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 dose, 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.
Britain’s biggest supermarket retailer has 3,627 stores nationwide, with almost 50 million shopping trips a week, and a turnover of £57 billion a year. It’s a company that’s been part of British life for over a century. But the tale of this retail giant is one of high stake risks, game-changing innovations and fierce rivalries. And it all began with a barrow boy. Inside Tesco: 24/7 I, Channel 4 2020
Key workers in retail kept going throughout lockdown. But with up to 50,000 employees or isolating, the business was short one sixth of their staff … It’s the largest private employer in the country. ibid.
The man behind all things Tesco was Jack Cohen … ‘I started as you know in the street markets of London’ … By 1971 Jack Cohen was a business legend. ibid.
Alistair manages a store with 550 employees … The jobs done by people working with customers are critical. Inside Tesco: 24/7 II
It would take a retail revolution and the birth of the modern supermarket to turn things around at Tesco. ibid.
Tesco is the biggest of the Big Four supermarkets ahead of Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrison’s. ibid.
Art is making something out of nothing, and selling it. Frank Zappa
Special Sale: Defining British Art: ‘No more than thirty lots … A very British sale. So the ask was a big one.’ Sold! Inside the World’s Biggest Auction House II, Jussi
Amazon: The world’s biggest only retailer. Their founder is one of the richest men on the planet. The Great Amazon Heist, Channel 4 2023
Amazon patented cages for workers to work in in 2016. ibid.
For a while now trouble has been brewing between Amazon and sections of its workforce. And it was all coming to a head here. Coventry. ibid.
Amazon has reacted pretty badly to workers trying to form a union in the past. ibid.
They didn’t really trust their own staff at all. ibid.
It felt like we were being surveilled at every second. ibid.
‘I got back pain we well. Standing for 10 hours.’ ibid. Employee
Amazon was hotter on surveillance than health and safety. ibid.
Amazon are flooding the world with piss [bottles ejected by drivers] ibid.
Amazon don’t actually pay much tax. ibid.