Narcotics in America - Marijuana to Oxy to Anything Else

[LFC]

I'll kick this off with the whining miserable little pukes who are the Sackler family heirs. Despite living high on the hog on profits from a drug company that killed tens of thousands of Americans and ruined the lives of many more they know that they are the real victims.

A new book on the Sackler family—the secretive billionaires who kept America in steady supply of OxyContin—contains private emails that show the heirs complaining about how hard their lives were as they tried to downplay and shift blame for the deadly opioid crisis that left nearly half a million Americans dead.

The messages, along with other revelations in Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe, shed light on how the Sacklers saw themselves not as beneficiaries of a company that invented, aggressively marketed, and profited from a dangerous drug, but as victims of a smear campaign. They also lay bare the internal tensions behind the family’s public profile.

In a 2017 email, Mortimer Sackler, son and namesake of one of the three brothers who co-founded Purdue Pharma, requested a $10 million loan—and “a possible additional $10 million...MAX”—from the family trust to fund his lavish lifestyle, with instructions to keep the cash infusion secret from his relatives.

“Start off with saying I am not happy,” he wrote to a psychiatrist and “leadership confidant” named Kerry Sulkowicz. “I am falling significantly behind financially.”

The heir was prepared to sell off “artworks, jewelry, stock positions,” but it would not be enough to get him into the black. “I have been working for years on Purdue at what I consider to be a considerably discounted value relative to what MY TIME IS WORTH,” Mortimer wrote. “I am LOSING money by working in the pharma business.”

Feelings of aggrieved entitlement were not exclusive to Mortimer. When David Sackler, grandson of co-founder Raymond, got married, the book reveals, he wanted to buy a bigger apartment, but was snubbed by his father and boss, Richard—the man who oversaw and pushed the development of OxyContin more than anyone.

On June 12, 2015, David wrote an email to his parents to “voice some thoughts.” He griped that as Richard’s assistant, he had worked hard to “manage the family fortune” and “make the family richer.” He was Richard’s “right hand for everything”—a grueling job because “beyond pushing myself to excel, I work for a boss (Dad) with little understanding of what I do.”

All told, he wrote, it was “quite literally the hardest job in the world.”

[goldenvalley]

"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand."

The Rich Boy by F Scott Fitzgerald    Trite but true.

[Deleted]

I usually keep my guttersnipe language at home but, shit, what arseholes . I wish all of them an eternity in hell for every victim of their greed - it's enough to make me profess belief just to make it come true - almost

[andydp]

[LFC]

Apparently flooding West Virginia with opioids was pretty funny to pharma execs.

Pharmaceutical executives mocked customers who became addicted to their company's painkillers, according to newly released emails.

The emails were revealed by West Virginia prosecutor Paul Farrell Jr. in a trial against drug makers AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health Inc. and McKesson Corp., whose executives mocked addicts as "pillbillies," reported the Herald-Dispatch.

"Watch out Georgia and Alabama, there will be a mass exodus of pillbillies heading north," wrote AmerisourceBergen executive Chris Zimmerman after Florida passed legislation in 2011 cracking down on the pharmacies.

Other executives made up songs about Appalachian addicts to the tune of "The Beverly Hillbillies" theme and Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville," while a corporate investigator forwarded an email titled "Oxycontin for kids" showing a cereal box altered to read "SMACK."

"You're just a barrel of laughs today," a co-worker replied.

Zimmerman apologized in court for sending the email but insisted the term "pillbillies" was in reference to drug dealers, not to his company's patients.

"I shouldn't have sent the emails," he said.

AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health Inc. and McKesson Corp. sent 127.9 million opiate doses into Cabell County between 2006 and 2014, despite the area having a population of only 90,000 people.

"It is a pattern of conduct by those people charged with protecting our community, and they're circulating emails disparaging hillbillies," Farrell said.

[LFC]

The states keep moving forward on marijuana legalization. Now all we have to do is get politicians to support it, especially Congressional Republicans. Good luck with that. They'd rather pander to the bug-eyed Evangelical crowd.

