Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - Opioids III: The Sacklers

[Rhiannon12866]

John Oliver explains how the Sackler family has been handling lawsuits related to the opioid crisis, how hard they’ve been fighting to defend their name, and why you should judge the situation for yourself. Aired on 08/08/2020.

[TexasTowelie]

1. You get the preliminary K&R before I even watch the episode.

The last time I looked at West Virginia sites was on Tuesday of last week and it looked the trial was in closing arguments so I checked again and there is no further news.

I've posted a couple of threads about the trial in the West Virginia Group for those who are interested.

[Rhiannon12866]

3. Thanks! This is one of JO's signature topics, he's invested 3 shows in it, followed this closely

And there is a serious opioid crisis in this country, made worse by greedy scum like the Sacklers and the Covid crisis which has taken attention away from treatment and people are still dying.

And kudos to you for focusing on the state issues/news, many of which get far too little attention around here. There are times I'll see a thread in another forum which names a city, but not the state. I try to post New York news in the state forum - like the extremely important effort to replace the odious Stefanik. I had a chat with my Dad's cousin last night, another lifelong Democrat who's paying attention (she's 89!). She's heard of Bridie Farrell from Saratoga, but not Matthew Putorti from Whitehall so I filled her in. And the cool thing about both candidates, they're actually from those places which are not all that far away - unlike Stefanik who changes her "hometown" every other week...

[Phil the Kilibuster]

2. Sacklers of Shit

I hope this issue receives enough sunlight to get their filthy, blood-stained name taken off of buildings and wings!

[Rhiannon12866]

4. Thanks!

And I couldn't agree more!

[multigraincracker]

5. K&R because it reminds me of John Sinclair.

Back in the 70s he got 10 years for 2 joints.

[Rhiannon12866]

6. Thanks for bringing this up, I hadn't known about it so I looked it up

Agreed, certainly excessive by any standards, but thanks to the attention he received because of the protests, he was released when the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the state's marijuana statutes were unconstitutional.

[multigraincracker]

7. John was the leader of the White Panther Party back then and

the Powers that be couldn't stand him. Thanks to John and Yoko for help bringing it to the world outside of Ann Arbor.

[Rhiannon12866]

8. Thanks! I see that now.

And apparently Abbie Hoffman got into it with Pete Townsend of The Who when he jumped on the stage during their performance at Woodstock and grabbed the microphone to shout to the crowd about Sinclair. And yes, credit is due to John and Yoko for the national attention. What great friends to have!

[Warpy]

9. It was a perfect storm of greedy assholes, doctors with a huge gap in their education,

and ridiculously punitive drug law. Oliver covered the greedy assholes well. What he missed were the doctors who knew how to prescribe opiates but neither the pitfalls of long acing opiates for acute pain nor the proper way to taper an opiate dependent patient off the drugs. There there's the DEA, who lean on the few doctors who do know how to taper the drugs, saying the doctors are prescribing too many drugs. Too many drugs? What medical school did those DEA thugs go to?

The Sacklers were greedheads and they need to face some serious consequences. However, they had help.