They Knew

Drug makers and drug sellers and drug prescribers and drug insurance providers all knew what was going on.

This doesn't happen outside the consciousness of those involved.

WaPo:

For the first time, a database maintained by the Drug Enforcement Administration that tracks the path of every single pain pill sold in the United States — by manufacturers and distributors to pharmacies in every town and city — has been made public.

The Washington Post sifted through nearly 380 million transactions from 2006 through 2012 that are detailed in the DEA’s database and analyzed shipments of oxycodone and hydrocodone pills, which account for three-quarters of the total opioid pill shipments to pharmacies. The Post is making this data available at the county and state levels in order to help the public understand the impact of years of prescription pill shipments on their communities.

My home county

In the heart of the heartland 

- and -

Just six companies distributed 75 percent of the pills — oxycodone and hydrocodone — during this period: McKesson Corp., Walgreens, Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, CVS and Walmart, according to an analysis of the database by The Washington Post.

Top pill distributors, 2006 through 2012

(go to the article to see the rest of the top 100 suppliers)

The long slide into Coin-Operated Government has produced some incredibly shitty results.

Plutocratic Regulatory Capture and the failure of the Free Market to "self-regulate" has to be obvious now.

This approach - remedial vs preventive - isn't just costing us way more than good government would cost us. It's killing us.