{"id":1682064,"date":"2022-10-10T16:22:20","date_gmt":"2022-10-10T20:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1682064"},"modified":"2022-10-10T16:22:29","modified_gmt":"2022-10-10T20:22:29","slug":"tim-ryan-took-money-from-opioid-distributor-whose-executives-mocked-addicts-as-pillbillies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/tim-ryan-took-money-from-opioid-distributor-whose-executives-mocked-addicts-as-pillbillies\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim Ryan Took Money From Opioid Distributor Whose Executives Mocked Addicts as \u2018Pillbillies\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ftim-ryan-took-money-from-opioid-distributor-whose-executives-mocked-addicts-as-pillbillies%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1682064&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/democrats\/\">Democrats<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"article-excerpt\">On the campaign trail, Ryan attacks pharmaceutical companies for profiting from &#8216;getting Americans hooked on opiates&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>   Ohio congressman Tim Ryan (D.) \/ Getty Images   <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/author\/joseph-simonson\/\" title=\"Posts by Joseph Simonson\" class=\"author url fn text-red-700\" rel=\"author\">Joseph Simonson<\/a> \u2022 October 10, 2022 4:20 pm  <\/p>\n<p>On the campaign trail, Rep. Tim Ryan, the Democratic Senate candidate in Ohio, likes to tell voters about his work as co-chair of the Congressional Addiction, Treatment, and Recovery Caucus and to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/NowThisPolitics\/videos\/rep-tim-ryan-criticizes-sackler-family-over-opioid-crisis\/346615357362787\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">attack<\/a> pharmaceutical companies for profiting from &#8220;getting so many millions of Americans hooked on opiates.&#8221; None of that stopped him from accepting money from a political action committee funded by an opioid distributor whose executives mocked addicts as &#8220;pillbillies,&#8221; a Washington Free Beacon review of campaign finance documents found.<\/p>\n<p>The $1,000 donation came from AmerisourceBergen PAC in November 2019. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2021\/may\/16\/amerisourcebergen-pillbillies-emails-west-virginia-opioid-trial-\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Emails<\/a> revealed in 2021 during a lawsuit against the company for its alleged role in the opioid crisis showed AmerisourceBergen\u2019s executives expressing broad contempt for poor whites suffering from addiction, which at the time was largely fueled by pharmaceuticals such as OxyContin.<\/p>\n<p>In one exchange, a senior AmerisourceBergen executive circulated a parody song containing references to &#8220;hillbilly heroin,&#8221; &#8220;a bevy of Pillbillies&#8221; and a reference to Kentucky as &#8220;OxyContinville.&#8221; Another email shared between executives joked about how crackdowns against so-called pill mills\u2014doctors who illegally prescribe opioids to customers\u2014in Florida will lead to a &#8220;max [sic] exodus of Pillbillies heading north.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The donation could prove to be a political liability for Ryan, a Democrat running in a state that has been inordinately impacted by the opioid crisis. The <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/2022-midterm-elections-health-ohio-native-americans-campaigns-bf3a0a1a8341930339e614ee64518e1b\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Associated Press<\/a> reported earlier this month that opioid distributors donated at least $27,000 to Ryan\u2019s political campaigns since 2007. <\/p>\n<p>At the same time, the AP found, Ryan voted against bills meant to increase funding for anti-opioid initiatives, such as spending packages for addiction treatment. In a statement to the AP, Ryan\u2019s campaign said one of the donors, Cardinal, is a large employer in Ohio.<\/p>\n<p>The Ryan campaign did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Ohio recorded more than 5,200 overdose deaths in 2020. That figure was largely attributable to the rise<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the campaign trail, Rep. Tim Ryan, the Democratic Senate candidate in Ohio, likes to tell voters about his work as co-chair of the Congressional Addiction, Treatment, and Recovery Caucus and to attack pharmaceutical companies for profiting from &#8220;getting so many millions of Americans hooked on opiates.&#8221; None of that stopped him from accepting money from a political action committee funded by an opioid distributor whose executives mocked addicts as &#8220;pillbillies,&#8221; a Washington Free Beacon review of campaign finance documents found.<br \/>\nThe post Tim Ryan Took Money From Opioid Distributor Whose Executives Mocked Addicts as \u2018Pillbillies\u2019 appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1682064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1682064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1682064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1682064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1682064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1682064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1682064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}