Ex-DEA Agent: Opioid Crisis Fueled by Drug Industry and Congress

I watched this episode of 60 minutes last night and was sickened, truly sickened - but not surprised. And angered! Angered by how it is that the pharmaceutical industry and people in positions of power will sell their souls for money and greater power, totally not giving a damn about how many will die because of their addictions to greed. Specifically among those is Tom Marino, who our current president nominated for drug czar (and who has now withdrawn his name for consideration). Insane that he was nominated. INSANE! Marino is among many who should be locked away for a long, long time, and yet he was both nominated and was referred to by DT as a "good man." Actions by Marino, Trump, and all those who are complicit in so much suffering and so many deaths are the darkest of the dark. And I consequently deeply understand the outrage, deeply. And even more so because one of my own sons, who's now gratefully in solid recovery, was once under the care of a physician following a car accident who I Iater learned was the go-to doctor in the area for easy to get prescriptions for opiates. Watching this 60 Minutes fueled my deep anger and outrage and grief that these white collar criminals, such as Tom Marino, are not held to account. Yet small time drug dealers and users are locked away for years. The hypocrisy and double standard is breathtaking. Sometimes it is truly just so painful to see how far we have to go in this country to truly be a functioning democracy that is committed to being of, by, and for the people. - Molly

Whistleblower Joe Rannazzisi says drug distributors pumped opioids into U.S. communities -- knowing that people were dying -- and says industry lobbyists and Congress derailed the DEA's efforts to stop it

Update: President Trump announced Tuesday that his nominee for drug czar, Rep. Tom Marino, has withdrawn his name from consideration for the position.

In the midst of the worst drug epidemic in American history, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's ability to keep addictive opioids off U.S. streets was derailed -- that according to Joe Rannazzisi, one of the most important whistleblowers ever interviewed by 60 Minutes. Rannazzisi ran the DEA's Office of Diversion Control, the division that regulates and investigates the pharmaceutical industry. Now in a joint investigation by 60 Minutes and The Washington Post, Rannazzisi tells the inside story of how, he says, the opioid crisis was allowed to spread -- aided by Congress, lobbyists, and a drug distribution industry that shipped, almost unchecked, hundreds of millions of pills to rogue pharmacies and pain clinics providing the rocket fuel for a crisis that, over the last two decades, has claimed 200,000 lives.   

Joe Rannazzisi is a tough, blunt former DEA deputy assistant administrator with a law degree, a pharmacy degree and a smoldering rage at the unrelenting death toll from opioids.  His greatest ire is reserved for the distributors -- some of them multibillion dollar, Fortune 500 companies. They are the middlemen that ship the pain pills from manufacturers, like Purdue Pharma and Johnson & Johnson to drug stores all over the country. Rannazzisi accuses the distributors of fueling the opioid epidemic by turning a blind eye to pain pills being diverted to illicit use. 

JOE RANNAZZISI: This is an industry that's out of control. What they wanna do, is do what they wanna do, and not worry about what the law is. And if they don't follow the law in drug supply, people die. That's just it. People die.

JOE RANNAZZISI: This is an industry that allowed millions and millions of drugs to go into bad pharmacies and doctors' offices, that distributed them out to people who had no legitimate need for those drugs.

BILL WHITAKER: Who are these distributors?

JOE RANNAZZISI: The three largest distributors are Cardinal Health, McKesson, and AmerisourceBergen. They control probably 85 or 90 percent of the drugs going downstream.

BILL WHITAKER: You know the implication of what you're saying, that these big companies knew that they were pumping drugs into American communities that were killing people.

JOE RANNAZZISI: That's not an implication, that's a fact. That's exactly what they did.

Please continue this interview transcript, or to watch the full 60 Minutes episode, please go here: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ex-dea-agent-opioid-crisis-fueled-by-drug-industry-and-congress/