Question

Opioid addiction continues to be a cause for national and global concern. Each year, hundreds of thousands wind up in the black market to be sold illegally. Some government organizations, such as a congressional crime committee, believe that pharmaceutical companies cannot be blamed if their products are used illegally.

Do pharmaceutical companies have any moral responsibility to ensure their products are not consumed illegitimately?

How would you recognize an ethical pharmaceutical company – what are its characteristics?

Which organization should be held morally culpable for solving this issue? Be sure to include the perspectives of social contract theory and virtue ethics in your responses.

Answer 1

Do pharmaceutical companies have any moral responsibility to ensure their products are not consumed illegitimately?

Pharmaceutical firms have the ability to save lives, so they have a special responsibility because they can do so with little effort.

The present method is unethical, from both consecuentialist and deontological viewpoints. While a consequentialist would find making a large profit to be a positive result, the cost would outweigh the benefits depending on the importance he puts on a human existenceFaced with a life-threatening illness, if their drugs are used improperly, they will suffer a poorer quality of life or even death. Notwithstanding the good outcome for corporations with huge income, the net effect is negative due to the misery inflicted on people.

Deontologists will consider excessive rises in the price of the requisite medicines as immoral. Using a deontological framework, pharmaceutical companies have a moral duty to observe any of their products are used illegally .

How would you recognize an ethical pharmaceutical company – what are its characteristics?

Ethical business practices

· Investors: Ensure their money is protected and pay interest on time.

· Employee: Equal promotion and training incentives, decent working conditions and timely payment of salaries.

• Customer: full Service and Product Details should be made available. Consumer Personal Data should not be used for financial gain.

• Competition: We should stop unscrupulous strategies and practices when treating rivals.

• Government: It should adhere to laws and regulations on taxation, duties, unfair and monopolistic trading practices and criminal activities such as corruption and bribing.

• Environment: Polluting companies should ensure compliance with state air , water and noise emissions requirements

Which organization should be held morally culpable for solving this issue? Be sure to include the perspectives of social contract theory and virtue ethics in your responses.

· If an opioid product (or other controlled substance) has been licensed by the FDA for medicinal use, federal and state agencies shall have the authority to regulate the amount, storage and delivery of the medication at any point of trade.

· One of the key purposes of these prohibitions is to limit access and use of the drug to the amounts and indications for which it has been lawfully approved and to prohibit its delivery beyond the permissible channels of trade.

· It should be noted that illicit manufacture and sale of unauthorized / illegal drugs (i.e., heroin and other Schedule I drugs and illegally produced forms of legally available drugs) are being curtailed

· It also includes so-called take-back programs which facilitate the return or destruction of legally obtained but unneeded medicines, as well as additional state and local restrictions on amounts which may be dispensed or prescribed within specific periods.

· Related tools include licensing and restricting the class of persons or entities authorized to produce, ship, distribute, dispense and prescribe the approved drugs.

· The DEA license offers significant benefit and provides a tool for supervision and compliance.

· Restricting the pool of doctors and other practitioners licensed / authorized to prescribe opioids under federal or state legislation.

· It should be stressed that all these efforts to control legitimate access will involve complex policy choices, as they may trade off reduced pain relief and be accompanied by illegal access / use.