Rope a dope congressmen…
A searing new report from the Associated Press claims that the makers of opioid painkillers, the dangerous drugs at the center of the tragic overdose crisis, outspent the US gun lobby on lobbying and campaign contributions by 8:1.
The report looked at the period from 2006 to 2015, when deaths from the drugs began to skyrocket. Here are some of its most striking findings:
* Opioid drugmakers including Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, spent more than $880 million, or roughly $98 million per year, on lobbying and campaign contributions in support of the drugs.
* Drugmakers and allied advocacy groups employed a yearly average of 1,350 lobbyists in legislative centers.
* In 2015 alone, 227 million opioid prescriptions were given out in the US, or “enough to hand a bottle of pills to nine out of every 10 American adults.”
* Purdue Pharma, the company that makes OxyContin, made $2.4 billion from opioid sales last year alone.
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