Crisis or Conspiracy? –
Sept. 9, 2019 – by Ryan Hampton. As we move forward and seek justice for the families and survivors of the drug epidemic, we have to remember that people with substance use disorder are people, too. We must connect every single settlement, verdict, or bankruptcy asset to ending the crisis. We don’t need to reinvent recovery: we have resources and proven pathways that will save lives. We don’t have a single day to waste.
The real “nuisance” is Big Pharma’s unwillingness to clean up the wreckage they caused. If these lawsuits inconvenience them, they’re welcome to join me and hundreds of thousands of others at the graves of the people they killed. Broken families are not an “inconvenience.” When we talk about the addiction crisis, we’re talking about millions of people — real hurt, real pain, and real loss. We can never lose sight of that. Human lives are not litter. We are people, and we deserve compassion and solutions that work.
Ryan Hampton is an activist in recovery from heroin addiction and author of “American Fix: Inside the Opioid Addiction Crisis — and How to End It.” He is also the founder of the non-profit advocacy organization The Voices Project.
