Why is this man smiling?

At a rally for the Republican candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 18th District, Donald Trump performed his impersonation of Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte and Chinese president (for life) Xi Jinping.  At issue was the increasing number of U.S. deaths attributable to drug addiction and overdoses.  Trump’s target?  Drug dealers!  His solution?  The death penalty!

You kill 5,000 people with drugs because you’re smuggling them in and you are making a lot of money and people are dying. And they don’t even put you in jail.  That’s why we have a problem, folks. I don’t think we should play games.

Nice sound bite, Donald.  But, unfortunately you’ve misrepresented the target.  We’ll get to the solution later.

According to the CDC, using the most recently available figures for specific causes of medication-related fatalities (2014), the drug responsible for the most deaths in this country was alprazolam.  More commonly known as Xanax, alprazolam was first introduced in the United States in 1981, not by “smugglers,” but by Upjohn, now part of Pfizer.  So, if you’re looking for a drug dealer responsible for MORE THAN 5,000 deaths, look no further.  His name is Ian C. Read, CEO of Pfizer (pictured above).  And as Trump suggests, THIS drug dealer is “making a lot of money.”  His total compensation in 2014 was (drum roll) $23,383,084.

Donald, put away the dog whistle.  We know who you mean when you talk about “smugglers.”  And once again, you thought it was more important to rally your base than have an honest conversation about the opioid pandemic.  And what better place to infer Mexicans are the source of the opioid crisis than southwest Pennsylvania.  Just one problem.  The 18th congressional district is 95.8 percent White and 0.6 percent Hispanic.  In other words, the drugs that are killing the residents of the 18th district are not being distributed on playgrounds or street corners.  The more likely sources are pharmacies and the medicine cabinets in residential communities.

So, if you want to have executions to show the drug dealers we’re not playing games, let’s start with Ian Read.  Or the CEOs of other opioid manufacturers and distributors.   Maybe the real cartel is the unholy alliance between drug companies and the doctors who are rewarded for prescribing opioids.  According to a March 12, 2018 report on CNN.

In 2014 and 2015, opioid manufacturers paid hundreds of doctors across the country six-figure sums for speaking, consulting and other services. Thousands of other doctors were paid over $25,000 during that time.  Physicians who prescribed particularly large amounts of the drugs were the most likely to get paid.

Seems Mr. Read and executives of other pharmaceutical companies got a significant return on investment without smuggling their product into the country.  And they are probably safe from any future prosecution.  I wonder whether back alley drug dealers would receive the same protection if they had donated $1.0 million to the Trump inauguration as did Pfizer. (Source: Kaiser Health Center, April 21, 2017)

For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP