Opinion: What’s the difference between global drug cartels and OxyContin’s manufacturer?

To the editor: I do not see any difference, morally or ethically, between the Sackler-owned companies known as Mundipharma trying to push the prescription opioid OxyContin out into the world and the large drug cartels. (“OxyContin goes global: ‘We’re only just getting started,’” Dec. 18)

Thousands have died, and the Sackler family has earned billions of dollars with no concern for the deaths or the social disasters its actions have caused. Heroin can relieve pain, but I don’t see any movement to legalize it for the same reasons people say we need OxyContin, yet there seems to be no governmental concern about the same things happening with the spread of that drug.

Could the reason be all the “donations” made to politicians by Big Pharma? Bribery is bribery, whether it comes from a cartel or a pharmaceutical company.

Toni Sandell, Riverside

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To the editor: I am a certified public accountant, and the reason my profession has internal controls is to make sure there is separation of duties. This prevents employee collusion.

The same standard should apply in the pharmaceutical industry. In fact, alarm bells should have gone off in 1952 when Mortimer and Raymond Sackler, two brother psychiatrists, purchased Purdue Pharma, which would go on to make OxyContin.

What happened next is why doctors aren’t running pharmacies. Pharmacist Willem Scholten a retired World Health Organization official paid by Mundipharma, is reported to have said that the media and politicians have “exaggerated” the U.S. prescription opioid crisis. It is good Scholten has retired.

The proper way to approach this problem is to not presuppose like Scholten, but to immediately contain the fire and then extinguish it.

Stephen A. Bonick, Monterey

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To the editor: My back was killing me, but I was determined to play golf. A friend gave me some OxyContin left over from an operation. I took one and said, “Where has this been all my life?”

So on my next visit to the doctor, I ventured to ask for a script —just for the golf, you understand, once or twice a week. He gave me a look and asked whether I was nuts. That was that.

My point is, these drugs were invented to give relief from chronic, disabling pain. Last year, a dear friend died after a long bout with cancer. He said he could handle the pain as long as he had his drugs.

I don’t mind saying I would rather drop dead from an overdose of some opioid than gradually become insane from chronic pain.

Jack Spiegelman, Los Angeles

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