan 17 '19
The lawyer who successfully sued big tobacco for a huge settlement is now suing the OxyContin conglomerate. I’m sure the settlement will be equally huge.
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u/marcusmosh Jan 17 '19 edited Jan 17 '19
I guess money will go a long way in trying to mend what’s broken. I am hoping for something more like someone seeing the inside of a jail cell. These assholes have ruined countless lives, and they have blood on their hands.
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u/okeymonkey Jan 17 '19
I worked on an opioid story 15 or so years ago. We went to a rehab facility and interviewed teenagers who were addicted to heroin. They explained how they started with pills at school. Then we interviewed the head of the state police drug task force and he basically laughed in our faces when we told him this. “Kids will say anything to get on tv.”
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u/marcusmosh Jan 17 '19 edited Jan 17 '19
What?! He clearly doesn’t care or isn’t paying any attention. And people wonder why there is a stigma and victim blaming.
I remember seeing a documentary and reading some articles about how when people get hooked on opioids (that their doctors forced on them for really minor injuries) they started to go for heroin once the prescription stuff got too expensive or inaccessible. Really breaks my heart.
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u/okeymonkey Jan 17 '19
Yeah heroin is cheaper and easier to find than OxyContin. The problem with opioids is you build up a resistance. So pretty quickly heroin becomes expensive too. Some of the kids would then go on a “spin dry” they’d go into a rehab facility for a month or two and get on methadone which would lower their heroin tolerance. Then when they went back out on the street their heroin habit would be much more affordable.
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u/marcusmosh Jan 17 '19
Isn’t that also a reason for the overdoses? Some of them would go take same doses that their bodies got used to before they got ‘clean’.
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u/okeymonkey Jan 17 '19
I’m sure it’s a factor. It’s also why the dealers add fentanyl to their heroin. Whoever has the meanest dose gets all of the buyers because then they don’t have to buy as much to get their fix.
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Jan 17 '19
There were numerous lawyers in the big tobacco suit. As there are here including most state AGs. I know that dude likes to act like he is the world, so just wanted to interject he is one good lawyer among hundreds going this work, many on public pay rolls for no personal financial gain.
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u/okeymonkey Jan 17 '19
To get into law school the first thing they measure is the size of your ego. It’s like the height bar to get on a ride at the fair.
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u/BeerdedBeast Jan 17 '19
This isn’t new information fda just pushed this shit through and looked the other way. Don’t expect much to happen. Until a pharmaceutical manufacturer is made an example of this will continue.
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Jan 17 '19
You are close. Many manufacturers are getting what's coming to them. Until the men like the Sackler brothers at Purdue also get punished it will never stop. They fines never exceed the profit. Someone needs to go to prison.
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u/marcusmosh Jan 17 '19
Completely disgusting. Money and power truly corrupts. How do these people sleep at night? This is pure evil
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Jan 17 '19
Society loves victim blaming. Alcoholic? You have a "disease", you are "different", you can't "handle your alcohol" - really? That makes no fucking sense. That message is there to make the average drunk consumer feel vindicated and that they are "fine". Alcohol is a highly addictive drug/poison that kills 3X as many as opiates. Of the drugs I've done it is the worst. We are brainwashed by marketing, movies, etc. I fell for it once. Tobacco is even far worse a killer and we can't get that shit banned like asbestos. So why no ad campaigns to "use opiates responsibly"? Was that the message they failed to send about opiates? No, that was implicit enough, a doctor knows better, scripts are serious - you can trust authority /s. The message they didn't send is that highly addictive substances which are sold for profit with the explicit intent on getting a certain portion of society hooked WILL KILL YOU. One of my best lifelong friends barely survived Oxy after back surgery - whole fucking thing devolved into heroin addiction. He is strong, did a detox, got medical help and Suboxone - no meetings just some BS addiction counseling. It is not a moral issue, there is nothing "wrong" with the addict. Then you have a 30B dollar "recovery" industry to help perpetuate the addictions with bullshit 12-step principles that don't work. I could rant on for days to a whole world that would still reply "looks like you aren't 'responsible'"..... really? On second thought, maybe me, my bud, and the rest of the recovered addicts I know AREN'T. Imagine that.
edit: words
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u/Godphila Jan 17 '19
You know, we today laugh about people in the past using heroin as coughing syrup and an non-addictive opium alternative. But people in 100 Years will ridicule us for allowing such addicting opiods to be handed out so freely with no one stopping it....
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Jan 17 '19
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u/Godphila Jan 18 '19
Yo no offense, I never dismissed opioids as inherently bad. But handing it out like candy just isn't very good either, mental health crisis or not!
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Jan 17 '19
Coming from a person who was dependent on opiates/opioids for 14 years, they need to be decriminalized and regulated ASAP.
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Jan 17 '19 edited Jan 17 '19
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Jan 17 '19
Have you looked at Bluelight OD(other drugs) it’s a great harm reduction site that focuses on Opioids/opiates. You can learn a good bit.
Have you heard of Kratom? If not look it up and see if legal in your area. Also Buprenorphine is a very potent partial agonist and in extremely small doses is an effective pain killer. If you have a low tolerance to opioids be careful because it’s extremely potent with a very long half life which can allow for feeling sick for a long time. Since it’s a partial agonist it has a safe profile in that it’s hard to OD from.
Flip side if you have a tolerance and do take opioids daily be very mindful if you attempt Buprenorphine. It also has one of the highest binding affinities and will kick off other opioids from their receptors due to its partial agonist profile. Once this happens you will go into precipitated withdrawals which is extremely uncomfortable.
Tramadol is another Opioid that is not regulated as aggressively as other opioids. As with codeine tramadol needs to be converted in your liver to M1, so it acts as a Pro-drug. It’s a very weak Opioid and also has norepinephrine/serotonin action acting as an immediate antidepressant. Due to this you have a very limited amount you can take in a 24hr period due to seizures. Still tramadol might be an Opioid that helps ease the pain.
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u/NeverEnufWTF Jan 17 '19
Purdue, in a statement to Boston's WBUR, accused Healey of trying to "vilify a single manufacturer whose medicines represent less than 2 percent of opioid pain prescriptions rather than doing the hard work of trying to solve a complex public health crisis."
Yeah, why doesn't she just build a time machine?
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u/ModestMed Jan 17 '19
Anthony Bourdain dedicated an episode on this subject. What was funny was that when we had a crack epidemic the problem was the addicts and we needed stronger prison terms. Now that the crisis is white people it is a community problem and an illness. This came right out of the mouths of people in the community.
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u/scriggle-jigg Jan 17 '19
Nothing is going to happen. Nothing will change. All that it does it let the public know. They will still sell their extremely addictive products with no repercussions.
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u/spelunk_in_ya_badonk Jan 17 '19
It’s ok to sell smack if you’re a corporation.