Dear Mr. Prescient,
I fail to se the point of this latest executive order. Is this an attempt to place a symbolic bandage over the damage you have already caused in regards to this country’s chemical dependency? It appears to be, but let me give you a quick reminder of your part in all this.
I realize that you inherited a huge problem. In the decade prior to your first term, the US Government allowed predatory pill pushers1 to market drugs like OxyContin2 and Fentanyl3 to the population as non addictive alternatives to other more dangerous pain killers. These were of course, lies, and the drugs were in fact far more addictive and far more dangerous than anything previously approved to be prescribed to the public.
Inheritance of problem aside, what did you do to solve the problem? Did your Justice department hold anyone accountable for creating 10s of million of addicts and killing millions? No, not really-
From a Google Deep Dive-
Individual Criminal Accountability
The case of Insys Therapeutics marked the first time pharmaceutical executives were handed prison time for their role in the opioid epidemic.
John Kapoor: The billionaire founder and CEO of Insys was convicted of racketeering conspiracy in 2019. He was sentenced to 5.5 years in prison and ordered to pay nearly $60 million in restitution.
Other Executives: Several other high-level managers, including the former CEO Michael Babich (30 months) and the VP of Sales Alec Burlakoff (26 months), also received prison sentences for their roles in bribing doctors to overprescribe fentanyl.
Corporate Settlements and Fines
Major pharmaceutical companies have agreed to multi-billion dollar settlements to resolve claims of deceptive marketing and failure to monitor suspicious orders:
Teva Pharmaceuticals: In 2022, Teva reached a global settlement of $4.25 billion for allegations that it downplayed the risk of addiction and promoted its rapid-onset fentanyl products for off-label use in non-cancer patients.
Mylan Inc.: Recently reached a $335 million settlement over allegations it deceptively promoted fentanyl patches as being less prone to abuse.
Assertio Therapeutics: Agreed to pay $3.6 million in 2025 to resolve allegations of violating the False Claims Act in connection with marketing its fentanyl product.
If the fines are less than the individuals and corporations made in profit, then they become part of the cost of doing business, not punishments. And the 5.5 year sentence given to one man, when compared to the sentences the DOJ regularly gives out for marijuana possession is beyond laughable. All you have done here is put a small, I’d say trivial, tax on mass murder.
What else did you do? Oh yeah, you made the cartels rich as hell. Once the damage was done and the population was fully addicted to drugs that one can not actually quit cold turkey without medical attention or at least the ability to get water into their own bodies through some route other than drinking it, a skill most do not possess, you declared a series of national emergencies, effectively cutting off all of these chemical dependent Americans from any lawful way to acquire the chemicals formerly known as medicine, as well as blocking any pathway to treatment. The executive order declaring the opiate epidemic blocked the prescription route and the Covid emergency blocked all access to treatment. The American population was then forced to go to the black market and unsafe, unregulated versions of the drugs they depended on.
Could the results of your actions have been predicted? Absolutely. The prohibition era was a perfect example of the consequences of government involvement in ending arbitrary moral dilemmas. The War on Drugs and its decimation of targeted communities is another glaring warning against exactly what you did.
You then followed those genocidal blunders with this executive order-
ENDING CRIME AND DISORDER ON AMERICA’S STREETS
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Basically giving you the ability to lock up anyone, anywhere, for as long as you like and now this… whatever the hell it is.
ADDRESSING ADDICTION THROUGH THE GREAT AMERICAN RECOVERY INITIATIVE
It is a committee of political appointees with zero expertise, zero appropriated budget, zero appropriate empowerment, and a non zero quantity of biased, prejudiced opinions about how to fix the myriad problems of individual chemical dependency using a centralized and one size fits all substance abuse policy.
I am going to go out on a limb here and predict that whatever the hell this thing is, it ain’t gonna help anyone except the private prison industry and the medical profiteering complex.
Personally, I do not think that you, your administration, or even the whole of government has the authority to continue the new prohibition era, while lacking a constitutional amendment on par with the original prohibition amendment, but that is more of a big picture issue than I comfortable having with you right now. So, let’s just look at the issues with what you are doing now-
You are the Executive branch, not the Legislative and therefor are here to enforce the laws, not write new ones. So, stop it with all these executive orders. You are over reaching your authority.
Although it is not your fault that a third of this country was initially addicted to opiates, all the damage that has accrued since your first inauguration is on you, due to your policies and procedures. That 4 year break does not give you a pass since your policies were simply carried over.
Everything you have done, to date, to fix these problems have only made them worse.
Please stop doing emotionally reactive PR performances and find a way to undue some of the damage you have done and do everything you can not to continue or begin new ways of hurting people.
If you need an advisor that actually understands the issues of chemical dependency and has better ideas than the ones making up the last 100 years of poorly conceived and lethally implemented policies of injury and oppression, hit me up. I am available to consult, advise, and assist in any way I can that does not involve my own incarceration within your laughably entitled justice system.
Have a great day.
Sincerely,
Andi West
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2022/archive-shows-how-fentanyl-promotion-helped-drive-opioid-epidemic
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2622774/
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/opioid-drugmaker-insys-bribing-doctors-fentanyl-painkiller/
First clue that a new piece of legislation is useless is the name. Its similar to a developer clear cutting most of a 100 acre parcel of pine forest, building 150 homes and naming the new development "Whispering Pines".