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.OXYCONTIN
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God damn the pusher.”— Steppenwolfby Linda Gardiner-Methot on Tuesday, May 22, 2007 at 1:40pm
Column: Guiliani and OxyContin
By Don McNay
RICHMOND REGISTER (RICHMOND, Ky.)
RICHMOND, Ky. — “Well, now if I were the President of this land
You know, I’d declare total war on the pusher man.
God damn the pusher.”
— Steppenwolf
Rudolph Giuliani wants to be president of the United States. He claims to be
tough on criminals.
In some cases, he is — unless the criminals hire him to be their lawyer.
The people who make OxyContin did something horrible: They sold a drug they
knew was addictive and acted like it wasn’t.
I thought the makers of OxyContin got off easy when they agreed to a $600
million fine. Three of their top executives paid an additional $34 million.
No jail time.
It was a wimpy settlement with a company that sold more than $9 billion of
OxyContin.
The reason for the government’s light touch was found in The Washington
Post. Rudolph Giuliani was a lawyer for the company that makes OxyContin.
The Post said that Giuliani personally met with government lawyers more than
half a dozen times.
The story gets more outrageous if you read the “The Blotter” blog by Brian
Ross of ABC News. Ross said Giuliani and his team have advised OxyContin’s
makers for the past five years.
According to Ross, Giuliani personally met with the head of the federal Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) when the DEA’s drug diversion office began
a criminal investigation into the company.
No wonder the OxyContin people got a sweetheart deal: Giuliani is not a guy
government bureaucrats want to mess with.
Imagine yourself as a government official and Rudolph Giuliani walks in to
negotiate with you. There is a very good chance Giuliani could soon be
president of the United States.
That means you are sitting across the table from a guy who might be your
boss.
If a front-runner for president of the United States wants a good deal, you
are going to think hard before you say no.
The OxyContin makers may not have strong morals, but they do have brains.
They hired one of the best lawyers money could buy.
The irony is that the old Rudolph Giuliani would have loved to have gone
after the OxyContin makers.
Rudy got his start as a federal prosecutor and liked to go after
white-collar types.
Here was the perfect situation for the old Rudy. You had a company that knew
its drug would make people addicts. The company officers devised a plan to
market OxyContin to as many people as possible.
The old Rudy would have shut down the company and thrown all the officers in
jail.
The new Rudy cut his clients a sweet deal. No one will spend a day in jail.
The federal government considered the crime to be a misdemeanor such as
noodling. Prosecutors are beating their chest about a $600 million fine that
is only about 6 percent of OxyContin total sales.
That $600 million is just a cost of doing business. It won’t even hurt the
company’s stock price.
Only $130 million was set aside for the claims of victims. That sounds
incredibly low. Everyone who went to the doctor for a bad back and came out
a drug addict has a claim. There are thousands of people addicted to
OxyContin, and hundreds died.
When you see roundups of street dealers, many are addicts trying to feed
their addiction. Many of those addictions wouldn’t have happened if
Giuliani’s clients had not been greedy, reckless and stupid.
A better punishment would be to make the company execs take their own
product for a couple months and then kick the habit in a county jail cell.
It would give them an idea of what really happened.
The Steppenwolf song “The Pusher” is a graphic depiction of someone
addicted. The character wants the president of the United States to declare
war on pushers. That doesn’t just mean rounding up junkies and street
dealers. It means doing something about big pharmaceutical companies, too.
Giuliani is not the president to make that happen.
When the OxyContin people go to meet their maker, I hope that the response
they get is, “God damn the pusher.” It would make up for the government
letting them off the hook.
Don McNay writes for the Richmond (Ky.) Register. You can write to him at
don@donmcnay.com.
RICHMOND, Ky. — “Well, now if I were the President of this land
You know, I’d declare total war on the pusher man.
God damn the pusher.”
— Steppenwolf
Jan-10-2011 01:01
University of Toronto Kicks Purdue Pharma out of Pain Class
Marianne Skolek Salem-News.com
Medical students at the University of Toronto were provided a book on managing chronic pain that was funded and copyrighted by the maker of the highly addictive narcotic, OxyContin - Purdue Pharma
The physicians who brought the matter forward are both wih the St. Michael's Hospital; a University of Toronto teaching hospital. Photo courtesy: nesthesia.utoronto.ca
(MYRTLE BEACH, S.C.) - The drug industry's perceived role in a pain management course for medical students at the the University of Toronto, has led to a complaint, and a revamp in the school's pain management course curriculum.
Socially disadvantaged Ontarians being prescribed opioids on an ongoing basis and at doses that far exceed Canadian guidelines
A St. John's pharmacist who is accused of trafficking the drugs she used to handle at a downtown drugstore wept openly during a brief court proceeding Thursday.
