I'm just a bill pill
by Tom Sullivan
The Washington Post and "60 Minutes" have exposed congressional and industry complicity in creating (and perpetuating the prescription opioid drug epidemic that has claimed tens of thousands of American lives. It is another object lesson in whose interests take priority on Capitol Hill.
The "60 Minutes" report Sunday profiled whistleblower Joe Rannazzisi who once ran the Drug Enforcement Agency's Office of Diversion Control. The office is charged with preventing prescription drugs from reaching the black market. Congress came under pressure from pharmaceutical distributors after Rannazzisi's efforts to prosecute corrupt pharmacists he calls "drug dealers in lab coats" began reaching higher up the supply chain:
JOE RANNAZZISI: This was all new to us. We weren't seeing just some security violations, and a few bad orders. We were seeing hundreds of bad orders that involved millions and millions of tablets. That's when we started going after the distributors.Industry pushers began pushing back. Rannazzisi found his prosecutions systematically slowed by superiors. "Cases his supervisors once would have easily approved, now weren't good enough," the report explains. The industry began hiring former DEA lawyers to help quash their former agency's prosecutions through lobbying and, in particular, through drafting legislation.
A handful of members of Congress, allied with the nation’s major drug distributors, prevailed upon the DEA and the Justice Department to agree to a more industry-friendly law, undermining efforts to stanch the flow of pain pills, according to an investigation by The Washington Post and “60 Minutes.” The DEA had opposed the effort for years.Naturally, Congress is shocked, shocked it was duped into passing an industry-written bill that made the epidemic worse:
The law was the crowning achievement of a multifaceted campaign by the drug industry to weaken aggressive DEA enforcement efforts against drug distribution companies that were supplying corrupt doctors and pharmacists who peddled narcotics to the black market. The industry worked behind the scenes with lobbyists and key members of Congress, pouring more than a million dollars into their election campaigns.
The chief advocate of the law that hobbled the DEA was Rep. Tom Marino, a Pennsylvania Republican who is now President Trump’s nominee to become the nation’s next drug czar.
Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, says he's horrified that a bill everyone approved -- the Ensuring Patient Access and Effective Drug Enforcement Act of 2016 -- made the epidemic worse.Missouri Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill introduced a bill Monday to repeal last year's law. "60 Minutes" asks:
"They made it and camouflaged it so well all of us were fooled. All of us. Nobody knew!" Sen. Manchin said. "There's no oversight now ... that bill has to be retracted ... has to be repealed."
The law sailed through the Senate last spring. It had the backing of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and was sponsored by members of both parties, so nobody in Congress thought to question it.
Who drafted the legislation that would have such a dire effect? The answer came in another internal Justice Department email released to 60 Minutes and The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act: "Linden Barber used to work for the DEA. He wrote the Marino bill."In a not-unrelated post this morning, Paul Krugman takes on the lies used to sell the GOP tax cut plan. He writes:
In fact, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the hope for tax cuts is the main thing keeping congressional Republicans in line behind Donald Trump. They know he’s unfit for office, and many worry about his mental stability. But they’ll back him as long as they think he might get those tax cuts through.Money is speech, saith the Supreme Court. And those with the deepest pickets speak the loudest. It is commonplace to hear community activists protesting police violence to chant, "Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect?" The rest of us should ask Congress the same thing. Even if the question is rhetorical.
So what’s behind this priority? Follow the money. Big donors are furious at missing out on the $700 billion in tax cuts that were supposed to come out of Obamacare repeal. If they don’t get big bucks out of tax “reform,” they might close their pocketbooks for the 2018 midterm elections.