Should we blame the family who made huge profits, the big Pharma companies who profited

What are your opinions about the origins of the opioid epidemic in America? How should we address this issue as a nation? Given what you’ve learned this semester and in this podcast, should we blame the family who made huge profits, the big Pharma companies who profited, the doctors for over-prescribing, the black-market dealers, or the addicts themselves? Discuss. What do you see as possible solutions to this social problem?

The podcast was really informative to know how societies can be engulfed by something considered to be harmless and yet destroy them. I think that the Sackler family knew the weakness of the society and used it as a business opportunity. There is blame to be put on all of the people mentioned in the prompt but the people who are to be blamed the most are Sacklers and the people using their drugs. Sacklers are to be blamed because they know the harm they were causing to the social fabric of USA by letting people use drugs, legally in their own households. The people are to be blamed because they must have been aware that what they are using is having negative effects. They must have been prescribed by the physicians to use the drugs for a certain period of time. I think that they could have stopped the use of the drugs after the time ended. But they kept on acquiring the drugs and using and abusing it.

The question is how to stop something like this from happening again in future. I think that this is a multifaceted approach that needs to be utilized. Educate the people, regularize the drug producers and distributors and keep a close eye on medical practitioners.