Johnson & Johnson also genetically altered the nature of the plant to create a super-poppy … Soon 74,000 acres of Tasmania were devoted to opium. ibid.
Blinn was taking the equivalent of 200 hits of heroin a day. He kept the prescription bottle for 20 years because he felt something was not right. ibid.
A nationwide criminal conspiracy that included Fraud, Pills Mills, doctors trading drugs for sex, false statements to Congress, and attempts to target key officials of the Bush administration … The FDA was used to falsely and fraudulently market Oxycontin. ibid.
None of them would spend a day in prison. ibid.
Lifetree Pain Clinic prescription: 60 x Amitriptyline 50mg; 30 x Celexa 40mg; 224 x Oxycodone 30mg; 112 Percocet 10/325mg; 60 x Requip 1mg; 60 x Xanax 1mg; 60 x Zanaflex 4mg. ibid.
Starting in 2013, a powerful synthetic opioid surged in popularity: Fentanyl. It’s a 100 times more powerful than morphine. Rather than reckoning with its dangers, companies sold it as aggressively as drug cartels. But instead of gun-toting dealers on street corners, men and women in suits and lab coats pushed opioids and cash bonuses and power-point presentations at pain management jamborees. Flush with campaign cash from Big Pharma, Congress would look the other way. ibid.
‘40 people every day die from Prescription overdoses.’ Alex Gibney, The Crime of the Century II ***** news
‘The opioid crisis started with prescriptions, prescriptions and patient care. This idea that we weren’t adequately treating pain. Drugs like Oxycontin … Began to preach the gospel of the opioid … they developed new medical terms like pseudo-addiction … As you get stronger drugs, it’s more expensive. ibid. Joe Rannazzisi, insider whistleblower gives evidence
Fentanyl byproducts is killing a lot of people … It was a natural progression … Overdose deaths is under-reported, we know that for sure so we don’t know really how many people died. We started seeing massive amounts of death … prescriptions: 250 million. ibid.
An onslaught of pills, hundreds of thousands of deaths. Who is accountable? ibid. The Washington Post online article 20 July 2019
Some of America’s biggest pharmaceuticals were not only profiting from the opioid crisis, they may have been manufacturing it. ibid.
We have had many run-ins with the Sacklers lately. The crisis began when Oxycontin hit the streets. Their main point of contention is that they did not ignore the opioid crisis single-handedly. Whether you believe that or don’t believe that, there is voluminous evidence the crisis began when Oxycontin hit the streets. Purdue [Pharma] led the charge. ibid. Bernstein, Washington Post
Generic versions … sending massive amounts of these drugs downstream because there were corrupt doctors all over the country. It became like the Wild West. This was a new drug cartel that was being established in the United States. But instead of coming in from a foreign country, they were drug dealers who were wearing suits and lab-coats. ibid.
A patient survey form. You say, I got back pain. The problem is that no-one ever saw the patient. As long as they have any kind of credit card they were fine. You’d have a doctor on the east coast, a patient and drug seeker on the west coast, the pharmacy was in the mid-west. It was just a trafficking organisation that was hiding behind the veil of the internet. ibid.
Broward County has more pill-mills (142) than McDonald’s. ibid.
Superior Injury Centre 870-6370. ibid.
There was one store in particular that was known by drug dealers as the go-to: CVS Pharmacy. ibid.
In 2011 there was a crack-down by the DEA. Operation Pill Nation involved more than 500 law-enforcement officers resulting in seizures of 7 vehicles, $19 million in cash and 105 arrests. ibid.
But the real problem wasn’t on the street. It was in the Executive Suites of pharmaceutical companies which had become addicted to the profits opioids could deliver. ibid.
Workers disciplined in Prozac mailings: At least one Lilly’s employee fired; seven face various other measures. ibid.
The product was Act-Tiv. It was a lolly-pop made of Fentanyl whose potency carried the enormous risk of overdose. ibid.
They start paying exorbitantly, a huge number of speaker programs, and they use the speaker program basically as a way of cover for the bribes they are paying. ibid. whistleblower
Clearly we’re breaking the law. ibid.
