Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskBetween 1999 and 2020 the epidemic killed over half a million Americans. What began as a scourge of neglected places, hitting blue-collar Appalachian towns and Native American reservations particularly hard, became ingrained in the national consciousness. For all the subject’s notoriety, though, Mr Higham and Ms Horwitz offer fresh insights.
“American Cartel” opens with a “cast of characters”, which helps readers keep track of the more than 70 people and companies that crop up. But it is a small band of scrappy agents and lawyers at the Drug Enforcement Administration who are the backbone of the narrative. Eventually, they lend their testimony to a sprawling legal team that builds what Mr Higham and Ms Horwitz call “the most complex civil action in the history of American jurisprudence”.
Certain facts and anecdotes are difficult to forget. In West Virginia the bodies of overdose victims piled up so fast that “the state’s burial-benefits department had run out of money”, meaning the only option available to “the grieving and impoverished” was cremation without ceremony. In Cabell County, West Virginia, which has just under 100,000 residents, around 1% of them died of opioid overdoses in the 2010s.
Also striking is the tardiness of the general government response. Alarm bells were sounding as far back as 2002. A doctor noticed a jump in addiction stemming from OxyContin; two lawyers who subsequently looked into it agreed there was a case to be made against Purdue Pharma. Yet Eric Holder, who became attorney-general in 2009, seemed unaware of the extent and nature of the crisis until 2014. The book recounts an exchange between Mr Holder, his aides and aofficial.
Washington’s revolving door, whereby bureaucrats responsible for regulating industries move to cushy corporate jobs in the same sectors, slowed efforts further. Politicians in Congress, even some from the worst-afflicted states, accepted thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from lobbyists for pharmaceutical firms. Some sponsored legislation devised by a formeragent-turned-lobbyist, who knew how to stymie his former employer’s efforts.
Ask the Kentucky Medical Licensing Board why they greenlit sanctioned Pill-Pushers?
All federal health agencies profited from this tragedy, all should be prosecuted for causing this avoidable crime
The USA was called the land of love. But we have to understand that the evil does not shy away from corrupting anything, even love. Here we see it in action: the dark side of love is fleeing from the hard reality in drugs. The solution - balance with the opposite: truth and will.
Actually seems understated. Why is this acceptable?
Open borders have consequences MadeInChina
Brought you by united oligarchy and the government.
The woman said that ‘’Where will we take these small children of ours then,? perhaps they will kill us but maybe they will have mercy on our children,’’ IBelieveMuhammadQasim 3 1
Sealed with an kiss would be the Yuan ti shaking his tail feather but, but crying freeman Must! be perceived as an bag of diamonds. 'Inconceivable', for the reality check on the N Vietnamese guerilla is that rather than blame Canada, blame the Cantonese mafia haunt in Chinatown.
Drugs won the war on drugs.
And they thought crack was bad.
Trump pointed this out constantly but JoeBiden TheDemocrats opened our border w no BorderControl to increase the problem.
The Drs and politicians created this by taking away the legit pills and then people have turned to the street getting God knows what.
Fentanyl is hidden in a myriad of pills unbeknownst to humans taking the pills
It became a thing because politicians and big pharma need as much money as they can get at any cost
Could legalize opium tomorrow and all of it goes away.
But something else has happened here. And I'm upset to see this. Then I follow Imran Khan wondering why he had said this. IBelieveMuhammadQasim
Hmm what other epidemics were man made? Maybe all of them LOL 🤔🥱
If a pandemic that killed over a million in three years is called a hoax…
If only America had federal agencies that could prosecute the criminal pharmaceutical companies that are still killing Americans
Not man made. Big Pharma made. Like the vaxxes.
Chinese killing us in a reverse opium war. Fentanyl
How solve this problem? In Brazil the biggest problem is crack. You see ' zumbi like' humans in the streets. It's very sad. So many young lives lost...
Part of the plan. Wake up people. Billions sent to Ukraine instead of helping this endemic
And still today no body cares
😢
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