#65: The Era of Big Pharma Settlements

Big Pharma opioid settlements already total billions-of-dollars.  In this episode, I talk about why the government is really after that money, and what these settlements mean for the war on drugs. I also introduce topics which I will cover with Christine Minhee when she comes on the show to unpack her work at opioidsettlementtracker.com. In this episode, I also discuss the "systems, not people" aspect of the so-called opioid epidemic, and how the design of the drug war ensured everything that has happened would eventually happen . . . and that when it did, we would be able to pretend we hadn't seen it coming all along. I also discuss the war on drugs as a funding scam—as a way to trade the lives and wellbeing of drug users for the salaries of well paid warriors and the web of employees who support them for decades to come, all while simultaneously ensuring Big Pharma can not offer safe drugs to users who will instead be forced to the underworld market, where they will inevitably use unsafe drugs and accidently overdose, by design.  I also introduce Civil Asset Forfeiture, and I explain how pharma made oxycodone and fentanyl—drugs that were almost a century old—appear to be brand new. Plus CDC overdose numbers and why they are consistently exaggerated. Support the show