CVS Pharmacy: on the edge of a highway, so people would cruise in, get their drugs, and be out in no time at all. ibid.
I know they’re sick like me. Gotta be number one. ibid.
These changes are good to one way of thinking in the sense that they make it harder to buy and abuse pharmaceutical opioids. But what that does is it drives all these people who are already addicted on to the black market. ibid.
International drug cartels catered to those who had become addicted to prescription pills. As their need for narcotics increased and doctors were more reluctant to prescribe an increasing doses, users turned to heroin, and a synthetic opioid fifty times more powerful: Fentanyl. ibid.
Since 2015, Fentanyl overdoses have been rising dramatically. Rates have soared by 2000% in San Diego. ibid.
The company told me nothing ever. ibid. whistleblower
Late in 2020 the Trump administration rushed to make an announcement for the presidential election. Pleading guilty to three felony counts. The Sackler family would pay a $225 million fine. Purdue Pharma would plead guilt to kickbacks and fraud. And promise to pay fines totalling $8.3 billion. ibid.
Purdue is in bankruptcy and only has about $1 billion which a whole bunch of creditors are already fighting over. That money is never going to be paid by the company or anybody else. ibid.
A cruel irony: the only way the company could pay damages was to increase its sales of drugs, including Oxycontin. ibid.
Five years ago almost no-one had heard of it. Today it’s a household name: Fentanyl. Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller s1e1: World’s Deadliest Painkiller, National Geographic 2020
Fentanyl is the most dangerous drug in America. And much of it comes from right here in Sinaloa in Mexico. ibid.
Fentanyl was first created in Belgium in 1960. It was designed for use in surgery and to treat the most severe forms of pain. ibid.
Fentanyl: This is the most dangerous drug in America … I had done my research and I knew that people who work in these labs die very often. Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller s1e9: Shining a Light
Where journalism should truly lie is in shining a light in worlds we know little about. ibid.
The Snells – they spiked our dope with Fentanyl. Ozark s2e8: The Big Sleep, Mob lawyer, Netflix 2018
For the last decade both Canada and the US have been ravaged by an overdose crisis largely fuelled by the synthetic opioid Fentanyl. Beyond Fentanyl, Youtube 41.46, Vice TV 2022
In January[2022], Benzos were detected in half of fatal overdoses. ibid.
Fentanyl cut with Xylazine is called Tranq or tranq dope. ibid.
‘The painkiller Fentanyl is now the number one killer drug in the US’. 10 Dollar Death Trip: Inside the Fentanyl Crisis, news, 2020
Fentanyl is stronger, cheaper and much less bulky to import. ibid.
Fentanyl has become normalised in downtown east side [Vancouver]. ibid.
The more it devastates this little community, the more people seek solace in its arms. ibid.
The guy that leads this time says that they go on at least 250 calls like this every single month … They brought down this person’s body. Poisoned Pill: San Diego’s Battle With the Fentanyl Crisis, 2023
San Diego county has become a national epicentre for Fentanyl trafficking, and seizures of this dangerous opioid at the border continue to spike. ibid.
And now there are rainbow coloured pills being made to look like candy to entice teens and a younger demographic. ibid.
But Fentanyl does not always come in a pill form; it’s a substance that’s being mixed with just about every drug. ibid.
Fentanyl, an opioid, is now the leading cause of death for young adults. ibid.
In 2015, 9,580 people died form a Fentanyl overdose in the United States. That number surged to 36,359 in 2019. 3,040 of those deaths were people 15 to 24 years old. Communities all over the country are now facing a crisis they never knew existed. Killer High: The Silent Crisis, captions, ABC 2021
‘Fentanyl is made in the lab. There’s nothing natural about I.’ ibid.
‘This opioid which is far more powerful than morphine or heroin is being found in a contaminated pill supply in the whole of the United States.’ ibid.
The Fentanyl Overdose Resolution Team (FORT) is a multi-agency taskforce that responds exclusively to Fentanyl-related overdoses in Fresno County. It’s only one of two such teams in the state of California. ibid.