Cold Pills, Lobbyists, and Meth Addiction… Time for a class action lawsuit?
I saw a very interesting program on PBS FrontLine the other night about the growing epidemic of addiction to meth-amphetamines. You can find out more at the The METH EPIDEMIC page on the pbs.org website.
The program describes how the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) attempted to head off the problem of meth-amphetamine addiction 20 years ago by controlling the production and distribution of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, the key ingredients used to manufacture meth-amphetamine. Apparently both ingredients require very sophisticated manufacturing technology and they are made by only 9 industrial plants world wide.
But when the DEA attempted to set up controls on the manufacture and distribution of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine they were repeatedly stymied by Congressional interference brought on by lobbyists from the various companies that make over-the-counter cold medicines that use ephedrine and pseudoephedrine. Even as “Meth” addiction grew to epidemic proportions during the 90’s, Congress and the pharmaceutical industry lobbyists fought every attempt to keep these key raw ingredients out of the hands of the drug cartels.
When the DEA managed to stop direct shipments from the manufacturers to the cartels, the cartels began having people buy over-the-counter cold remedies containing ephedrine and pseudoephedrine from local pharmacies. When various States tried to have pharmacies take action to control who was buying these cold medicines, the pharmaceutical industry lobbied against it. In the FrontLine program someone suggested that 75 percent of the cold pill industry sales in some States came from people buying on behalf of the Meth drug cartels.
I generally view class action suits as an excuse for lawyers to get a lot of money but they do serve a useful punitive purpose at times and given that we now have more than 1.5 million citizens addicted to Meth, and since there seems clear evidence that this was avoidable… and that it happened because of lobbying by the cold pill manufacturers… Perhaps one or more law firms might try bringing a class action suit against the manufacturers.
And given the huge costs that Meth addiction has imposed on local and State law enforcement, prison systems, and healthcare… I don’t remember the exact number but something like 80% of the prison inmates in Oregan are Meth addicts. Perhaps the various State Attorney Generals should bring suit against the manufacturers as well and recover, say, 80% of the cost of operating the prison systems.
268 views