OPINION: By Ryan Hampton –
July 30, 2019 – During that six-year period, parallel to El Chapo’s reign, pharmaceutical companies earned billions from manufacturing, distributing, and weaponizing the American medicine cabinet with narcotics. These drugs don’t arrive by mule; they’re prescribed by doctors, come in plastic containers, and can be just as addictive as heroin. They did it in plain view, without tunnels or guns, and legally in the eyes of the government. An effective drug distribution network of pharmacies, manufacturing companies, and doctors pushed billions of these pills into American communities every year. Only six companies distributed 75 percent of the pills during this period: McKesson Corp., Walgreens, Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, CVS, and Walmart. And three companies manufactured 88 percent of the opioids: SpecGx, a subsidiary of Mallinckrodt; Actavis Pharma; and Par Pharmaceutical, a subsidiary of Endo Pharmaceuticals. These companies have become the kingpins of the American drug epidemic. The only difference between them and El Chapo’s syndicate is that the people pulling the strings have 401Ks and corner offices.
It seems we’re not prosecuting corporations or their executives because they don’t neatly fit our idea of a perpetrator like El Chapo. But when 200,000 Americans have died from overdoses related to prescription opioids, basic principles of justice demand we take a hard line with the people and organizations who’ve fueled this current public health crisis.
