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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWho dies, who pays: Different standards of justice for a limo crash and an opioid epidemic
By Daily News Editorial Board
New York Daily News
Jun 05, 2023 at 4:00 am
Compare and contrast, please.
Wednesday in Upstate New York, Nauman Hussain was sentenced to 5-15 years in prison for his role in the October 2018 deaths of 20 people after the brakes of an enormous stretch limousine failed. Hussain wasnt driving the car. Rather, he rented out the vehicle and a jury found evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that before doing so, he failed to ensure it was safe to drive. For that, he was convicted of 20 counts of second-degree manslaughter.
In Manhattan Tuesday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that members of the Sackler family, the billionaires who own Purdue Pharma, will get full immunity from all civil lawsuits related to the mass dissemination of powerful pain drugs that have addicted millions and killed thousands. (Though Purdue Pharma has twice pleaded guilty to criminal charges, the Sacklers themselves have never been charged.) The ruling, the culmination of years of legal wrangling, shields the family atop Purdue Pharma and paves the path for the companys bankruptcy restructuring in exchange for $6 billion in Sackler money that will go to help address the epidemic their company helped fuel.
The cash is no small sum, and will help people in desperate need across America, including here in New York, where opioid deaths have risen from about 1,000 in 2010 to more than 4,000 today. Nationally, opioid deaths now number more than 80,000 per year. Addicted people need counseling, effective medication-based treatment and a range of other services so they dont wind up part of rising death counts.
https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-edit-limo-crash-nauman-hussain-sacklers-purdue-pharma-20230605-tl4vtpigb5hzjciukux2mycrom-story.html
( Hideous standards of justice. )
bucolic_frolic
(42,661 posts)"$6 billion in Sackler money" that they obtained by selling opiods to the public affected by their products. See the sleight-of-hand there? What was yours is theirs no matter what they did to you with it. That's power, the power of property rights mixed with business.
BeckyDem
(8,361 posts)Johnny2X2X
(18,739 posts)Addiction is not a moral failing, it's an illness. And addiction to Opioids is something a large % of the population would have little to no control over if it happened to them. The Sacklers knew exactly who they were killing and chose to kill them so they could make more money.