Poilievre shouldn't forget the pharmaceutical companies that started the opioid crisis
National Post, 27 November 2022
The 'gatekeepers' against whom Poilievre rails are not only politicians and bureaucrats. Powerful private actors have played a role, as well
Pierre Poilievre’s “Everything feels broken” video, which blames “safe supply” policies for homeless encampments in Vancouver, stirred up wide criticism from across the political spectrum, including from my National Post colleague, Chris Selley.
Apart from the policy prescription — favouring the Alberta treatment model over the British Columbia “harm reduction” model — the political play was to generate a contrast with “elite” opinion. It’s an argument with punch: the government provides free illegal drugs to those suffering from addiction while ordinary families face a shortage of children’s pain medication.
I expect that we will see more such videos. “Everything feels broken” brings to mind the devastating slogan of the Thatcher Tories in 1979: “Labour’s not working.” Widespread strikes kept labourers from working. The Labour government’s policies were not working. “Everything feels broken” resonates widely because so much is broken.
A five-minute video is not a comprehensive policy paper, but Poilievre’s video focuses on the “failed experiment” of government “safe supply” policies, while neglecting the role of private actors in the opioid epidemic. This is an argument he may wish to explore further.
The “gatekeepers” against whom Poilievre rails are not only politicians and bureaucrats. Powerful private actors have played a role, as well. The opioid epidemic is perhaps the clearest and most cruel example of the rich exploiting the poor, even to the point of death, for their own gain.
The villains are well known: doctors who over-prescribed, pharmaceutical companies that became drug pushers and, to be very specific, McKinsey & Company, the global management consultancy.
Poilievre mentions in passing that opioids were “prescribed and over-prescribed,” but that is his only mention of potent private actors. Doctors are powerful gatekeepers. Their prescription practices were one of the most important factors in the dramatic increase in addictions to painkilling medications. There has been precious little accountability on that front.
There has been more accountability elsewhere. Purdue Pharma went into bankruptcy and was forced to pay a multi-billion-dollar settlement, confessing that it “intentionally conspired and agreed with others to aid and abet” the over-prescribing of painkillers “without a legitimate medical purpose.”
Purdue’s financial bankruptcy was a direct consequence of its moral bankruptcy. That was an American process, but the British Columbia government also sued Purdue Pharma.
Then there is McKinsey. The epitome of the international “creative class” that has prospered mightily these last decades, it had its own $600-million settlement for its role in advising pharmaceutical companies how to facilitate opioid addictions as a profit-making strategy. McKinsey insisted that its work was “lawful,” but did not comport with its own “high standards.”
Actually, McKinsey’s standards tolerate quite a lot when the fees are high enough and the victims disposable enough. McKinsey long ago planted its standard alongside the flags of some of the world’s most notorious tyrants. Tyranny can be lucrative.
Continue reading at the National Post.