GUEST VOICES: Time for Opioid Makers to Pay Their Share

by Ramon Castellblanch, Ph.D., President, Quality Healthcare Concepts, Inc.

With AB 1468 (McCarty), opioid manufacturers and distributors will begin to pay California to help stop the deaths and misery caused by the opioid epidemic, off of which these businesses have so highly profited. For two decades, opioid manufacturers and distributors have irresponsibly promoted opioids. Opioid-makers like the Sackler family-owned Purdue Pharma have pleaded guilty to misleading regulators, doctors and patients about their opioid Oxycontin’s risk of addiction and its potential to be abused. Opioid distributors like Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen have settled lawsuits that they were shipping opioids to “pill mill” pharmacies that dispense excessive numbers of painkillers.

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