American Cartel
Inside the Battle to Bring Down the Opioid Industry
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Narrated by:
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Kiff VandenHeuvel
About this listen
The definitive investigation and exposé of how some of the nation's largest corporations created and fueled the opioid crisis—from the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporters who first uncovered the dimensions of the deluge of pain pills that ravaged the country and the complicity of a near-omnipotent drug cartel.
American Cartel is an unflinching and deeply documented dive into the culpability of the drug companies behind the staggering death toll of the opioid epidemic. It follows a small band of DEA agents led by Joseph Rannazzisi, a tough-talking New Yorker who had spent a storied 30 years bringing down bad guys; along with a band of lawyers, including West Virginia native Paul Farrell Jr., who fought to hold the drug industry to account in the face of the worst man-made drug epidemic in American history. It is the story of underdogs prevailing over corporate greed and political cowardice, persevering in the face of predicted failure, and how they found some semblance of justice for the families of the dead during the most complex civil litigation ever seen.
The investigators and lawyers discovered hundreds of thousands of confidential corporate emails and memos during courtroom combat with legions of white-shoe law firms defending the opioid industry. One breathtaking disclosure after another - from emails that mocked addicts to invoices chronicling the rise of pill mills - showed the indifference of big business to the epidemic’s toll. The narrative approach echoes such work as A Civil Action and The Insider, moving dramatically between corporate boardrooms, courthouses, lobbying firms, DEA field offices, and Capitol Hill while capturing the human toll of the epidemic on America’s streets.
American Cartel is the story of those who were on the front lines of the fight to stop the human carnage. Along the way, they suffer a string of defeats, some of their careers destroyed by the very same government officials who swore to uphold the law before they begin to prevail over some of the most powerful corporate and political influences in the nation.
©2022 Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz (P)2022 TwelveListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“An eye-opening, shocking and deeply documented investigation of the opioid crisis by two great reporters. This is not just about the greed of the pharmaceutical companies. AMERICAN CARTEL exposes the sweeping moral corruption of some senior officials in the Department of Justice, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Congress, and the practice of medicine and law. The ultimate corruption is the collective failure to see, define and act on the larger public interest to address a true national emergency.” (Bob Woodward, associate editor of The Washington Post and best-selling author of Peril)
"A story of courageous heroes fighting the opioid crisis, AMERICAN CARTEL reads like a thriller. At the same time, it is a vivisection of the political and corporate corruption that allows pharmaceutical firms to profit from despair. AC follows a group of modern-day 'private eyes' as they investigate players much bigger than the Sacklers, including some of America’s biggest companies and most powerful members of Congress. Like a riveting true crime story, AC 'follows the money' through the revolving doors of Washington, into the swamp of lobbyists and white collar drug rings who recklessly peddle narcotics for billions of dollars as hundreds of thousands of Americans die of overdoses." (Alex Gibney, Academy award-winning filmmaker and director of The Crime of the Century)
“Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz are two of the most tenacious investigative reporters in journalism. For years they dug into America’s opioid epidemic, unearthing a pattern of callousness and recklessness within the drug industry. With a fast-paced and absorbing narrative, and dismaying documentary evidence, they recount how powerful interests abetted widespread addiction and abuse - and how a few determined individuals fought for years to finally hold them to account.” (Marty Baron, executive editor (retired), The Washington Post)
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- How an Army of Bureaucrats Protected Barack Obama and Is Working to Destroy the Trump Agenda
- By: Jason Chaffetz
- Narrated by: Jason Chaffetz
- Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Former congressman and current Fox News contributor Jason Chaffetz explains how we ended up with a politicized federal bureaucracy that actively works to promote the Democratic Party's agenda and undermine Donald Trump.
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Excellent insight to the dirty dealings of the gov
- By Henwhisperer on 09-26-18
By: Jason Chaffetz
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The Quiet Don
- The Untold Story of Mafia Kingpin Russell Bufalino
- By: Matt Birkbeck
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Secretive - even reclusive - Russell Bufalino quietly built his organized crime empire in the decades between Prohibition and the Carter presidency. His reach extended far beyond the coal country of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and quaint Amish farms near Lancaster. Bufalino had a hand in global, national, and local politics of the largest American cities, many of its major industries, and controlled the powerful Teamsters Union. His influence also reached the highest levels of Pennsylvania government and halls of Congress, and his legacy left a culture of corruption that continues to this day.
