On 60 Minutes tonight the sales tactics of the Drug companies pushing opioids were outlined. They included bribery, pushing doctors to use off=label prescriptions, expensive trips, huge pay for making speeches on the values of using the opioids. among other illegal tactics.

As bad as that is, it is not unusual. I know for a fact that almost all pharmaceutical companies have been using such tactics for well over 30 year to push excessive prescribing of drugs of all sorts. I have attended a couple of the speaking engagements by bribed doctors. In one, having drinks with the doctor afterward, he bragged about the practices, and how much money he was making on behalf of the drug company. I also worked a while for a market research company , conducting interviews of doctors who freely admitted being recipients of such bribery trips, consulting "fees", etc.

Most pharmaceutical companies and up to 10 percent of doctors are and have been complicit.