Big Pharma > Walgreens settles with San Francisco for $230m for opioid crisis

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There is no moral justification for what Walgreens did, or any other Big Pharma company involved in the opioid madness. But then, when has morality ever slowed the bottom line of Big Pharma?

If you ever had the idea that Big Pharma was actually concerned about your health, this should put an end to that delusion. Big Pharma is a moral abyss!

Walgreens to pay San Francisco $230M for its role in city's opioid crisis

By Sheri Walsh

 

San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu announces a $230 million settlement with Walgreens on Wednesday from the steps of city hall after a federal court found that the pharmaceutical chain “substantially contributed” to the city's opioid epidemic. Photo courtesy of San Francisco City Attorney's office

May 18 (UPI) -- Walgreens has agreed to pay San Francisco nearly $230 million for its role in the city's opioid crisis, making it the largest award to a local jurisdiction since the beginning of the opioid epidemic.

City Attorney David Chiu announced the settlement Wednesday from the steps of city hall following last year's federal court ruling that Walgreens "substantially contributed" to the opioid crisis in San Francisco.

"Extremely dangerous and addictive opioids were marketed to patients as safe," Chiu told reporters. "We now know that was a blatant lie."

Walgreens will make payments over the next eight years, with the first $57 million to be paid by June of 2024.

"Walgreens over-dispensed opioids without due diligence and failed to report suspicious orders as required by law," Chiu said. "They were more concerned with profit than following their legal obligations ... pressuring their pharmacists to fill, fill, fill."

Chiu's office sued Walgreens, Purdue Pharma and other opioid manufacturers, distributors and dispensers in 2018. Every defendant settled with San Francisco by the end of the trial last year, except for Walgreens.

San Francisco received settlements from manufacturers Johnson & Johnson and Teva, distributors AmerisourceBergen and pharmacy chains CVS and Walmart, among others, according to Chiu.

"We must remember that some of the most profitable companies in the world engineered this public health crisis," Chiu said. "Our litigation has yielded over $350 million in cash payments, fees and benefits to address the opioid crisis ruining the city."

According to Chiu's office, opioid-related overdose deaths in San Francisco jumped nearly 500% between 2014 and 2020, prompting the city to file lawsuits including the complaint against Walgreens.

In August, Judge Charles Breyer of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled against the pharmaceutical giant, saying "Walgreens' San Francisco pharmacies received over 1,200,000 'red flag' opioid prescriptions."

"The evidence showed that Walgreens did not provide its pharmacists with sufficient time, staffing or resources to perform due diligence on these prescriptions," the judge wrote.

In a statement Wednesday, Walgreens disputed its liability and said "there is no admission of fault in the settlement agreement," Fraser Engerman, Walgreens' senior director for external relations, said in a statement.

"We never manufactured or marketed opioids, nor did we distribute them to 'pill mills' and 'Internet pharmacies."

No, you just distributed them to people, without concern over what it was doing to them. 

Plastic, on Its Way Out, or Token Environmentalism?

France to ban all plastic utensils for a greener future

© Gleb Garanich / Reuters

France has woken up to the dangers of plastic pollution, as the country makes the firm decision to outlaw all plastic kitchen utensils, opting instead for more ecologically-friendly, biologically-sourced materials.

The law, to take hold in 2020, is part of an initiative called Energy Transition for Green Growth, France’s contribution to the fight against climate change.

Plastic Pacific

Yes, that should do it! Eliminating plastic spoons should drop the global temperature by 3 degrees! Just kidding, of course, but plastic is made from petroleum so it would mean a need for less oil if plastic production can be significantly reduced globally. That won't make any discernible difference to the global temperature, but it might lower gas prices. On the other hand, reducing plastic might delay my plan to drive to Hawaii by 2030.

Not everyone in the EU, however, sees this as a favorable strategy, according to the Independent.

Manufacturers of plastic goods are understandably incensed over the law. Pack2Go, a Brussels-based organization representing European packaging producers, spoke to the Independent.

"We are urging the European Commission to do the right thing and to take legal action against France for infringing European law,” Pack2Go Secretary-General Eamonn Bates said. According to him, there is no proof that something biologically-sourced is safer for the environment.

Seriously, have you never heard the term 'biodegradable'? 

If anything, Bates says, the problem could be exacerbated. According to Bates, not everyone can tell biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste apart. “That’s nonsense!,” Bates added regarding France’s plan.