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Important But Edited By Lawyers?
- By Ted on 04-03-14
By: Matt Birkbeck
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Contempt
- A Memoir of the Clinton Investigation
- By: Ken Starr
- Narrated by: Ken Starr
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Twenty years after the Starr Report and the Clinton impeachment, former special prosecutor Ken Starr finally shares his definitive account of this period in American history. Now Starr finally shares his unique perspective on the investigation that began with the Whitewater land deal and spread to a wide range of President Clinton's actions, including accusations of sexual harassment and perjury in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Starr's narrative includes behind-the-scenes details that have never before emerged as well as a new analysis from the perspective of history.
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Thought provoking and honest!
- By Sarah on 09-13-18
By: Ken Starr
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Tangled Webs
- How False Statements are Undermining America: From Martha Stewart to Bernie Madoff
- By: James B. Stewart
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 19 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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In Tangled Webs, James B. Stewart reveals in vivid detail the consequences of the perjury epidemic that has swept our country, undermining the very foundation of our courts.With many prosecutors, investigators, and participants speaking for the first time, Tangled Webs goes behind the scene of the trials of media and homemaking entrepreneur Martha Stewart; top White House political adviser Lewis "Scooter" Libby; home-run king Barry Bonds; and Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff. Tangled Webs reaffirms the importance of truth.
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in great detail
- By Andy on 06-22-11
By: James B. Stewart
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Tulia
- Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town
- By: Nate Blakeslee
- Narrated by: James Boles
- Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Early one morning in the summer of 1999, authorities in the tiny West Texas town of Tulia began a roundup of suspected drug dealers. By the time the sweep was done, over 40 people had been arrested and one of every five black adults in town was behind bars, all accused of dealing cocaine to the same undercover officer, Tom Coleman.
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A Must Read
- By JOHN on 03-23-08
By: Nate Blakeslee
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Bad City
- Peril and Power in the City of Angels
- By: Paul Pringle
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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On a cool, overcast afternoon in April 2016, a salacious tip arrived at the L.A. Times that reporter Paul Pringle thought should have taken, at most, a few weeks to check out: a drug overdose at a fancy hotel involving one of the University of Southern California’s shiniest stars—Dr. Carmen Puliafito, the head of the prestigious medical school. Pringle, who’d long done battle with USC and its almost impenetrable culture of silence, knew reporting the story wouldn’t be a walk in the park. USC is the largest private employer in the city of L.A., and it casts a long shadow.
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Wow.
- By Anna on 07-22-22
By: Paul Pringle
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Inside Scientology
- The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion
- By: Janet Reitman
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Scientology, created in 1954 by a prolific sci-fi writer named L. Ron Hubbard, claims to be the world's fastest-growing religion, with millions of members around the world and huge financial holdings. Its celebrity believers keep its profile high, and its teams of "volunteer ministers" offer aid at disaster sites such as Haiti and the World Trade Center. But Scientology is also a notably closed faith, harassing journalists and others through litigation and intimidation, even infiltrating the highest levels of government to further its goals.
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My cup of tea.
- By MWMcCabe on 08-09-11
By: Janet Reitman
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Freezing Order
- A True Story of Russian Money Laundering, State-Sponsored Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath
- By: Bill Browder
- Narrated by: Adam Grupper
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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When Browder’s young Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in a Moscow jail in 2009, Browder cast aside his business career and made it his life’s mission to pursue justice for Sergei. One of the first steps of that mission was to uncover who had killed Sergei and profited from the $230 million corruption scheme that he had exposed. As Browder and his team tracked the money that flowed out of Russia—through the Baltics and Cyprus and on to Western Europe and the Americas—they discovered that Vladimir Putin himself was one of the beneficiaries of the crime.
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Red Notice Part II —- The Empire Struck Out
- By R. Alembik on 04-16-22
By: Bill Browder
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The King of Content
- Sumner Redstone’s Battle for Viacom, CBS, and Everlasting Control of His Media Empire
- By: Keach Hagey
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Sumner Murray Redstone, once feared as the “mad genius” of media who would dump his CEOs for mere wobbles in his companies’ stock price, had built one of the world’s greatest media empires through a series of audacious takeovers constructed to ensure that he always maintained control. Today he controls 80 percent of the voting shares of both Viacom and CBS, meaning that on a whim he could replace the entire boards of two public companies with a combined value of $40 billion.
