Hearing the Falconer #13 ~ 21-March-2019 ~ What Can We Do About the Opioid Crisis?

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world....
from The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats, 1919

The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

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21-March-2019: What can we do about the opioid crisis?
Will Drug Companies be Held Accountable for America's Opioid Epidemic?
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Important information about the opioid crisis.

This article is an interview with Barry Meier, author of Pain Killer, which is about the origins of this opioid crisis which killed 40,000 Americans in 2018 alone.

One point Meier makes is that when prosecutors settle lawsuits against the drug manufacturers this often serves to hide vital information that could help us address the crisis.

While communities are desperate for money to address the crisis political moderates will want to move cautiously to make sure the guilty people are punished and the innocent are not.

We should never punish companies for developing drugs or manufacturing drugs or selling drugs. We should punish companies for lying about drugs or hiding information about the dangers associated with drugs.

And what about the Doctors who wrongly prescribed or over prescribed these dangerous drugs? Let's not forget their responsibility either.

We need good pain medications to improve the quality of life for suffering patients. What we need to punish is just the MISUSE of these pain medications.

Pain Killer: An Empire of Deceit and the Origin of America's Opioid Epidemic

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The "Hearing the Falconer" Library

Books for Indpendent Thinkers

Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today

The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It

Unapologetically Moderate: My Search for the Rational Center in American Politics

The Deliberate Moderate: Influencing From the Middle

Eisenhower: The White House Years

The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison

Lincoln

Reflections of a Radical Moderate

Washington: A Life

The Reluctant Republican: My Fight for the Moderate Majority