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Comment by meowface | Hacker News Reader

So if a manufacturer produces a drug which saves tens of millions of people from suffering and a few million of those don't follow manufacturer or doctor instructions and abuse it, the drug manufacturer should be shut down?

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If a drug dealer sells a drug that people enjoy and use to improve their quality of life, but a few people don't follow his advice and become addicted and die as a result, the drug dealer should go to prison for manslaughter?

No, I don't think they should, if what they're selling is what they claim to be selling. If it's laced with fentanyl or some other adulterant, that's another story (regardless of whether they were aware it was adulterated or not).

Centuries of case law on negligence, recklessness, and torts sort out the nuance. It's not a 1-bit function.

ideally, no.

You are home, sleeping after another boring day at work. You wake up being beaten back unconscious, extremities broken, ribs kicked in. They dial 911 and leave.

When you get back from the hospital they will come take your drugs.

Why? Nothing personal, just that unlike many of your rural brethren, you have insurance.

People deliberately created your guests and are profiting even now from your pain, should they be shut down?

That’s dark. Is this a thing?

I could not make it up. Came to me as non fiction via an inhabitant of northern Maine.

Urban legend. With broken bones and enough injuries to be prescribed an amount of take home opiates that would be worthwhile for an addict, you'd be in hospital fora day or two at least, maybe more. One thing about addiction is that immediate access to the drug is more important than anything else. No addict is going to bother with this sort of thing just to get a dozen or so Codeine pills...

Once you are hooked they can steal your refills...

Yes, if they’ve contributed to the opioid addiction of a few million people, they should bear some responsibility. Of course the distributors supplying the black market and pill mills should also bear responsibility. But if you penalize the drug companies, you can be sure they’ll tighten up their distribution.

This is a total whitewash of the role pharmaceutical companies played by intensely pushing opiates while downplaying negative ramifications they were well aware of.

You might want to read Dopesick because it's an eye-opening look at what Purdue actually did.

If they expected this to happen and went ahead anyway because profits, then yes, absolutely.

What number of deaths is ok? There were 63,632 fatal overdoses in 2016 and nearly two-thirds of those deaths involved a prescription or illicit opioids.

Is that what happened, historically? You checked it or just assume it happened like that when the drug started?

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