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Feels biased. Well researched, but not engaging.
- By Anonymous User on 04-03-19
By: Keach Hagey
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Class Action
- The Landmark Case That Changed Sexual Harassment Law
- By: Clara Bingham, Laura Leedy Gansler
- Narrated by: Gabrielle De Cuir
- Length: 15 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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When the local iron mine began hiring women in 1975, Lois Jenson, a single mother on welfare, didn't think twice about accepting the grueling but well-paid job. What she hadn't considered was that she was entering a male-dominated society that fiercely resisted the inclusion of women, a prejudice born out in the brutal harassment of every female miner.
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infuriating
- By Ron on 05-20-06
By: Clara Bingham, and others
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The Killing of Karen Silkwood
- The Story Behind the Kerr-McGee Plutonium Case
- By: Richard Rashke
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 15 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Richard Rashke leads us through the myriad of charges and countercharges, theories and facts, and reaches conclusions based solely on the evidence in hand. Originally published in 1981, his audiobook offers a vivid, edgy picture of the tensions that racked this country in the 1970s. However, the volume is not only an important historical document. Complex, fascinating characters populate this compelling insider's view of the nuclear industry.
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If you can get past the terrible narration. . .
- By Surrounded By Chocolate on 04-29-15
By: Richard Rashke
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L.A. Noir
- The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City
- By: John Buntin
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 17 hrs
- Unabridged
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Midcentury Los Angeles: A city sold to the world as "the white spot of America", a land of sunshine and orange groves, Midwestern values, and Hollywood stars, protected by the world's most famous police force, the Dragnet-era LAPD. Behind this public image lies a hidden world of "pleasure girls" and crooked cops, ruthless newspaper tycoons, corrupt politicians, and East Coast gangsters on the make. Into this underworld came two men - one L.A.'s most notorious gangster, the other its most famous police chief - each prepared to battle the other for the soul of the city.
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A good (but a little corny) history of LA
- By Jimmy on 10-23-12
By: John Buntin
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Pay Any Price
- Greed, Power, and Endless War
- By: James Risen
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 10 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Ever since 9/11 America has fought an endless war on terror, seeking enemies everywhere and never promising peace. In Pay Any Price, James Risen reveals an extraordinary litany of the hidden costs of that war: from squandered and stolen dollars, to outrageous abuses of power, to wars on normalcy, decency, and truth. In the name of fighting terrorism, our government has done things every bit as shameful as its historic wartime abuses - and until this audiobook, it has worked very hard to cover them up.
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If you care about our liberties, read this book.
- By John L. Moncrief on 11-02-14
By: James Risen
What listeners say about American Cartel
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Janis
- 08-27-22
fascinating legal perspective on big pharma
great inside perspectives of how lawyers work with and against each other to score big cases and big dollars
big pharma and its distribution network is scary when we have an drug epidemic.
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- AGATINA
- 08-29-22
Excellent
Great writing and narration still, very disturbing to hear what the drug companies in this country get away with.
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- Eric Lindberg
- 09-19-23
Great listen
Great choice of narrator.
Story make my blood boil.
Failure of holding the wealthy accountable.
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- S. S. Felzenberg
- 07-18-22
Compelling
Could not stop listening to this well crafted and well reported story. It is timely, revealing and insightful. Skewers Congress, big business, the judiciary, attorneys. Explains a lot. Superior.
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2 people found this helpful
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- DLTBGYD
- 08-23-22
Not certain why this was written ---
I purchased the hard cover and listened to the narration on Audible, while reading along in the book. If it were not for the excellent narration of Kiff VandenHeuval, I would have dropped reading the book. It can get tedious. That said, VandenHeuval really brings it to life, so I “hung-in-there”.
