Death by Addiction: Media Massage Masks The Real Deal & The Real Dealers
The US market for fentanyl is worth well over $1 billion a year, in "legitimate" neighborhood drug store sales. Fentanyl makers include Mylan NV, Watson Pharmaceutical, Sandoz Inc., Japan-based Hisamitsu Pharmaceutical Co. and product innovator, Johnson and Johnson. FDA approved (in industry terms, "labelled") exclusively for pain management in only the most serious cancer cases, Fentanyl's wide spread popularity is nothing short of Big Pharma's brash and direct entry into the lucrative $27 Billion US Heroin Market.
By actively encouraging "off label" prescribing (for everything from menstrual cramps to stress headaches), they are pouring tons of easily accessible, extremely potent, opioids into the black market. If half of their $1 Billion in "legal" product hits the street at a 500% markup, that's $2.5 billion, which is a 10% market share in a predicable and ever growing industry! As long as demand continues to rise, and they can maintain their position as the most cost effective source of supply, the pharmaceutical industry can continue to amass market share through “legitimate” wholesale distribution channels.
The "epidemic" of accidental overdose, that we keep hearing about on the news, is due to the fact that fentanyl is 50 times more powerful than heroin, and the marketplace is engaged in unsupervised "clinical trials" that are being conducted by the addicts themselves, as they try to figure out correct dosage of a constantly changing product mix, in keeping with their current tolerance level, without inadvertently killing themselves. The billions that would typically go into proper research on any other product introduction, now goes straight against the manufacturer’s bottom line, while an increasing number of addicts, become the subject of a police investigation’s chalk line.
On the black market side, if most estimates peg Fentanyl as 50 times more potent than Heroin, then that means that three pounds (48 ounces) of Heroin = 1 ounce of Fentanyl, which, for people engaged in illegal product distribution, is like a dream come true. They can drastically cut their import, export, handling, storage, transportation, security and sales costs, significantly lower personal risk and still make tons of money, or, better yet, they can simply incorporate Fentanyl into their Heroin trade, and boost profitability by an almost impossible to imagine 5000% . The additional "heat" generated by the public outcry, (in response to massive accidental death by overdose at a national scale), creates a temporary requirement for increased security, additional payoffs and rising legal fees, all of which will subside into sunk costs as soon as they get through the unwieldy experimental phase of, what is already, an incredibly successful new product introduction into the marketplace.
Somehow, while we were busy with other things, America, and with our help, the rest of the world, has arrived at a smoky, murky, dream-like place, where you can’t tell the drug dealers from the drug makers; the corporations from the politicians; the gun runners from the freedom fighters; the oil barons from the oppressive regimes, or the dictators from the drug dealers.
Perhaps we can find a corporate tax lawyer and/or an investment banker who’s willing to explain it to us!
Disclaimer: The fabulous pharmaceutical commercial that you can access from the link below has nothing to do with legal or illegal narcotics, but is awe inspiring, intoxicating, and amazingly appropriate, as a dreamy companion to this opinion piece, nonetheless...
Jeffrey Michael Bowen. "Death by Addiction: Media Massage Masks The Real Deal & The Real Dealers" Facebook Notes (2016)
Images by:
Vancouver Courier
Ohio Department of Health Office of Vital Statistics