The Uselessness of Fining any Large Corporation, Drug Companies in Particular.

Most upper Fortune 500 companies consider fines a part of doing business. This is clearly evident of in the practice of toxic waste dumping. Companies consider the resulting fine an acceptable business expense and continue their actions.

There is a single line between street drug dealers and pharmaceutical company execs. The regulatory structure. If allowed to act without impediment, the drug companies would focus their attention on making drugs that are not only ineffective but also severely addictive, because this would be the path to pure profit. The regulatory structure is suppose to be in place to protect people from the most heinous and predatory natures of true capitalism. I sincerely doubt such a regulatory structure would be necessary if Southern California Railroad v. Santa Clara County was not decided in favor of the plaintiff. When corporate person hood was established, true consumerism died. Companies lead people to believe they are competitors when they are nothing of the sort.

Until corporations are forced to pay the same penalty for betraying public trust as they are for betraying their fiduciary responsibility, this issue will only become more devastating. The regulatory structure has been bought and paid for by sums of money that were never intended or could be imagined by our nations Founders.

Personal responsibility, a notion at the heart of the democratic philosophy, cannot be exercised, when the most powerful natural substances are banned, While more dangerous large molecule pharmaceuticals are stuffed down the consumer's throat.