The US is nearing a tipping point of sorts on marijuana legalization: Almost half the country — about 44 percent of the population — now lives in a state where marijuana is legal or soon will be legal to consume just for fun.

The past several months alone have seen a burst of activity as five states across the US legalized marijuana for recreational use: New Jersey, New York, Virginia, New Mexico, and, on Tuesday, Connecticut.

It’s a massive shift that took place over just a few years. A decade ago, no states allowed marijuana for recreational use; the first states to legalize cannabis in 2012, Colorado and Washington, did so through voter-driven initiatives. Now, 18 states and Washington, DC, have legalized marijuana (although DC doesn’t yet allow sales) — with six enacting their laws through legislatures, showing even typically cautious politicians are embracing the issue.

At this point, the question of nationwide marijuana legalization is more a matter of when, not if. At least two-thirds of the American public support the change, based on various public opinion surveys in recent years. Of the 15 states where marijuana legalization has been on the ballot since 2012, it was approved in 13 — including Republican-dominated Alaska, Montana, and South Dakota (although South Dakota’s measure is currently held up in the courts). In the 2020 election, the legalization initiative in swing state Arizona got nearly 300,000 more votes than either Joe Biden or Donald Trump.

Legalization has also created a big new industry in very populous states, including California and, soon, New York, and that industry is going to push to continue expanding. One of the US’s neighbors, Canada, has already legalized pot, and the other, Mexico, is likely to legalize it soon, creating an international market that would love to tap into US consumers.

The walls are closing in on this issue for legalization opponents — and quickly.

Many politicians have played it cautiously in response to these trends. While some high-profile Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, have come out in support, Biden continues to oppose legalization. Republicans, including Trump, are almost entirely opposed.

But at this point, their refusal comes off more like a last gasp than a movement that can hold back the tide of change. At a certain point, lawmakers will have to follow public opinion or risk losing an election. And the public has spoken very clearly, time and again.

[LFC]

Clarence Thomas stated his views on marijuana laws after SCOTUS declined to hear a case of a Colorado dispensary wanting the same tax breaks as every other business gets. When even Thomas says it's a mess you've got pretty overwhelming support for reform.

Clarence Thomas, one of the Supreme Court's most conservative justices, said Monday that because of the hodgepodge of federal policies on marijuana, federal laws against its sale or cultivation may no longer make sense.

"A prohibition on interstate use or cultivation of marijuana may no longer be necessary or proper to support the federal government's piecemeal approach," he wrote.

His views came as the court declined to hear the appeal of a Colorado medical marijuana dispensary that was denied federal tax breaks that other businesses are allowed.

Thomas said the Supreme Court's ruling in 2005 upholding federal laws making marijuana possession illegal may now be out of date.

"Federal policies of the past 16 years have greatly undermined its reasoning," he said. "The federal government's current approach is a half-in, half-out regime that simultaneously tolerates and forbids local use of marijuana.”

On a side note here's the results Pew's survey on legalization from April.

[LFC]

The Sacklers want blanket immunity for their $4.5B deal. I wish they'd jail these f***s in real prison without bail, seize all of their assets, and let them try to thrash their way out of it. You know, the way poor people have to.

The Sackler family is threatening to back out of a $4.5 billion opioid settlement if it is not granted broad immunity from lawsuits. The pending settlement between the Sacklers and 15 states includes an immunity provision, but other states oppose it, and a bankruptcy court judge is still considering whether to approve the deal.

Forty-one-year-old David Sackler, a former Purdue Pharma board member and grandson of one of the company's founders, "vowed in court on Tuesday that the family would walk away from a $4.5 billion pledge to help communities nationwide that have been devastated by the opioid epidemic, unless a judge grants it immunity from all current and future civil claims associated with the company," The New York Times wrote.

"We need a release that's sufficient to get our goals accomplished," Sackler said in testimony via video at a hearing in US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. "If the release fails to do that, we will not support it." The family is worth $11 billion, a fortune boosted substantially by sales of OxyContin.

