A great American plutocratic capitalist family, the Sacklers

Poster children for the plutocratic capitalistic system Republicans serve. They owned the drug company Purdue, makers of drugs including Oxycontin.

And what's wrong with that? Oxycontin is a pain reliever, that has relieved suffering for many people. They sold it and made a profit. What's the problem?

Well, a little problem is when drug company meets opportunity meets plutocratic capitalistic system. It's far MORE profitable if they breaks laws and regulations to sell MORE profitable product. The only problem are the thousands of people it kills, but they get rich.

Way back in 2007, Purdue reached a "plea deal with the Justice Department to pay a $600 million penalty on a felony charge of misleading and defrauding physicians and consumers over the prescription opioid OxyContin."

That should solve it, right? Today, they reached an agreement to pay $8 billion, after the company pled guilty to "violating federal anti-kickback laws, as it paid doctors ostensibly to write more opioid prescriptions." Because of course they did. Why WOULDN'T they illegally pay doctors to overprescribe and increase their profits, when it makes money?

For over a decade, this family has largely created the opioid crisis, while profiting, knowingly causing the harm, breaking laws to increase the harm and their profits. From 2008 to 2018, after their 2007 pleas agreement, they took over $10 billion out of the company and put it in trust funds and holding companies. They got rich from their crimes. American heroes of the plutocratic capitalists.

But at least, the government worked a little, after over a decade, after hundreds of thousands of Americans killed, it finally got a big fine, and is taking over the company to have it serve the public better, right?

Well, local and state governments have sued for $2 trillion for damages from the crisis. So, no, the fine doesn't really do the harm justice, as if money could pay for lives anyway. Arizona sued to stop the family from emptying the company of funds and preventing it from paying fines; the Supreme Court refused the case last week.

" "This settlement provides a mere mirage of justice for the victims of Purdue's callous misconduct," said Connecticut Attorney General William Tong. "The federal government had the power here to put the Sacklers in jail, and they didn't. Instead, they took fines and penalties that Purdue likely will never fully pay." "

So, that's our system. Find an opportunity for a drug to addict people that is profitable, use the healthcare system criminally to addict millions and kill hundreds of thousands, pay off doctors and other crimes, make over $10 billion over more than a decade, and get away.

Plutocratic capitalism. And they're heroes of it.

The problem here, as with much of big pharma, is the profits are so large in relation to the penalties, that it makes business sense to break the law, pay the penalties, and enjoy the profits. The penalties become part of the (very successful!) business model.

As long as there's no substantive fear of prison, the officers will continue this trajectory.

Yeah, corporations will not care about the lawsuits, that's small money to pay off, compared to the big money they made by endangering people. They will just keep doing it.

That's why those young, attractive, overly-dressed drug pushers pull those rolling suitcases behind them when the visit your doctor's office. It's not for drugs. Except for some samples, you doctor isn't a pharmacy.

It's to carry the cash.

Since corporations demand to be treated like people, take them at their word. Charge Purdue with the tens of thousands of murders its caused and then "execute" the corporation when it's convicted. Strip the company of all of its patents and profits and release their entire database of intellectual property to the public.

Then do this with every corporation that does anything similar.