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Opioid epidemic: ex-DEA official says Congress is protecting drug makers

Schism

Schism

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/31/opioid-epidemic-dea-official-congress-big-pharma

A former top Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official has accused Congress of putting pharmaceutical company profits ahead of public health in the battle to combat the US’s prescription opioid epidemic.

Joseph Rannazzisi, head of the DEA office responsible for preventing prescription medicine abuse until last year, said drug companies and their lobbyists have a “stranglehold” on Congress to protect a $9bn a year trade in opioid painkillers claiming the lives of nearly 19,000 people a year.

Rannazzisi, director of the agency’s office of diversion control for a decade, said the drug industry engineered recent legislation limiting the DEA’s powers to act against pharmacies endangering lives by dispensing disproportionately large numbers of opioids. He also accused lobbyists, who have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years to influence opioid legislation and policy, of whipping up opposition to new guidelines for doctors intended to reduce the prescribing of the painkillers with a close resemblance to heroin.
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Something I've long suspected has been confirmed.
 
Schism said:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/31/opioid-epidemic-dea-official-congress-big-pharma



Something I've long suspected has been confirmed.
Click to expand...

****ing obviously. Doctors have become drug dealers protected by the law. Doctors are now doling out fentanyl which is 10 times stronger than heroin and pharmaceuticals are coming out with even stronger opiods. Doctors can't wait to push you out their door with a perscription in hand and a kick-back check from big pharma coming their way.
 
Pharmaceutical lobbyists are well funded, and very experienced at convincing Comgress to look the other way. Our so called "War on Drugs" has been as worthless as FDA guidelines on legal drug manufacture. We crossed the lunacy mark a long way back.
 
Here's my prediction... modern medicine is luring the wrong kind of folks into being doctors. Ones that see dollar signs only rather than any desire to help or heal. They will delegitimize themselves and people will start heading towards alternative medicines which is kind of scary because it is currently really unregulated so they tend to often make wild claims that are unsupported. Hopefully both will get regulated better.
 
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