I am sure the title caught your eye a little and maybe caused a double read, which is intended. Now, we all know that the big pharmaceutical and “healthcare” retail companies were all caught red-handed or more white-handed (white collar crime) pushing opioid and addictive prescriptions across the country. The “good corporate citizens”, yes they do call themselves “good” but don’t laugh, it is not funny when a long line of funerals and graves are their mark of “citizenship”, have agreed to pay fines for it.
The current ICE raids targeting “illegal immigrants” in Minnesota and across the country are carried out under the bogus claims of arresting and getting rid of hardened drug dealers and criminals. The same bogus claim was made in the bombing of boats off the Venezuelan coast, which was followed by the illegal abduction of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. No one can object to dealing with the real drug problem that impacts society and breaks down families, but the idea that the ICE campaign in Minnesota and the military intervention in Venezuela are carried out to deal with the drug problem is easily refutable by the Trump Administration’s own rhetoric. If we are serious about drugs, and we should then let’s look closely at the record.
In 2022, four of the largest U.S. drug corporations agreed to pay around $26 billion to settle lawsuits emerging from business practices that pushed opioids into communities across the country, causing the death of hundreds of thousands. The amount, while it might appear significant to the untrained eye, is, in reality, a drop in the metaphorical bucket compared to yearly profits since 1999. The profit these and other pharmaceutical and consumer “healthcare” companies have garnered over the 20-plus years is in the hundreds of billions, with the $26 billion, if assessed under the corrupt business model, deemed a “defensible” cost of doing business. The business of marketing and perfecting death in society. These companies have appealed the court judgment, and by the end of the legal process, they might end up with a few pennies on the dollar. From a business model perspective, this outcome would be an excellent return on investment, and a few billion is a manageable cost over a twenty-plus-year period.
Get this now, the settlement will be paid over 18 years to cities and counties that spent billions in dealing with the opioid addiction crisis. Adding insult to injury is the basic financial fact that the settlement itself will be included on each corporation's spreadsheet and will end up a tax write-off-i.e., all of us taxpayers will be paying for corporate greed and death by design economy.
Corporate greed and lack of sustained oversight caused the opioid and drug addiction, which has metastasized into a multi-prong social and political crisis that is destroying cities and towns across America. Some 1 million Americans have died from drug overdoses since 1999, and the majority due to opioid prescriptions. “Most opioid deaths are now caused by an illegal form of synthetic opioid called fentanyl.”
One email shared among executives at AmerisourceBergen
Who are these “good corporate citizens”?
The “good corporate citizens” or the good big time drug dealers include Opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma LP (Purdue), Johnson & Johnson, AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson, who will pay the combined $26 billion in the settlement. Another “good” drug dealing “corporate citizens” include CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart.
“Purdue admitted that it marketed and sold its dangerous opioid products to healthcare providers, even though it had reason to believe those providers were diverting them to abusers,” said Rachael A. Honig, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey. “The company lied to the Drug Enforcement Administration about steps it had taken to prevent such diversion, fraudulently increasing the amount of its products it was permitted to sell. Purdue also paid kickbacks to providers to encourage them to prescribe even more of its products.”
Big time drug dealing is “good business” and the levied fines is just the cost of securing a big chunk of the drug market. Small time drug dealers fight for street corners and sections of cities and towns while big time drug dealers fight it out on Wall Street and drug distribution market share.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: “Fentanyl is an incredibly dangerous and highly addictive drug that is finding its way into, and destroying, too many lives in our communities. Because of its deadly power, its legitimate prescription faces significant and severe restrictions. Yet, as alleged, former drug company employees Jonathan Roper and Fernando Serrano corruptly induced doctors to prescribe millions of dollars’ worth of Fentanyl through thousands of dollars in kickbacks disguised as phony educational programs. As alleged, Roper and Serrano helped feed this devastating surge of opioid addictions by tapping into another age-old addiction, greed.”
The drug crisis story and media 24/7 preoccupation is with the small-time dealers, supposed “illegal immigrants”, and the addicts strewing around and cluttering our “beautiful” streets, towns, and cities, which is intended to shift the blame and conceal the real causes behind the problem at hand. In this context, the media, civic and religious leadership are ready to delve into the muddy water of blame by pointing fingers and rhetorical venom at the “unclean”, “criminal”, and the“waste” of human potential that is destroying our cities and towns. Blaming the hard-working Mexicans and the Somalis is a strategy that fits into racializing the problem, so those pushing the drugs and laughing all the way to the banks are not held responsible, covered in the news, or raided by any real “police” force.
Why can’t they clean themselves up and take a job at Walgreens, CVS, Johnson and Johnson, Walmart, or any other upstanding corporate “citizen” that creates jobs and wealth for the country? These “losers” are “ruining” and “tarnishing” our beloved cities, and one can no longer walk the street peacefully without witnessing the open drug dealing and use! Why can’t they be like the Sackler family, who have made a painful difference in the lives of so many by producing and massively marketing OxyContin to unsuspecting people!
Yes, it is a fact that we witness the calamity unfolding in front of our eyes but the “unclean” drug user and the small time “criminal” on the street is the profit pipeline for major corporations and the “clean bodies and spaces” of the well-paid CEOs and board members who are laughing all the way to the bank, cruising on yachts on the white capped high seas and donating big money to politicians. Investment in the death economy and in politicians who live off funerals and misery is the business brand of these big-time drug dealers.
The public is “entertained” and scared into fear by daily media talking heads and screaming news headlines of drug users on the streets, thieves, and crime, with no mention of the big-time pharmaceutical corporations and the banks that manage their portfolios. Yes, we got a report for a day about the Walgreens settlement in SF, but then immediately the discussions shifted to the drug problem on the street as if they are disconnected and one is not immediately caused by the other. Walgreens gets to close down stores in SF, claiming fear of crime and drug use around their stores, but failing to inform us that they have filled 1.15 million opioid prescriptions in the city and county of SF.
The “dirty” drug dealer and user in the street pays for the soap that cleans the bodies and spaces of the CEOs and corporate Board members. Next time anyone is serious about cleaning up the city, the starting point should be to arrest and prosecute the corporate heads who killed millions in pursuit of unrestrained greed and wealth. Targeting those strewn about on the streets awaiting death is the lazy, dumb work of the media, politicians, religious leaders, and corporations that have a vested interest in keeping the status quo while feigning concern for the common good. Serious crises, like opioids, begin at the top and then manifest in the streets. If we are serious about addressing the problem, then the harsh response should be directed at the top first and foremost; rather than complain about the symptoms witnessed on the streets and sending ICE goons to stoke racial animus to conceal the real criminals living the high life that is soaked in blood and death.
