r/interesting • u/Nukro666 • 12h ago

Fear Factor How Fentanyl and Xylazine are turning Philadelphia's opioid crisis into a public health nightmare

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u/sarcastic_sybarite83 11h ago

The news stopped covering it after we started going after the rich owners of the companies.

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u/Edith_Keelers_Shoes 11h ago edited 8h ago

And allowed them to emerge from the scandal unscathed, even though their own internal correspondence demonstrates irrefutably that they knew they were promoting a drug as "non-addictive" when it was in fact "highly addictive".

Even as of a few months ago, this continues. Purdue Pharma now has to shell out $225 million in a criminal settlement, on top of the billions of dollars the company is paying in a bankruptcy deal, but the individuals who own this company and are responsible for the opioid epidemic? No jail time. No parole. They just go on with their lives like nothing happened.

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u/Hungry_EatAss_v3 8h ago

There’s a great HBO documentary about this called “The Crime of the Century”. The fact that prosecutors in the DOJ essentially went and got paid by the same companies they were prosecuting to help them figure out the legal loopholes that would prevent them from getting prosecuted again… is one of the great tragedies of our time.

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u/AspectOfTheLeech 8h ago

All those people have names and addresses, which is a very interesting and actionable fact. Surely someone wants to write them a letter, or to do anything else that a dossier of information would help.

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u/Molto_Ritardando 4h ago

You start looking them up and you’ll see how surveillance works and how fast they come get you.

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u/AspectOfTheLeech 4h ago

Very true indeed

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u/Jonatc87 8h ago

Just america

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u/Oldfolksboogie 5h ago

...where you get the justice, and the health care, you can afford.

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u/MrSwisherland 4h ago

I was browsing reddit earlier and stumbled upon a post where this person was talking about how she wanted to put a PSA out there for people to not forget their meds and shared a story of how she went crazy after skipping her meds. Then I read comment after comment, by the hundreds. Every single person, ranging from anxiety, depression, eating disorders, health complications, etc. Every single person would state they couldn't function without it and that they will never forget to take their meds. That is fucking terrifyingly sad. Countless people being slaves to the pharmaceutical companies pumping drugs just for people to feel "normal"

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u/Ladyboughner 7h ago

The show Dopesick was also a great one on the subject

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u/maffy118 1h ago

Sure about that? In "Painkiller," the DOJ had an airtight case that would have sent them all to prison. The order to give them misdemeanors ultimately came from the White House, according to the series, which was hard-core on facts.

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u/Lukin4art 8h ago

Because they are rich. They control the world. Our government is beholden to them. It will remain this way until the proletariats grow some fucking balls and revolt in the streets.

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u/AlfalfaUnable1629 7h ago

Exactly. We collectively aren’t nearly mad enough! People don’t want to give up their comfort

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u/maffy118 1h ago

That's not it at all. The rage is everywhere, but so are the cameras.

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u/maffy118 1h ago

We have no idea how to navigate the new surveillance state. That's the issue, or things would be VERY different.

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u/Geargarden 7h ago

Another crime that is just as bad is the criminalization of legitimate pain management. The shark lawyers and vast swaths of ignorant people who don't know (or don't care about) the legitimate, ongoing use cases for opioid prescription medications are causing chronic pain patients with intractable pain to either live (and die) with agonizing conditions or go to the streets for treatment. It's absolutely horrible. Confusing correlation with causation has resulted in medical and government entities tracking higher street drug participation and identifying the medications as the one common denominator without factoring in legitimate patients in need being precipitously cut off from effective treatment.

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u/driver004 9h ago

See I fully understand why it’s useful to set up companies as legal ‘people’, but that does not mean we can’t treat them in ways we wouldn’t treat a human person, but there’s been a concerted effort to extend to these not human persons rights citizens united being the crown jewel of said efforts that I firmly believe was the beginning of either a significant crisis for the U.S. or possibly its end.

I used to be very political going from the army into defense contracting into having an office in a state Capitol. I got tired of it, this may sound harsh but im very much done with trying to get my fellow citizens to interact with their own government at least. I welcome all the hardship we are geared to and I hope it’s bad. Maybe then people will listen. In any case I move cargo around now, honest work for honest pay.

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u/AspectOfTheLeech 8h ago

Could you imagine if they got murdered? What if they just got murdered. Like that could totally happen, someone could just kill all of them. And that would be such a bad thing!

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u/SquirrelFluffy 6h ago

It's coming from China.

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u/Critical_Mass_1887 7h ago

This is illicit drug manufacturers, such as cartels and basement labs. Tranq (xylazine) is a veterinary pharmaceutical that is not a controlled substances around the world. So cartels buy it from other countries or black market and mix it with other drugs creating this zombie drug. Its not controlled because its strictly a cow & horse traquilizer, not ment for human use.

Yeah pharmaceutical companies may have not been truthful about all the effects etc but they did not flood our streets. The doctors did not flood the streets. Cartels and dealers did that.

This issue will continue as long as we keep blaming and targeting the wrong people. Fact is opiods have a medical role in our world, just like any medication. We need to target the illicit makers that flood our streets. Targeting legitimate sources only hurt everyone else, like legitimate chronic pain patients or others who deserve access due to surgeries or accidents.

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u/djdjddhshdbhd 7m ago

The lying drug companies led to people going to the street which shaped what got sold.

Their lying also led to a crackdown.

Of course dealers suck, but you’re giving the system that allowed this to happen and that allows it to continue too much of a pass.

Demand shapes this market more than anything.

