By John Rappoport
PBS Frontline, 2016:
"The opioid epidemic has been called the worst drug crisis in American
history...with overdoses from heroin and other opioids now killing more than 27,000
people a year..." (Note: prescription opioids are now a very significant
gateway-drug leading addicts into heroin.)
CBS News:
"Nearly 92 million U.S. adults, or about 38 percent of the population,
took a legitimately prescribed opioid like OxyContin or Percocet in 2015,
according to results from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health."
On the condition of
anonymity, an insider with intimate knowledge of the opioid crime network spoke
with me. He is not a participant or a criminal. He has spent years exposing the
network.
My initial question
to him was prompted by the current Washington Post series on collusion between
members of Congress and the drug industry. The collusion has produced a new law
that makes it much harder for the US DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) to
shut down major opioid traffickers. (That law is the Ensuring Patient Access
and Effective Drug Enforcement Act, signed by President Obama on 4/9/16.)
My question was: how
could a corrupt little pharmacy or medical clinic in a small town, in the
middle of nowhere, sell, as reported, a MILLION opioid pills a year?
Here is the answer my
source confirmed: a criminal doctor or doctors are writing 75-100 opioid
prescriptions a day like clockwork; "patients" are flooding in from
all over the country (many of them flying in once a month); they are sold the
opioid prescriptions, and either fill them right there in the clinic, or take
them to a friendly pharmacy.
These patients are
actually dealers. They return home and sell the pills to addicts.
Where do the small
clinics and pharmacies obtain the huge number of opioid pills? From
distributors. These are legitimate companies. They may distribute all sorts of
medicines. It's their business. They know they are committing egregious crimes.
Where do these big
distributors obtain their opioid pills? From pharmaceutical companies who
manufacture them.
The manufacturers and
the distributors have an ongoing relationship. They know exactly what they're
doing. They know the bulk of the product is going into "street
sales."
The distributors and
the manufacturers are drug traffickers.
There is no doubt
about this. No one is "making a mistake." No one is in the dark. No
one is being fooled.
When the DEA tries to
clamp down on opioid manufacturers, this is not a sudden action, as some
manufacturers try to claim. The DEA has already made several prior visits and
has tried to convince the manufacturers to stop what they're doing---to no
avail.
I suggested to my
source that the opioid distributors and their suppliers, the manufacturers,
have a "nudge and a wink" relationship. He quickly told me it was far
more than that. He left no doubt in my mind that these relationships are
undertaken and maintained with full knowledge about the trafficking enterprise
these partners are engaged in.
He pointed out that
the 2016 law referenced above, passed by Congress---with most of the members
completely unware of what they were voting for---radically changed the
conditions under which the DEA could immediately freeze huge and obviously
criminal shipments of opioids. It's not a slam-dunk anymore. Far from it.
Before imposing a
freeze, instead of simply showing that the (criminal) shipment poses an
IMMINENT threat of death or grave harm to users, the Agency now has to
demonstrate there is an IMMEDIATE threat.
This word game means
the DEA must establish that people could die, not next week or next month
(imminent), but "right now" (immediate). If this seems logically
absurd and intentionally perverse, it is. Obviously, "immediate" is
designed to give rise to back and forth debate, legalistic challenges, long
postponements---and ultimately a straitjacket preventing decisive actions
against opioid distributors and manufacturers.
The Washington Post
reached out to Obama, who signed the 2016 law, and his then Attorney General,
Loretta Lynch, the highest law-enforcement officer in the nation. The DEA is
organized under the Attorney General and the Dept. of Justice.
Both Obama and Lynch
"declined" to discuss the law. Naturally.
Who played a central
role in crafting the law and pushing it through Congress?
The Post:
"Deeply involved in the effort to help the [drug] industry was the
DEA'sformer associate chief counsel, D. Linden Barber. While at the
DEA, he helped design and carry out the early stages of the agency's tough
enforcementcampaign, which targeted drug companies that were failing to report
suspicious orders of narcotics."
What?
Barber worked against
the drug industry while employed by the DEA, and then he left the Agency and
turned around and attacked it.
The Post: "When
Barber went to work for the drug industry [he now works for Cardinal Health],
in 2011, he brought an intimate knowledge of the DEA's strategy and how it
could be attacked to protect the [drug] companies. He was one of dozens of DEA
officials recruited by the drug industry during the past decade."
"Barber played a
key role in crafting an early version of the legislation [the 2016 law] that
would eventually curtail the DEA's power, according to an internal email
written by a Justice Department official to a colleague. 'He [Barber] wrote
the...bill," the official wrote in 2014."
The opioid crime
network extends to Congress, former (if not present) DEA employees,
medical-drug distribution companies, and pharmaceutical manufacturers.
It then includes
medical clinics and pharmacies and prescription-writing doctors.
The murderous network
is addicting, maiming, and killing Americans in huge numbers.
No comments:
Post a Comment