But France is not the only player trying to go green by cutting down on plastic. The state of Karnataka in India is another. In 2017, San Francisco, California outlawed the use of plastic shopping bags, and later did the same for plastic bottles in 2014, while Great Britain has a 5p charge on most plastic bags.

Alberta's Oil Not the Only Thing That's Dirty

First Nations chief received $55,000 from Tides Foundation

Ezra Levant, Toronto Sun

A left-wing lobby group in San Francisco wired $55,000 to the bank account of an Indian chief in Northern Alberta, paying him to oppose the oilsands.

Singer Neil Young, right, speaks in front of climate scientist Andrew Weaver, left, Indigenous rights advocate Eriel Derenger, second left, and Athabasca Chipewyan Chief Allan Adam

And sure enough, that chief – Allan Adam, from the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation – earned his money. Last weekend, he flew to Toronto to sit on a stage next to Neil Young, the folk singer who was in town to demonize Canada’s oil industry.

Now, $55,000 might sound like a lot of money to pay, just to rent a politician for a day if all the chief did for his money was to appear on stage in Toronto beside Neil Young. But to the Tides Foundation, it’s well worth it. Think of Adam as an actor, hired to play a part in an elaborate theatrical production.

Neil Young had his role: he’s the American celebrity who can draw crowds of fawning Baby Boomer journalists. But at the end of the day, he’s just another millionaire celebrity. When he talks about the oilsands, he quickly reveals himself as a low-information know-nothing.

Adam brings what Young can’t: authenticity. Young likes to wear an Indian-style leather vest, but Adam really is an Indian, and he really lives near the oilsands.

Adam didn’t do a lot of talking in Toronto. He was more of a prop than an actor. See, the Tides Foundation is from San Francisco. And Neil Young lives on a 1,500-acre estate near San Francisco. Without Adam, this would have just been some California millionaires coming up here to boss Canadians around. That’s why they had to hire Adam, to aboriginalize their attack on Canada. It was political sleight of hand, to distract from the fact that this was a foreign assault on Canadian jobs.

Tides could have hired an actual actor, like maybe Lorne Cardinal, who played the Aboriginal policeman in the comedy series Corner Gas. But they didn’t hire an actor. They hired an elected public official. That’s the problem.

Bribing an elected official?
Adam’s official title is “chief.” But it’s not a religious or cultural title. Under the Indian Act, that’s just the legal title given to the elected mayor of an Indian Band.

The Tides Foundation put $55,000 into the bank account of a mayor to get him to take a particular political position. Depending on what Tides was getting the Chief to do, the payment might well have been a bribe. But we won't know, because no one is talking about the $55,000 payment.

How is it acceptable that a foreign lobby group can simply deposit cash into a bank account of a Canadian politician? Who else is being paid cash to oppose the oilsands?

This fact almost escaped detection. It was buried in the Tides Foundation’s 138-page filing with the IRS, who only disclosed it to get a tax break. Even then, it was shrouded in secrecy.

The money was paid to a numbered company, 850450 Alberta Ltd. Only a search of Alberta’s corporate registry revealed that 850450 Alberta Ltd. was owned by another company, called Acden Group Ltd., that had changed its name twice in the past four years. Adam and other band politicians were directors and shareholders, in trust for the band.

Doesn't sound the least bit like they were trying to hide something!

The payment was well-hidden – and Adam certainly didn’t disclose it when he was on stage with Young.

The same IRS disclosure shows Tides made 25 different payments to Canadian anti-oilsands activists in a single year, totaling well over a million dollars. And that’s just one U.S. lobby group. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund out of New York, spends $7 million a year in Canada, with an explicit campaign strategy of fomenting Aboriginal unrest, through protests and lawsuits.

If a foreign oil company – say, ExxonMobil – was depositing secret payments in the bank accounts of MPs, it would be a scandal. Those MPs would face an RCMP investigation, Exxon would likely be charged with bribery, and the media on both sides of the border would have a field day.

Yet none of those things will likely happen with Adam.

Because the Tides Foundation knows that the Canadian media and even the police are cowards when it comes to Aboriginal politicians. They don’t dare hold them to account, for fear of being called racist. If you doubt this, look at the continued success of Theresa Spence, Attawapiskat’s chief.

Tides got its money’s worth.