Synopsis (Lots of “spoilers” here):
Drug companies, large and small (Actavis, Victor Borelli, Cephalon, Endo, Johnson & Johnson, Mallinckrodt, Purdue, Burt Rosen, Teva, and Watson Labs), their distributors (AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, Harvard Drug, H.D. Smith, Masters Pharmaceutical, McKesson, and Sunrise Wholesale) sell massive amounts of OxyContin and oxycodone through retailers (CVS Health, Rite Aid, Walgreens, and Walmart pharmacies). In turn, these myriad pharmacies fill thousands of dubious prescriptions, overwhelmingly written by unscrupulous physicians or “pill mills”. The profits for everyone in the chain, the “cartel”, are enormous. Thousands of Americans die, especially in the Ohio River Valley, West Virginia, and Florida (where distribution laws are particularly lax).
A dedicated DEA agent, Joe Rannazzisi, makes it his personal project (along with a team of DEA agents) to stop the carnage and blatant abuses of the law.
Meanwhile, through their lobbyists and a few well-placed campaign donations, the drug companies (likened to a “cartel”) enlist congressman Tom Marino (R, Pennsylvania) and U.S. Senator, Marsha Blackburn, (R, Tennessee) to draw the Marino-Blackburn Bill (S.483), which --- through some strategically-placed sleight-of-hand and tactical language editing of existing legislation --- manages to emasculate one of the most powerful tools that the DEA has in order to keep the manufacturers and distributors (the “cartel”) in line: Immediate Suspension Orders (ISOs). Without the ISO, Rannazzisi is powerless, the pills keep on shipping, and more Americans die.
Thought to be just routine, Congress pays little attention to the revised language within S.483; it passes without discussion and opposition. Unwittingly, Obama signs it into law.
Rannazzisi is discredited and is forced into early retirement. The years of stress catch up with him and he has a triple bypass shortly after.
Time passes. Thousands more die from overdoses, with little DEA interference. Hundreds of lawsuits are filed. The plaintiffs, which have grown to more than 4,000 --- cities, counties, native American tribes --- form an MDL (Multidistrict litigation, which consolidates complex cases, so they're managed by one court.) The judge desperately wants the parties to settle. They don’t. They go to trial.
The “cartel” hires big gun law firms to defend themselves from prosecution and any liability. Some cities and counties decided to split-off from the MDL, believing they can get better settlements on their own, others do not. Joe Rannazzisi becomes an “expert witness” in many of the cases and gets a second life out of it, so to speak.
The plaintiffs hire a big gun trial lawyer from Texas, Mark Lanier. Some cases are won, some are lost. ($40 billion in settlements, so far). The MDL is still pending and the book ends before we know the outcome of one of the West Virginia cases, which is litigated by an attorney, Paul Farrell, from West Virginia, who has seen the devastation firsthand. The case is held in the court of a Federal Judge, David A. Faber. (Later, the Judge decides in favor of the distributors.)
NOT ONE corporate CEO has been prosecuted. It so often gets down to “How much Justice can you afford?” What’s new in America, eh?
American Cartel almost reads like a movie script --- you know, behind-the-scenes investigations, court drama, and a lot of dialog --- otherwise I can't figure-out why it was written. The authors' entire story has already published in the Washington Post. I just got the feeling the authors had tons of extra material laying around, and decided to plop it into a book. Or, maybe every investigative reporter at the Post is a Woodward or Bernstein wannabe.
I’d certainly recommend this book and I’d argue that Audible is the way to go; the narration is that good.
There was an HBO documentary on the subject:
(I don't have HBO --- I'd really like to see this.)
PS: Just in the past few days some nationwide pharmacies have been held liable.
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- Sue S. Wilson
- 07-23-22
A Must Read
This well documented and succinct telling of this aspect of the opioid epidemic is a book, along with Empire of Pain and Dopesick that everyone should listen to.
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2 people found this helpful
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- erik lawrence
- 06-28-23
Folks should hang
Amazing that’s this was done. Jail them soonest for justice. Stop the commonality of it
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- JAFO
- 07-29-22
A must listen.
A must listen. The authors clearly did their research and wove the facts into a compelling narrative, telling the tragic story of an epidemic that continues to this day, fueled by greed and corruption. As captivating as it is frustrating.
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3 people found this helpful
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- John
- 08-12-22
Sad
It is sad that money is our God in which we trust. it is only a harbinger of what is to come.
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- Lois B
- 07-28-22
Legal drama, tragic reality
Riveting. Even if you know about it from the news you will be fascinated by the multiple factors and characters in this account of the trials to hold the drug companies accountable. Like tobacco and climate change you, follow the money.
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2 people found this helpful