Ex-DEA agent: Opioid crisis fueled by drug industry and Congress

[TomSea]

Ex-DEA agent: Opioid crisis fueled by drug industry and Congress


JUN 17 Bill Whitaker

In the midst of the worst drug epidemic in American history, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's ability to keep addictive opioids off U.S. streets was derailed, that according to Joe Rannazzisi, one of the most important whistleblowers ever interviewed by 60 Minutes. Rannazzisi ran the DEA's Office of Diversion Control, the division that regulates and investigates the pharmaceutical industry. As we first reported last October, in a joint investigation by 60 Minutes and The Washington Post, Rannazzisi tells the inside story of how, he says, the opioid crisis was allowed to spread aided by Congress, lobbyists, and a drug distribution industry that shipped, almost unchecked, hundreds of millions of pills to rogue pharmacies and pain clinics - providing the rocket fuel for a crisis that, over the last two decades, has claimed more than 200,000 lives.

CBS News

JOE RANNAZZISI: This is an industry that's out of control. What they wanna do, is do what they wanna do, and not worry about what the law is. And if they don't follow the law in drug supply, people die. That's just it. People die.
"This is an industry that allowed millions and millions of drugs to go into bad pharmacies and doctors' offices, that distributed them out to people who had no legitimate need for those drugs."

Read more at: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-ex-dea-agent-opioid-crisis-fueled-by-drug-industry-and-congress/

The article names names as to whom the companies are involved in funneling these drugs to the eventual public

It also names, unfortunately the authors of a bill making this nightmare possible, Blackburn R-TN and Congressman Marino R-(?). President Obama signed it. But it does sound like bad law and maybe they didn't understand what they were creating, members of congress obviously voted for it. Per the article, the DOJ has instructed congress to rewrite the bill, they haven't yet.

[Suppressed]

Tom Marino is R-PA.

[Drago]

Majority is Medicaid & Medicare fraud?  Incomplete "spin" reporting by CBS: "shady pill mills -- pain clinics with rogue doctors to write fraudulent prescriptions and complicit pharmacists to fill them...".  Cutting out the "freebies" might reduce the problem by 80+%?

[goodwithagun]

Hmm. To which campaigns has the maker of Narcan donated?

[goodwithagun]

As a follow up, why is Narcan administered by first responders for free while the Epipen is not? Second follow up, why is consent required by first responders for epinephrine but not for overdose reversal meds?

[mountaineer]

Is it a congressman or a Pfizer exec who holds down the druggie and forces the pills into his mouth?

[Sanguine]

As a follow up, why is Narcan administered by first responders for free while the Epipen is not? Second follow up, why is consent required by first responders for epinephrine but not for overdose reversal meds?

Because when Narcan is administered, the patient is not in a condition to give informed consent and will probably die without intervention.   Also, the people who usually have Narcan administered are not often the type of people who can pay, but even so, I think they are usually billed for it.

[Sanguine]

Is it a congressman or a Pfizer exec who holds down the druggie and forces the pills into his mouth?

I've heard they usually work together, since the victim tends to resist so hard.

[Frank Cannon]

Joe Rannazzisi, one of the most important whistleblowers ever interviewed by 60 Minutes.

Yeah cBS. So important that you neglected this loudmouth for a year while he has been going off on this bullshit.

BTW cBS. Are you going to tell your viewers that the reason this guy became a full time whistle blower is because he was canned and he is bitter about it?