The U.S. drug industry played a role in the start of America’s current fentanyl crisis , according to Sherri Hobson, a former assistant U.S. attorney in San Diego.
For years, the U.S. drug industry pushed legal opioids until the U.S. government and state attorneys general cracked down on the drug industry. The legal supply of opioids dried up, but demand from Americans addicted to the drugs did not. Hobson says the Mexican cartels started churning out fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, to fill the void for people addicted to painkillers.
“It’s very strange to think that the pharmaceutical industry basically set the table for the Mexican cartels to come in and dominate,” Hobson said.
From legal opioids to deadly fentanyl
The drug industry pushed oxycodone, hydrocodone and other pain killers for decades, Hobson said. Millions of people became addicted.
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“The public was outraged that the pharmaceutical industry was doing this,” Hobson said. “That they lied about, you know, that it wasn’t addictive when it was highly addictive.”
The U.S. government cracked down on the drug industry and many companies were sued by ravaged communities…