[refurb]

Considering nobody can get these drugs unless a physician prescribes them, when are we going to see a wholesale round up of doctors?

So far it’s been a few high profile cases, but obviously the problem runs deeper than that.

And J&J is by no means a major opioid manufacturer. As the article states, their drugs were less than 1% of all prescription opioids.

I think J&J got hit because they have deep pockets.

[Scoundreller]

> And J&J is by no means a major opioid manufacturer

The had the non-hospital fentanyl market cornered for a while. Their patches were only for chronic use by patients already tolerant to opioids.

Even if they had less than 1% of the market, they would have had a much larger proportion of the high-dose market, where mortality risk ramps up.

[shortandsweet]

Doctors already are being rounded up. That's like going after the atreet dealer. Have to go for the head.

[aphextim]

You can arrest the dealers all you want, but to actually stop the problem you need to stop the suppliers/cartel.

[joering2]

They are scapegoats. I just read majority of case files - there is not much of a proof that JJ did anything more than what law allowed them to do! Tune as old as Congress itself - you think a corporation acts immorally? Change the damn law! Don’t expect for-profit corporation to have a soul.

Finally - the reasoning here should he similar to gun and a murderer. If guns don’t pull triggers but people do, then similarily here only responsible people should be these that abused said drug, especially when it was manufactured and sold accordingly with laws and doctor’s prescription.

[ceejayoz]

Guns are a public policy aberration in this regard.

Lawn darts killed one kid and got banned. Cars got forced to be safer with seat belts and airbags, with the industry kicking and screaming throughout.

[Zenst]

You right and to contextualise this - do gun shops who sold the guns that did the crime make them as guilty when the gun shop followed the law. Case with most (sure some exceptions) Doctors, they prescribe the drugs, the patient abused them or what has transpired is the patient did what the doctor said, just couldn't get off those drugs and that is were doctors may well be foul. Equally they may not have the tools or resources to cater for such instances. After all addiction treatment is often a waiting list a World away for many in that position.

But would banning opioids have more positive than negative - who knows. Hence your gun analogy fits this situation perfectly. Though some would say banning guns would be easier than banning opioids.

Equally most things banned, end up shifting them into criminal distribution and quality. Though I've yet to find a lawn dart dealer, I dare say that somebody somewhere sells them illegally - nature of banning something alas. Hmm, just had a quick look and Amazon has many lawn darts for sale :(.

[ceejayoz]

> do gun shops who sold the guns that did the crime make them as guilty when the gun shop followed the law

That depends. We had a case locally where a shop was repeatedly robbed, made little effort to improve security, and wound up shut down for it.

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2018/08/16/d...

> As a result, MCSO investigators obtained a court order to close down the business and take control of its inventory, which Baxter described as "hundreds of guns and pallets of ammunition."

> "For more than a decade, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office has attempted to work with the owner to improve security for his facility, Baxter said.

For clarity: Metal-tipped lawn darts were banned. You can get a foam Nerf one now, sure.

[Zenst]

Ah I looked at the UK site: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unibos-Garden-Outdoor-Family-Tradit...

Thought they were banned in the UK as well, seems not so...yet.

[edit add] https://www.crowndarts.com/ sells them (metal tips) and will ship to the USA and Canada! that was just a quick look, so guarantee more avenues to procure them.

[megablast]

Cars kill 40,000 people every year in the USA. Nothing is done about that number.

[Reason077]

> "Cars kill 40,000 people every year in the USA. Nothing is done about that number."

Nothing? Much has been done and continues to be done to make roads and cars safer. US road deaths, per population, have fallen by almost 2/3 since their peak in 1969. By miles travelled, deaths have fallen almost 80% since the 1960s.

This has largely been a result of regulation, including:

- Standardized crash testing

- Compulsory seatbelts

- Compulsory electronic traction/stability control

- Compulsory airbags

etc

Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) is currently in the process of being adopted, and will be fitted in all new US passenger vehicles by 2022. Further significant improvements from things like lane keeping and self driving technologies can be expected in the coming years/decades.

[AstralStorm]

Things are being done, but the most effective one would be to reduce speeds and number of cars.

Since USA is big distances, 1 has strong opposition, and 2 even stronger.

They could also make the drivers license short time, like 2 years requiring a refresh exam, but that'd be a real pain in the rear.

You could mandate built in breathalyzers, but they would routinly be failing or bypassed... Though it's a good attempt.

Ultimately getting rid of reducing number of unsafe human drivers would be good.

[JoeAltmaier]

Bypassed? Unlikely. Breathalyzers are all about tamper-detection. If you know of a way of bypassing one, contact a lawyer. Somebody will pay you boatloads of money as an expert witness.

[bonoboTP]

> Cars got forced to be safer with seat belts and airbags, with the industry kicking and screaming throughout

Where can I read more about this?

[ceejayoz]

Seat belts: https://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/assets/2011/03/industry-cl...

> Automakers objected, contending that manufacturing costs would rise, seat belts would imply increased accident rates and safety wasn’t a selling point with customers.

Decades later, they did the same with airbags, ironically trying to get out of it by pushing mandatory buckle-up laws to shift responsibility from the industry to consumers.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-02-19-mn-546-st...

[dsfyu404ed]

He's exaggerating.

Car companies want to sell cars and therefore they want to minimize the overhead spent on regulatory compliance. It's really easy to sit here in 2019 and clutch your pearls about the evil car companies not wanting air bags in everything but the reality is that those car companies were catering to consumers (or at least a fairly accurate approximation of consumers). Consumers regarded airbags and seat-belts as minor incremental safety improvements in their day (the way we would think about something like blind spot detection today) and generally cared more about price than they did about the presence of those specific features and would gladly forgo airbags in exchange for several hundred dollars of the purchase price.

1st gen airbags also have a well deserved reputation for turning accidents you could have walked away from with bruises into a trip to the hospital so many people actively didn't want them.

Edit: Yes, I'm totally wrong and everybody in 1965 was tripping over themselves to buy a new car specifically for the seat-belts and everyone in 1985 could not get enough airbags and the car companies totally misread what consumers wanted. <eyeroll/>