As hundreds of thousands of people were dying at the peak of the opiod crisis, the US’s drug distributors were spending over $102 million lobbying Congress to create a more industry-friendly law, undermining efforts to slow the flow of pain pills—and they succeeded.
“In April 2016, at the height of the deadliest drug epidemic in U.S. history, Congress effectively stripped the Drug Enforcement Administration of its most potent weapon against large drug companies suspected of spilling prescription narcotics onto the nation’s streets.
“By then, the opioid war had claimed 200,000 lives, more than three times the number of U.S. military deaths in the Vietnam War. Overdose deaths continue to rise. There is no end in sight.”
Read more of the Washington Post’s investigation into pharmaceutical’s culpability in the opioid crisis here: https://
[Photo credit: pina messina, Unsplash.com.]