In a Democratic debate held on Tuesday, several presidential candidates agreed to a point that pharmaceutical executives who are responsible for creating the opioid epidemic in the United States should go to prison.
According to health officials, there have been more than 400,000 deaths related to drug overdose deaths, of which, over 200,000 deaths were related to opioid overdose since the 1990s.
Drug companies have been held responsible for causing the opioid crisis through their aggressive marketing strategies that forced many physicians to prescribe opioids for chronic and severe pain. This move gave opioid drug access not only to patients but also to their friends and family members, especially teenagers who secretly take such prescription drugs.
Upon asking directly whether she aggress that opioid executives should go to prison, Senator Kamala Harris said, “I am. And I will tell you as a former prosecutor, I do think of this as being a matter of justice and accountability because they are nothing more than some high-level dope dealers. They should be held accountable. This is a matter of justice.”
“And so as president of the United States, I would ensure that the United States Department of Justice understands that you want to deal with who is really a criminal,” added Sen. Harris. “Let’s end mass incarceration and end that failed war on drugs, and let’s go after these pharmaceutical companies for what they’ve been doing to destroy our country and states like Ohio.”
Julián Castro, a member of the Democratic Party, also agreed to the point and said, “Yes, I am. They need to be held accountable not only financially but also with criminal penalties.”
“And, you know, you can draw a straight line between making sure that we hold executives accountable, whether it’s these drug manufacturers or Wall Street executives that should have been held accountable a decade and a half ago,” added Castro.
Senator Elizabeth Warren targeted the Sackler family that founded Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin (oxycodone), a narcotic painkiller. He said, “An America where when people like the Sacklers destroy millions of lives to make money, they don’t get museum wings named after them, they go to jail.”
Holding Sackler family responsible for the opioid epidemic, Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted, “The Sackler family and Purdue Pharma helped cause the opioid crisis through aggressive marketing and lobbying of the opioid painkiller OxyContin. We must hold the pharmaceutical companies and executives that created the opioid crisis accountable.”
Drug Policy Expert at Stanford University Keith Humphreys told Senior Correspondent at VOX German Lopez, “If [the Sacklers] have the perception — and it’s the correct perception — that ‘people like us just don’t go to jail, we just don’t, so the worst that’s going to happen is you take some reputational stings and you’ll have to write a check,’ that seems like a recipe for nurturing criminality.” Research Director at Public Citizen Rick Claypool told Lopez, “You can go to prison for accidentally killing one person with your car. That’s the minimum standard. The idea that you can run a company and cause societal-level devastation and walk away from that relatively unscathed is mind-boggling.”
