60 Minutes on the opioid crisis #1

Last Sunday the television show 60 Minutes reran this episode about the opioid crisis. The original made me suspicious of bias; seeing it the second time more so. It strikes me as very biased about who deserves blame, and it tries to make a likely overzealous bureaucrat into a hero. Joe Rannazzisi is an ex-agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). He and the story are very critical of wholesale drug distributors. The story alleges that Rannazzisi exposed the DEA's failure (due to congressional interference, unwarranted in his opinion) to hold Big Pharma accountable in the opioid epidemic.

The story blames a few doctors, a few pharmacies, a few pain clinics, and Congress, but the most blame is for the three largest wholesale drug distributors -- McKesson, Cardinal Health, and Amerisource Bergen. They are the choke point selected by the critics. Rannazzisi gets lots of air-time to give his side of the story. Some other DEA agents or ex-agents, with opinions similar to Rannazzisi, get much air-time. Lobbyists for the drug distributors get some blame. Many of them are ex-DEA lawyers. The critics of the distributors don't appreciate such well-informed people thwarting the DEA's efforts.

There are only two spokesman on behalf of drug distributors, and they get very little air-time. Some media such as here gives the drug distributors' side, but 60 Minutes put very little effort towards that. One of the two was a Congressman who criticized the DEA's aggressive enforcement tactics, but that criticism is pooh-poohed by others. Of course, Congressmen like law enforcers to take it easy on their campaign contributors. On the other, law enforcers sometimes act like they are above the law and morally superior.

Near the end of the episode Rannazzisi makes his main motive very clear -- to put a high-level drug industry executive in jail. Such an executive gives him a scapegoat, and putting one in jail would fulfill his goal of making a big headline, whether or not it is a substantive remedy, and regardless of the degree of objectively determined guilt.