Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40AMERICAN POLICE BEAT: FEBRUARY 2017 7 T he hard part about being a successful drug dealer is that there’s an army of cops out there waiting for a shot at putting him behind bars. But the gig is a hell of a lot easier if you’re not breaking any laws. That’s why Big Pharma’s sitting pretty. They’ve got the lobbyists, lawyers and political juice to destroy entire communi- ties without having to worry about consequences or re- percussions. All they have to do is count the money. Right now the USA is struggling with radical in- creases in addiction and overdoses. If you read American Police Beat this is old news, but some folks just can’t seem to get their heads around the fact that drug abuse is now a massive source of revenue for drug companies. But the heat is on. People are talking about it. It’s not like they can just keep doing “business as usual” and get away with it right? Wrong. Take West Virginia, for example. Several multinational drug companies have shoveled more than 780 million pain- killers into that state on the inside of six years. That’s 433 pills for every single man, woman, and child in the Mountain State. Unsurprisingly, overdose deaths increased by 67 per- cent during that period It doesn’t take much long division to show that this would appear to be a steady diet of wildly addictive med- ication – even if one wasn’t in physical pain. Pharmaceutical executives collected tens of millions of dollars in salaries and bo- nuses for making it happen. But don’t expect anyone to do anything about the carnage. People will scream and holler if a small time pot dealer somehow gets a par- don. But when it comes to dead Americans as collateral damage in the war for higher profits, most people just shrug and say, “What can you do?” They do not care Death, destroyed lives and huge profit margins Headline of the Month Texas lawmaker planning ‘celebratory gunfire’ bill after taking bullet to the head on New Year’s Eve Peerless® Handcuff Company Only 5.2 ounces • NIJ Certified • Made in USA www.peerless.net • info@peerless.net • 800.732.3715