Who gets blamed?

In PowerLine, Paul Mirengoff takes a look at research on opioid deaths and writes,

the opioid epidemic seems to be less about greedy corporations hooking patients on pills and more about old-fashioned drug dealing by old-fashioned drug dealers — the class of people for whom lenient sentencing is sought by the “jailbreak” movement on the theory that these are non-violent criminals.

In a way, the assignment of blame to big bad corporations reminds me of the narrative that emerged after the financial crisis of 2008. The left and the media pinned the blame on banks who issued subprime loans. But banks weren’t the main villains.

The main villains were leftist “community organizers,” who demanded a lowering of lending standards so their constituents could buy homes they couldn’t afford, Democratic politicians who pushed this demand, and regulators didn’t step in to deal with the consequences. This is well documented by Gretchen Morgenson, then of the New York Times, in her book Reckless Endangerment (written with Joshua Rosner). When the Bush administration flagged the problem, powerful Democrats like Barney Frank made sure it didn’t rock the boat.

I’m no fan of corporate America. But the opioid epidemic, like the financial crisis, looks like another case of corporations taking a vastly disproportionate share of the blame for the misconduct, and in some cases the sins, of others.

Read more here.