My Virtual Reading Room

How drug distributors contributed to the opioid crisis

(...As a physician, when I think of drug distributors, catalogs of medical wares come to mind. I think of ordering Band-Aids for my husband’s surgery office. Medical distributor firms provide these bandages, syringes, gloves, gowns, lidocaine, and the like. I never thought of the companies behind these catalogs as major players in propagating an opioid epidemic. I thought, “What would distributors have to do with anything? They just send what is ordered.” How on earth could a distributor play a causal role in this opioid epidemic catastrophe? I wondered. To flat-out blame them for the opioid epidemic seemed like a stretch to me. I learned differently.

A lawyer explained it to me. It’s green. It’s tempting. It’s called money. Now I understand...

...The Congressional Report noted these companies sent over 900 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to West Virginia between 2005 and 2016. The population of West Virginia is 1.79 million.,,,)

(viaelenbarathi --thanks!)