Emily Drayton, Staff Writer
- May 10, 2022

WaPo Reveals Big Player in the Opioid Machine

While cannabis, also known as "God's Favorite Plant", is under assault by Prohibitionists across the US and around the world, no less than the Washington Post revealed new details today about the depth and breadth of the structure that created the opioid epidemic that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals has been an under-reported player in the opioid death machine.

Until now.

Its explosive article: Inside the Sales Machine of the ‘Kingpin’ of Opioid Makers , highlights "A cache of more than 1.4 million newly released records [that] exposes the inner workings of the nation’s largest opioid manufacturer."

If you thought the Sackler family were the only villains in the opioid scandal, read on

"While most Americans mayhave never heard of Mallinckrodt, the Drug Enforcement Administration called the company in 2010 “the kingpin within the drug cartel” of legitimate companies driving the opioid epidemic. Between 2006 and 2014, Mallinckrodt accounted for 27 percent of the opioid market compared with 18 percent for Purdue Pharma, measured by the potency of the pills they produced, according to an analysis by The Post. While the Sackler family, which owned Purdue, attracted intense national attention and became a cynosure of criticism after the company’s introduction of its blockbuster pill OxyContin, the Mallinckrodt brand slipped under the radar.

"The largest manufacturer of opioids in the United States once cultivated a reliable stable of hundreds of doctors it could count on to write a steady stream of prescriptions for pain pills.

But one left the United States for Pakistan months before he was indicted on federal drug conspiracy and money laundering charges. Another was barred from practicing medicine after several of his patients died of drug overdoses. Another tried to leave the country in the face of charges that he was operating illegal pill dispensing operations, or pill mills, in two states. He was arrested and sent to prison for eight years.

These doctors were among 239 medical professionals ranked by Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals as its top prescribers of opioids during the height of the pain pill epidemic, in 2013. That year, more than 14,000 Americans died of prescription opioid overdoses.

More than a quarter of those prescribers — 65 — were later convicted of crimes related to their medical practices, had their medical licenses suspended or revoked, or paid state or federal fines after being accused of wrongdoing..."