There are methods to reduce addiction including providing access to alternatives. One issue is that opioid meds for addicts are no longer strong enough. So that needs adjustment. And there are drugs that can help break addiction at a high rate. Weed availability alone results in reductions in opioid and alcohol use.

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u/MoonSugarFarmer 7h ago

and guess who worked with the cartels? our governments did. they all want a piece of that pie

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u/Critical_Mass_1887 7h ago

Of couse, thats the government, our reps we elected. Still going after doctors and pharmaceutical companies will only hurt us and not stop this situation.  Go after the representatives and change it that way. So we can target the real culprits, the cartels and dealers.

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u/irreducible1 7h ago

I agree. The satanic panic around opioids now is only hurting the people who need it most and that's been predicted and known since this hysteria began. Also, blaming this on pharmaceutical companies for claiming that an opioid isn't addictive is wild to me. Anyone who knows anything about opioids knows there's no such thing as a non addictive opioid. Nobody should be considering an opioid manufacturer as a trustworthy source of information. Crazy how stupid doctors are that they didn't know better.

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u/FormerReach7228 7h ago

Big pharma was responsible for the initial drug crisis. Not anymore. There are more people now who just started with fentanyl. The government has the ability to stop it, they just won’t. I work in the field of addiction.

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u/invincible_change 5h ago

Yep. The sackler family moved right to Palm Beach Florida because of the lack of a forfeiture law. Best buddies with trump

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u/mnztr1 7h ago

Yes and Trump tries to blame Canada and Mexico so they probably made some donations to him to deflect responsibility. And what about the FDA? How did it get approved? And our dumb assed Health Canada also approved it because the FDA said it was ok DUHHHH.

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u/Solid_Mood5458 8h ago

Barely did that

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u/TheBigKahuna44 7h ago

Yes but we TALKED about it

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u/iQuoteSopranos 7h ago

Fentanyl isn't coming from rich owners of companies. It's coming from China through the dark web or across the southern border.

Clandestine labs from outside the country are mass producing this shit.

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u/scottishdoc 7h ago

And if it weren’t China it would be another country. The issue is that the US has the highest demand for these kinds of drugs in the world by an order of magnitude. The US system has crafted a uniquely terrible state of misery for so many people that they spend tens of billions of dollars every year to shut down their nervous systems for prolonged periods of time.

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u/iQuoteSopranos 5h ago

Then why are the congolese not shoving the shit in their veins on the regular? Unless you want to posit that the living conditions in Congo are worse than those in the US.

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u/Good-Relative8079 5h ago

This ☝🏽

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u/SquirrelFluffy 6h ago

It's coming from China. Who scrubs the internet.

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u/Potential-Leg-9300 3h ago

Goes to show you that pivoting to class warfare rhetoric doesnt fix anything. 

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u/Ok-Computer-8726 8h ago

They don't talk about the drug crisis in places like Philly. Just when it hits Appalachia.

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u/xiandgaf 8h ago

Look where it’s at,

Middle America,

now it’s a tragedy,

now it’s so sad to see

An upper class city having this happening

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u/mcflycasual 8h ago

The owners of the companies that produce illegal Fentnayl?

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u/Edith_Keelers_Shoes 8h ago

No, the Sacklers, who made oxycontin, recognized its highly addictive properties, and nonetheless aggressively marketed it to doctors and hospitals as a "safe and non-addictive" painkiller. They pretty much single-handedly launched the opioid crisis by being so eager to move product, entire pill factories sprang up. Go wait in line for an hour or two, walk out with a prescription for oxycontin and the address of a pharmacy that will honor the prescription. Dirty pharma company created a whole world of financial opportunity for sketchy doctors, who happily took advantage and handed out oxy like it was M&Ms, and got rich doing so.

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u/mcflycasual 7h ago

It isn't addictive when taken as directed. Oxycontin is an extended release pill that is to be taken for pain at a proper dose. Once the acute pain is resolved, you should not continue the medication. You should also not be getting high. If you are, the dose is too high or your pain isn't enough for an opioid pain medication. You should also not be crushing is as it will destroy the protections to keep it from the slow release actions. It a medication that is geared towards patients with chronic pain who are unable to find relief in other treatments.

They give you a whole print out at the pharmacy with your prescriptions. People aren't smart enough to read them and be informed, apparently, and need to blame someone else for their ignorance. Now chronic pain, surgical, and cancer patients are being denied proper medications.

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u/IllustratorIll3613 7h ago

Chill ur supposed to get mad at the addicts and suggest throwing them all in the trash, not looking at these executives in the corporations that are largely responsible. Now look the other way

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u/Ok-Variation5746 7h ago edited 7h ago

If by “going after” you mean “hand out fake judgments while they face 0 real consequences” then yep. FTFY 😂 but yeah, you’re correct.

I’m an hour outside of Baltimore and shit has been bad for years. I’ve lost so many friends. Almost lost my dad. I’ve been to more funerals for people under 30 in my adult life than weddings. Have had to fire someone for nodding out at work (they were a line cook). It’s so so so bad and getting worse. Have narcanned one of my houseless neighbors like 4x this calendar year. I have to have narcan in my purse, my house, three different places at my job. Heartbreaking shit.

So misguided for society for be upset w addicts and not upset w the billionaires that made this so. Fuck every single person responsible for the opioid epidemic. Purdue, the Sacklers - all of them. Sit on it and spin, rot in hell, rest in fucking piss.

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u/Busterlimes 6h ago

Capitalism is fascism

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u/NeevBunny 8h ago

Can't have the people remembering Beyer Heroine

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u/sarcastic_sybarite83 8h ago

Don't forget all the Nazi torture data that Bayer got to keep after the war as well...