Do you think that drug dealers are in any way personally responsible for the addiction and possibly death of the addicts that they sell to?

Not responsible for the addiction.
Partially responsible for the death.

Not responsible if they’re filling a prescription by a doctor. What the patient does isn’t the responsibility of the pharmacist.

“Of the twenty highest prescribing physicians in the entire country, five of them worked at just one of [their] facilities.”

At that point, they are less a medical physician and more of a money-making machine.

An important extension of this question:
If drug dealers are responsible, even partially, and a lot of people seem to think to, is it not also true that gun manufacturers and sellers are equally responsible for the death caused by their weapons?

@ragingloli If their main concern is volume and not proper background checks, definitely yes.

One needs to consider and define responsibility. Suppliers are definitely involved, and if no one supplied such drugs, most of the situation would not be possible. So yes, they are responsible for their part in it.

On the other hand, they’re not the only ones responsible.

The old Blame Game This question needs to be separated into legal and illegal first to be truly debated properly. Illegal drug pushers should be responsible and certainly jailed along with the people buying those illegal drugs.
Why I called this the old blame game is because so many people these days seem to want to blame everyone BUT themselves for their problems. Time to own-up to your own mistakes and hand in your own problems and stop looking for scapegoats to pin shit on. You have a problem, YOU fix it! Now there’s no shame in getting help with fixing your problem(s) just stop blaming others. In fact, I recommend getting help anywhere you can, but actively be the driving force in your rehabilitation because it is YOUR life.

These guys were running dope pushing businesses for the money and the doctors colluded with them so yes, they are partly responsible for aiding and abetting addicts. And it was criminal. On the other hand, I don’t think that doctors who honestly prescribed opioids to patients in chronic pain should be held liable.

When they push drugs on children, then yes. I will define children as anyone under 18.

Otherwise, no, but to contradict myself, I do think there should be some laws regarding providing ridiculous amounts of addictive drugs or dealing illegal drugs.

@JLeslie Well, there are laws regarding dealing “illegal drugs” – that’s what makes them illegal!

@janbb I know, I am just saying I agree with those laws. Or, some of them anyway.

Legal drugs prescribed by legal prescribers (ie: doctors, pharmacists) to persons that are legally able to be prescribed the drugs (ie: patients) shall be exempt from persecution from the law. What the patients do with the drugs after they are out of the care/sight of the care givers, is on them. They have been advise of their dosage and how to handle the drugs and what to do in the advent of an overdose or missed dose. Or in a case where they need help with that, they have someone at home to do this for them, then that care/responsibility falls on the patients care giver at home.

Blame isn’t useful for solving the question. Unscrupulous opportunists appear anywhere there is opportunity. Their participation in the systems that move dangerous drugs from fields and factories and into addicts is at least partially the reason a person might die or become addicted in the place, but the “responsibility” for taking care of society and preventing people from going down these paths belongs to us all.

I tend to say yes, they are culpable to some extent if the law is broken.But I’m not a lawyer.

Just to clairfy, I didn’t mean “legally responsible” I meant morally responsible.

Well, I happen to be in favor of ending drug prohibition, so to me, NO, the purveyor is not responsible UNLESS he’s specifically doing something unethical. Selling to kids for example. Knowingly cutting his product with dangerous chemicals. Trying to get people ‘hooked’.

But I don’t blame the drug dealer for drug addiction anymore than I blame a bartender for alcoholism, or a gun seller for gun crimes, or the internet service provider for hacking, or the car dealer for reckless driving….you get the idea.

Certainly, there are DETAILS in each of those situations that could be unethical, but the core thing itself is not, in my view.

Under a legalized environment we could have safe injection sites, less variable product, and reduce OD and diseases. Prices would plummet and people could support their habit WITHOUT choosing between feeding their kids and their addiction. I knew a guy who did collections calls for a bank, and he was on the phone with a woman for like an hour pitching her different payment plans and ways that he could work with her to restructure her debt so it was more bearable….and she eventually stopped him and just said “Son, you sound like a nice guy, so I’m going to level with you. I’m addicted to crack. Every dollar I get is going to my dealer. I’m not paying any of that loan back and you’re wasting your time trying.” (recounted from memory and third hand so not verbatim, but that was the gist).

Legalization would give folks like that a fighting chance of being ‘functional addicts’. Whereas now….it’s basically impossible if you get hooked on the harder stuff. We’ve tried prohibition for almost a century now…and you can’t find a single neighborhood in any major US city where you can get whatever drug you want. It’s complete failure. It’s time to change tactics towards ‘harm reduction’ and just accept that people need to take responsibility for their choices.