Without immunity protecting the Sacklers from lawsuits over the activities of Purdue Pharma, "I believe we would litigate the claims to their final outcomes," Sackler said, according to CBS News.

I'd like to know how much they made murdering people. My guess is a LOT more than $4.5B.

[pnwguy]

Has anyone watched Dopesick, on Hulu?

I'm only on the 3rd episode. It's a docu-drama of course, but founded on the facts of the case. It sure makes Purdue Pharma out to be pretty scummy.

[LFC]

Vox covers the state of marijuana legalization. Despite having nearly 70% approval for a decade it seems that Congress still can't get it done. 

It has been nearly a decade since the first time a majority of Americans supported legalizing cannabis. Two years ago, that number reached a record high, according to Gallup, with 68 percent supporting marijuana legalization — a number that has held steady since. That same year, as the coronavirus pandemic engulfed the country in March 2020, medical marijuana businesses were declared essential, allowing them to remain open along with pharmacies and grocery stores. It was a triumph for legalization advocates. As the New York Times reported, it was “official recognition that for some Americans, cannabis is as necessary as milk and bread.”

Cannabis is one of the fastest-growing industries in the US; sales of adult-use and medical marijuana products hit $25 billion in 2021 and, by one Wall Street estimate, could reach $100 billion by 2030. Eighteen states have legalized cannabis for adult use, and another 19 currently have at least a comprehensive medical marijuana program. As of 2020, one in three Americans lived in a state with access to legal marijuana, according to Politico, and that number is quickly growing as the East Coast catches up with the West — last year, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Virginia all passed adult-use cannabis laws, joining Maine, Massachusetts, and Vermont. Rhode Island lawmakers are expected to approve a legalization bill this month.

However, under the federal Controlled Substances Act, marijuana remains classified as a Schedule 1 illegal drug with no medical uses, on par with heroin and LSD. The Drug Enforcement Agency strictly limits marijuana cultivation for research, frustrating scientists who are unable to investigate its medical benefits and risks under current regulations.

Rescheduling marijuana for research was an oft-repeated promise of President Joe Biden’s campaign, along with a pledge to decriminalize the use of cannabis and grant clemency to people with federal marijuana convictions.

But after more than one year in office, Biden’s promises remain unfulfilled — and a January YouGov poll of 1,500 people showed that more than half of Americans believe that the Biden administration has made little to no progress advancing marijuana reform. The administration even screened staffers for marijuana use last year, dismissing several incoming candidates because they revealed they’d used cannabis during background checks for positions in the Biden White House. Just this month, employee conduct guidelines were updated to potentially deny security clearance to people who have invested in cannabis companies. All in all, the Biden administration seems to be pretty anti-weed.

Critics of legal marijuana cite the potential for confusion among law enforcement agencies keeping up with evolving regulations, concern about minors gaining access to the drug, a potential drop in property values, and more for maintaining marijuana’s status as an illicit drug. (Though it looks like legal cannabis can actually increase property values.)

Legal cannabis, however, also presents a tremendous financial opportunity, and despite federal inaction, the industry is growing fast; a report from the cannabis website Leafly shows there are more than 428,000 full-time jobs in the cannabis industry, with a 33 percent increase in jobs just last year. Even so, the fallout from the lack of federal legalization is felt by many sectors of society: Medical research is stalled, prisoners are languishing in jails, small businesses are going under without access to federal banking, and big cannabis companies face stiff challenges in raising money to stay afloat as long as marijuana is illegal under federal law.

However, as more states move to decriminalize and legalize cannabis, and as the economic benefits of a legal marijuana industry become apparent, it seems likely that we’ve passed the point of no return on the road to federal legalization. So why hasn’t the federal government been able to unify to enact cannabis legalization nationwide?

[pnwguy]

Of course one has to laugh at an article on cannabis written by Mary Jane Gibson.

[LFC]

Mar 31, 2022 17:39:53 GMT pnwguy said:

Of course one has to laugh at an article on cannabis written by Mary Jane Gibson.

Any relation to Debbie Doobie Gibson?

