Page 8 - Sonoma County Gazette April 2017

OPINION: OxyContin: Stealing Lives
In 1952, Purdue Pharma was purchased by 3 brothers, Arthur, Raymond, and Mortimer Sackler, practicing psychiatrists in the northeastern part of the U.S. Arthur, a member of a New York-based advertising firm, began TV and radio marketing of the drug. The company soon increased its sales representatives from 318 in 1996 to 671 in the year 2000. These reps received bonuses averaging $70,000 a year selling Oxycontin to doctors. In 1996, the company made 45 million dollars. In 2000, their sales jumped to 1.1 billion. In 2010, they made
My son is missing. I haven’t heard from him for weeks. He is in his mid twenties, a handsome blue-eyed blonde with a winning smile and a great laugh. He is talented and smart, and a great person through and through.
He had a job with a promising future, a truck, many friends. Now he has nothing. He is a heroin addict. His brother, my husband, and I miss him terribly. It started five years ago with the opiate drug Oxycontin. He moved
on to methamphetamines and heroin. I am not sure if he will get through this, and I am broken-hearted. We have spent thousands of dollars on wrecked cars, bail money, rehab, and we’ve su ered many sleepless nights. I am terrified, and I want to warn parents of the dangers of this drug. It is headed your way via a huge marketing campaign.
3.1 billion dollars, and now they controlled 30% of the painkiller market. The illegal use was skyrocketing. Parent groups and grass-roots organizations began rising up to fight the problem. Kentucky won a 24-million-dollar law suit against Purdue for falsely marketing the drug as non-addictive.
I am writing to inform
the people about the
increase in marketing
campaigns of Oxycontin
(Oxy) by Purdue Pharma,
an American multi-billion
dollar company in search
of new “victims” unaware
of Oxy’s deadly link to
the opiate crisis in North
America. The Federal Drug
Administration (FDA) in the
United States has recently
introduced regulatory
measures to limit the
prescription of Oxycontin
by doctors who have been
falsely informed (by Purdue) about the addictive qualities of this painkiller, and who have been rewarded for prescribing this drug.
What can be done? Does rehab work and who, but the wealthy, can a ord to send their teens and young adult sons and daughters to these rehab centers? What about the problem of overcrowded jails? Money allotted for research and a ordable rehabilitation for drug addicts is part of the
answer. Education and awareness is where we can start right now. Marketing Oxycontin in countries with fewer prescription drug regulations, knowing it to be a drug responsible for the deaths of thousands of young people in the USA— this is a crime akin to genocide. Please speak out against Purdue Pharma. Tell your friends.
Sincerely, Broken Hearted Mother
OPINION: Now is the time
When Purdue’s profits began su ering, the company chose to push the drug elsewhere. According to the Los Angeles Times on December 18, 2016 in an article headlined “Oxycontin goes global—We’re only just getting started,” a network of international companies owned by the Sackler family is moving rapidly into Latin American, Asia, The Middle East, Africa, and other regions. The Sacklers are pushing for broad use of painkillers in places ill-prepared to deal with the ravages of opioid abuse and addiction. I want to do what I can to prevent young people worldwide from following the path of our youth who are dying by the thousands due to overdoses of heroin and other opiates.
Sonoma County, some of its cities and school districts have issued resolutions proclaiming they will not cooperate and participate in this attempt to vilify and expel a targeted population that most know as neighbors, friends or workmates. These used to be called sanctuary cities, but that term has
Oxycontin became popular as an illegal street drug in the late 90s. Nearly everyone who had surgical medical procedures was prescribed this drug, and it’s accessibility to teens and young adults by way of the home medicine cabinet made it one of the most abused prescription drugs of the decade. It soon was manufactured on the streets and was sold for $100 a pill. Thousands and thousands of young people became addicted. The pill was crushed, snorted, smoked and injected, producing a euphoric high that mimicked heroin. Oxy, no longer living up to its nickname, “hillbilly heroin,” soon became una ordable on the street and was replaced by black tar heroin.
While the resistance to this scapegoating of immigrants is evident on the part of individuals and some organizations in county, the absence of some of the county’s organizations of note – the wine industry and the Chambers of Commerce – stands out in stark contrast. I’ve seen not one word in any of our local papers by these business entities or their representatives in support of the immigrant community. Where are the employers of so many of these targeted people: vineyards and wineries, hospitality businesses, construction industry, landscaping companies and all the rest, when it comes to standing up for those very people who make those businesses possible?
Largely manufactured in Mexico and distributed throughout North America via an extensive and intricate illegal drug network, black tar heroin can now be obtained for a fraction of the cost of its sister drug, Oxy. I have heard accounts by drug addicts who claim one can obtain heroin in any city in the U.S. in a matter of 20 minutes. They say it is as easy as ordering a pizza. Delivered to your door!
Do these businesses think they are going to replace those who make their businesses flourish or even exist with American workers? These business owners are not stupid and they well know that they cannot replace the workforce they depend on. So why is there nothing but quiet from these quarters? It’s in their own self-interest to support and assist in viable ways those who are now in jeopardy of deportation. It is time for these rich industries to stand up and proclaim that will not let this assault on human rights go unanswered.
Heroin is now cut with other deadly drugs including Fentanyl, the drug responsible for the death of the pop icon Prince. The e ects of this opiate epidemic are tearing apart families. The death toll from opiate overdose in the U.S. now exceeds automobile fatalities and mortality due to gun violence. According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse, from 2002 to 2015, the annual total number of deaths from prescription opioids nearly doubled, increasing from 9,000 to 16,000.
On a practical note there is funding needed for legal aid: immigrant’s rights attorneys, deportation attorneys and organizations to promote and distribute Know Your Rights information to those in need. This is not the time for charity balls or philanthropic photo-ops. This is the time to step up and put your money where it counts – aiding those who’ve made your businesses thrive. Now is the time to come to the aid of all the immigrants who live and work here regardless of your need or use for them, but because they’re part of the family of this community and their rights and dignity are our common bond. It’s time for you to speak up on their behalf.
During the same period, the number of deaths per year from all opioid drugs (heroin, opioid analgesics [e.g., Oxy], and illicit synthetic opioids) rose from 12,000 to 30,000. And the numbers are growing. Who is responsible for this epidemic?
8 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 4/17
By Will Shonbrun
It’s happening all around. People in practically every state are standing up to
the Trump mania of deporting millions of undocumented immigrants, mostly from Mexico and Central America, but not solely, and supporting their civil and human rights. These are counties and cities and they number into the hundreds.
become anathema for many because of federal threats of withholding federal monies. Whatever the current euphemisms popping up now, e.g., safe havens, indivisible cities, etc., it’s irrelevant as the meaning and intent is quite clear. We will not sit idly by while our brothers and sisters and their families are destroyed and being persecuted for the crime of seeking a better life.