Ann Marie Burke, 54, was taken into custody Tuesday on charges of drug possession and trafficking, following a year-long police investigation.
When her case was called in provincial court Thursday, Burke cried uncontrollably in the dock. The court remanded her to custody again, pending a bail hearing scheduled for Jan. 26.
Burke, who faces six charges related to the possession or trafficking of controlled substances that include the painkillers OxyContin and Percocet, worked at Downtown Pharmacy on Water Street, and had been involved in dispensing methadone to narcotics addicts.
Heroin on the Bay
Local law enforcement and drug treatment officials said a recent influx of heroin in the area is connected to the prescription medication Oxycontin.
The sources included Toby Floyd, director of SCINT, an official at a North Bend drug treatment center and the Coos County District Attorney.
Pill poppers have turned increasingly to the cheaper street drug since fall 2010, Floyd said.
A tenth of a gram sells for $25 to $30, where as an Oxycontin tablet costs $60 to $80.
'Oxycontin has always been known as heroin's second cousin," Floyd said.
'It creates pretty much the same high."
Pills harder to abuse
Plus, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in an effort to prevent Oxycontin abuse, approved a change to the medication last year that made it difficult to cut, crush or chew the controlled-release pills to free more of the drug at once.
Approximately six months after that decision, SCINT detectives began arresting people on heroin charges.
'Every person that we've spoken to (who is) currently involved in heroin said they didn't start by using heroin," Floyd said.
'They started by using Oxycontin."
“This issue is impacting every city, every small town right across Alberta if not Canada,” he said.
“We’re seeing a proliferation of more drug trafficking and also possession use and weapons relative to this industry. It’s an issue we have to deal with.”
The drug bust resulted from an investigation that lasted for more than three months. Phone calls from concerned residents assisted the RCMP in their investigation.
Please share this with all your friends and encourage them to share with all their friends. The tide is finally beginning to turn. These videos have been prepared by doctors and scientists. This is so important ..... make it go viral.....everyone should know the truth! Help save lives!
In memory of all those we've lost but not forgotten!
Thank you!
Apparently there was a METHADONE DR in the same Building my Sons Doctor was in who was prescribing him over 500mgs a day plus OXY IR & Supedol and all she got was a slap on the wrist.
CPSO should all be ashamed!
She could have helped him instead she sentenced My Beautiful Son to DEATH!
OXYCONTIN KILLS
CHAD GREGORY GARDINER
MAY 7th 1978-MAY 28th 2004
TROIS-RIVIERES, Quebec /eNewsChannels/ — In an addict’s view, the differences between Heroin addiction and OxyContin addiction are virtually non-existent, reports JF Dubreuil of Narconon Trois-Rivieres. Both heroin and OxyContin are semi-synthetic opioid drugs derived from the opium poppy. OxyContin is basically oxycodone – derived from the alkaloid thebaine of the opium poppy, and heroin is diacetylmorphine, derived from morphine, from the opium poppy. Both are CNS (central nervous system) depressants, opioid analgesics. Both are highly addictive, with tolerance and dependence. With both heroin and OxyContin it is easy to overdose. Users all have different views as to which is the most addictive, or the hardest to withdraw from.
"The folks we're dealing with, both in drug trafficking and terrorist activities, are not stupid," said James Burns, who directs Drug Enforcement Administration operations along the New York-Canada border. "We don't want to have anybody exploit a weak point."
http://www.startribune.com/nation/116166019.html
AP Enterprise: Drug smugglers, US battle on frozen river amid northern border security debate
By CHRIS HAWLEY , Associated Press
Last update: February 14, 2011 - 9:54 PM
"I think the problem is bigger than most people realize," said Sgt. James Morton, "not just in around the Yorkton-Kamsack area. It's all across Canada right now
MY EXACT WORDS WHEN CHAD DIED, I THINK THE PROBLEM IS BIGGER THAN WE CAN IMAGINE!
There is more evidence of the apparent dark side of Canadians’ increasing reliance on powerful, opioid painkillers. Much has been written about the street use of the pills and resulting overdoses. A new study underlines that problems appear to occur also when patients are under a doctor’s supervision. It found that legal use of such drugs, especially OxyContin, has risen significantly among social assistance recipients who are part of Ontario’s drug-benefit program, that the doses often exceed the recommended amount and that there seems to be an elevated death rate linked to those prescriptions.
Oxycodone is a prescription opioid painkiller, and in its slow-release form, sold as “OxyContin,” it can combat pain for about 12 hours. It was originally thought that the slow-release version would lower the risk of abuse. But once users realized it could be chewed or crushed to release the full dose all at once – up to 16 times what’s contained in other prescription oxycodone painkillers – its dangers became obvious.