[LFC]

The House passed a bill to decriminalize marijuana. It was almost but not quite down party lines because of course it was. I guess Republicans still believe "Reefer Madness" was a documentary.

The House has voted with a slim bipartisan majority to federally decriminalize marijuana.

The vote was 220 to 204. Republicans Tom McClintock of California, Brian Mast and Matt Gaetz, both of Florida, joined the majority of Democrats in supporting the bill, while Democrats Henry Cuellar of Texas and Chris Pappas of New Hampshire voted against.

The bill, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, will prevent federal agencies from denying federal workers security clearances for cannabis use, and will allow the Veterans' Administration to recommend medical marijuana to veterans living with posttraumatic stress disorder, plus gains revenue by authorizing a sales tax on marijuana sales.

The bill also expunges the record of people convicted of non-violent cannabis offenses, which House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said, "can haunt people of color and impact the trajectory of their lives and career indefinitely."

"It can result in difficulty finding employment, difficulty finding housing, denial of access of federal benefits, denial of financial aid at colleges and universities, and denial of the right to vote," Hoyer said. "That's why we're dealing with this."

Senate Democrats have a similar legalization bill in the upper chamber, but neither that bill nor the House-passed MORE Act is expected to clear the 60-vote threshold for passage in the Senate.

[LFC]

NJ gets legal weed on 4/21. So close. So very close. I'm sure missing 4/20 was quite intentional.

Beginning April 21, 2022, adults 21 years old and over will be able to legally purchase marijuana in the state of New Jersey. The state’s weed enthusiasts have been anticipating this date for years, and their joy is likely to be only slightly tempered by the fact that the launch date inexplicably just misses a really obvious 4/20 reference.

[LFC]

Here is a map of the state of the states on marijuana legalization. Every state in the Northeast now has it fully legalized or decriminalized except Pennsyltucky. We always have to be 5-10 or more years behind everybody else.

[andydp]

Apr 15, 2022 16:57:52 GMT LFC said:

Here is a map of the state of the states on marijuana legalization. Every state in the Northeast now has it fully legalized or decriminalized except Pennsyltucky. We always have to be 5-10 or more years behind everybody else.

I’m sure the good people of NJ will be glad to make up the slack.
DUUUUDE !

[pnwguy]

Apr 15, 2022 16:57:52 GMT LFC said:

Here is a map of the state of the states on marijuana legalization. Every state in the Northeast now has it fully legalized or decriminalized except Pennsyltucky. We always have to be 5-10 or more years behind everybody else.

Ever more reasons to go "down the shore" this summer.

Although if you get saddled with the great and powerful Oz, at least he's been pro cannabis.  

[LFC]

Apr 15, 2022 17:29:57 GMT pnwguy said:

Although if you get saddled with the great and powerful Oz...

What a scary thought. It took us years to get rid of Christianist freak-show Rick Santorum and Toomey has been a friggin' idiot though, thankfully, at least a relatively quiet one. Oz is an attention whore who would never shut up no matter how stupid the shit was that poured from his mouth, kinda' like Ted Cruz.

[LFC]

If Republicans agree it will be all about the money.

Recreational marijuana in Ohio could mean up to $375 million in annual tax revenue for the state, according to new research from Ohio State University.

The study, released just in time for America’s annual, informal marijuana celebration day Wednesday, uses tax estimates from an initiated statute effort to legalize marijuana in the state, possibly via the November 2022 ballot.

The study pairs tax rates (10% in addition to Ohio’s 5.75% state sales tax) from the organizers’ proposal, population growth estimates, and year-over-year revenue data from six other states (Michigan, Illinois, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Colorado) with recreational programs to make projections for Ohio.

Depending on the bullishness of growth estimates and product pricing, the researchers estimated the state will earn somewhere between $276 million to $375 million by the fifth year of operation.

[andydp]

Its a few years old but its still funny.

I once prefaced this with "Why there will always be an England".  I was told by a certain Mr Bikkes that Wales is NOT England.  

Therefore:

What else can you do in Wales to pass the time ?

