Sometimes Even the Pushers Have to Pay

By DON ROLLINS

“There will be people alive next year because of the programs and services we will be able to fund because of these settlement proceeds,” — North Carolina state Attorney General Josh Stein

It was 1968 when the semi-psychedelic version of Hoyt Axton’s “The Pusher” dropped on vinyl. Recorded by Canadian-American rockers Steppenwolf, the song is a bitter jeremiad against the soulless killers that supply us with all the drugs we can buy.

Were Axton still with us he would be aghast to find the pushers now sit in corner offices, manipulate international markets, and peddle substances far more addictive than anything his generation encountered.

To understand this gradual legitimizing of the pusher is to understand the not-so-gradual legitimizing of opioids starting in the 1990s. Designed to temporarily relieve moderate to severe pain, the entire suite of opiates (from natural sources like poppies) and opioids (from synthetic sources) were marketed by large pharmaceutical suppliers as safe, effective and compassionate treatment.

The problem with opiates/opioids is they work. With demand assured, an industry within an industry was born, setting off a series of events: New compounds and generics were created; New patents were granted; Mass quantities were produced, marketed and aggressively pitched to health care providers by sales staff.

Within five years the two classes of drugs surpassed every other in instances of overdose and cause of death, giving rise to an onslaught of legal actions — a majority listing Purdue Pharma’s OxyContin as the most devastating. (Repeated research on Purdue’s practices show mass quantities of OxyContin were shipped to areas identified as in opiate/opioid “distress” only to be used, sold and traded on underground markets.)

But critical legal mass was achieved starting in 2014, as civil, state and tribal suits began targeting the same companies for the same behaviors. Those efforts paid off on February of this year as four of the largest opiate manufacturers (Johnson & Johnson,, Cardinal Health, McKesson and AmerisourceBergen) agreed to a combined settlement of $26 billion — the bulk of which is designated for opioid/opiate misuse treatment and prevention in the 46 states that joined the suits.

Predictably none of the four owned up to their malfeasance, issuing only short press releases saying it was better to settle than continue in court. (Insult to injury, Johnson & Johnson broke ranks to say the company was pleased to “... directly support state and local efforts to make meaningful progress in addressing the opioid crisis.”)

The corporations will begin payments starting in April, with the balance spread over 20 years. Meanwhile safeguards are being installed to curb availability of opiates/opioids, including a digital warning system that has been put in place to signal communities most affected by the drugs’ misuse, and distributors will be legally bound to slow or stop shipments.

The staggering amount of the settlement is a message to these and other 21st century pushers whose products destroy, even take the lives of those caught in the vertigo world of substance misuse and addiction. There can be no undoing of the suffering caused, no resurrection for those who should still be with us. Yet if only for the moment, the pushers who traffic in money over morals have been put on notice, and some of their treasure dedicated to helping not wounding. Turns out sometimes even the pushers have to pay.

Don Rollins is a Unitarian Universalist minister living in Hendersonville, N.C. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, April 1, 2022

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