Chicago Sues 5 Big Pharma Firms for Creating Opioid Painkiller Addicts
This story out of Chicago is news only because it shows the cost municipalities must bear to deal with the increasing prescription drug abuse in treating the addicts of painkillers. The lawsuit itself will not be motivation for pharmaceutical companies to change their ways. They are already the largest criminals in the U.S., having paid out billions of dollars in fines and criminal settlements, all as part of the "cost of doing business." Sidney Wolfe of the British Medical Journal wrote an editorial last year explaining that criminal activities by pharmaceutical companies is increasing, due to insufficient penalties. Deaths due to prescription drug abuse of painkillers now exceeds deaths due to heroin and cocaine combined. Yet pharmaceutical companies remain in business pushing their drugs, while millions of users of "illegal drugs" go to prison each year as a result of the "war on drugs."