Biden looks for bogeymen to distract from Obama's opioid failures

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Events in a Delaware federal courtroom last week have made the federal government’s bid to duck accountability for the opioid crisis untenable.

U.S. District Judge Colm Connolly dismissed much of a Justice Department lawsuit against Walmart related to the opioid crisis, leaving an unlikely path forward for the government’s claims. The decision straightforwardly concludes that certain of the government’s liability theories are manufactured and highly motivated.

That is the case because the federal government was badly in need of bogeymen to distract from their own policy failures on the opioid crisis. Independent probes, including one from the Justice Department’s own inspector general, establish that the federal government bears culpability for the addiction crisis, certainly far more so than a chain pharmacy.

The DOJ IG report in particular slow-walked a devastating conclusion – the Obama-era DEA facilitated the opioid crisis through inaction and incompetence.

OXYCONTIN MAKER'S SETTLEMENT PLAN DIVIDES VICTIMS OF OPIOID CRISIS. NOW IT'S UP TO THE SUPREME COURT

Start with the annual production quotas (APQs). Federal law requires DEA to set production levels for prescription opioids at a level that reflects "legitimate medical and scientific need."