Page 39 - Jay Edelson News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Crisis and van newkirk, writer for "the atlantic." let me go to you first, attorney. you're suing, you're going after the pharmaceutical industry and companies. this is a serious problem and it also is something that you're trying to get people that have been damaged some kind of just treatment, and not just in areas that have long been ignored, because my concern here, and i wrote about it this week, is that the people most impacted may not be the people most rewarded. >> that's exactly right, reverend, and thank you so much for having me this morning. the opioid epidemic has really ravished ...

Of, like you said, sort of compassionate language about drug users, about people who are on opioids, less so about people who are hooked on crack or cocaine or other things. but all that rhetoric and logic and nice speeches, none of it has been attached to any money. there's been no bills coming out of congress yet that have substantially increased the drug safety net, and we're also thinking about raiding things like the public health prevention fund which funds most of those. >> that is something we're going to continue to focus on in this show. thank you, jay edelson and van newkirk. you ca...

Successful, which i think they're going to be, they'll have the opportunity to bring in huge amounts of money to communities that frankly need it. in the tobacco litigation from the '90s, big to babacco is sti paying in lawsuits today. >> jay, you've written about this disparity and the difference in terms of the reaction. i know in the '80s they acted as if they didn't even know where crack was being sold. we started pointing out crack houses so every kid on the block knows. in the '80s it was ignored and then when it got to a certain level, it triggered these mandatory sentences that literal...

Yes, president trump paid less than a minute of lip service to the opioid epidemic during his state of the union speech. but in that time, his tone was sympathetic, emphasizing the need for treatment but also the severity of the crisis which he claimed to be unprecedented. once again vindicating those of us in the black community who have noted the sensitivity applied to the opioid crisis of today versus the exclusively punitive response to the crack epidemic of 30 years ago. an important point as a multi-billion-dollar collective lawsuit against the pharmaceutical industry made progress in fe...