'Stoned' sheep ate cannabis and went on a 'psychotic rampage' in Wales

Kiwi sheep fight crime, Welsh sheep reportedly enjoy drugs.

A mob of stoned sheep went on a "psychotic rampage" in a sleepy Welsh village after eating cannabis plants.

Villagers were reportedly worried the animals could cause havoc after munching on the remains of an illegally dumped cannabis operation.

www.stuff.co.nz/world/80404875/stoned-sheep-ate-cannabis-and-went-on-a-psychotic-rampage-in-wales?fbclid=IwAR09L2g0jdsuXmzkToNZwdYAtBiUqgBSzXHiK71i3KsebPruMw4HhlGChLM

[LFC]

JD Vance is just another Republican grifter, using the very people he wrote about as props. I wonder how big his cuts was from the support of big pharma companies the likes of Perdue. It looks like AEI received enough to share.

When JD Vance founded “Our Ohio Renewal” a day after the 2016 presidential election, he promoted the charity as a vehicle for helping solve the scourge of opioid addiction that he had lamented in “Hillbilly Elegy,” his bestselling memoir.

But Vance shuttered the nonprofit last year and its foundation in May, shortly after clinching the state’s Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, according to state records reviewed by The Associated Press. An AP review found that the charity’s most notable accomplishment — sending an addiction specialist to Ohio’s Appalachian region for a yearlong residency — was tainted by ties among the doctor, the institute that employed her and Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin.

The mothballing of Our Ohio Renewal and its dearth of tangible success raise questions about Vance’s management of the organization. His decision to bring on Dr. Sally Satel is drawing particular scrutiny. She’s an American Enterprise Institute resident scholar whose writings questioning the role of prescription painkillers in the national opioid crisis were published in The New York Times and elsewhere before she began the residency in the fall of 2018.

Documents and emails obtained by ProPublica for a 2019 investigation found that Satel, a senior fellow at AEI, sometimes cited Purdue-funded studies and doctors in her articles on addiction for major news outlets and occasionally shared drafts of the pieces with Purdue officials in advance, including on occasions in 2004 and 2016. Over the years, according to the report, AEI received regular $50,000 donations and other financial support from Purdue totaling $800,000.

Longtime Ohio political observer Herb Asher cast the charity’s shortcomings, including Satel’s links to Big Pharma, as a “betrayal.”

“A person forms a charity presumably to do good things, so when it doesn’t, for whatever reason, that really is a betrayal,” said Asher, an emeritus professor of political science at Ohio State University. “That’s something voters can get their arms around.”

[goldenvalley]

Vance was a grifter...that was clear from his book that so many people fatuously hailed as some sort of insightful look at his background.  All I saw was small town boy gets out into the world and dumps on his background using the standard Republican trope about lazy people wanting handouts.  Only he applied it to white people instead of blacks and other people of color...groundbreaking!

[AnBr]

fivethirtyeight.com/features/can-tim-ryan-really-win-ohios-senate-race/

Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan had led in five consecutive polls since late July until an Emerson College poll this week put J.D. Vance — the Trump-endorsed venture capitalist and author of “Hillbilly Elegy” — ahead. Ryan still holds a narrow 1-point lead in our polling average.

[LFC]

Biden is going to give a blanket pardon to those federally convicted of simple possession of marijuana.

President Joe Biden is planning to issue an executive order pardoning all people convicted of simple marijuana possession under federal law, senior administration officials said on Thursday, in what amounts to the most extensive White House action taken to date in U.S. drug policy.

The president will also be urging governors to do the same for cases regarding state offenses of civil possession of marijuana. In addition, he is asking the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Attorney General to “expeditiously” review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law.

Currently, marijuana is classified as a Schedule I narcotic, meaning it’s deemed to have no medical use and a high potential for abuse. Heroin and LSD are other Schedule I drugs.

“The President has been clear that marijuana laws are not working,” said a senior administration official. “The president has been considering his options and he is now taking executive action.”

[LFC]

Here's the current state of marijuana legalization in America. Only 4 states ban it all outright, another 7 allow CBD only, and two more have only decriminalized it. The other 37 at least have medical.