Up until earlier this month, Congressman Tom Marino was on track to be President Trump’s drug czar.

Then 60 Minutes and the Washington Post went public with an expose of how, in the midst of the worst drug epidemic in American history, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s ability to keep addictive opioids off U.S. streets was derailed.

The reporting features the whistleblower Joe Rannazzisi, the chief of the DEA’s Office of Diversion Control, the division that regulates and investigates the pharmaceutical industry.

Rannazzisi tells the Washington Post and 60 Minutes the story of how the opioid crisis was allowed to spread – aided by Congress, led by Congressman Marino, drug industry lobbyists, and a drug distribution industry that shipped, almost unchecked, hundreds of millions of pills to rogue pharmacies and pain clinics providing the rocket fuel for a crisis that, over the last two decades, has claimed 200,000 lives.

It was perhaps one of the most consequential corporate crime stories aired by 60 Minutes in recent years. The 60 Minutes piece was produced by Ira Rosen.

The CBS News magazine show drew 13.34 million viewers – the number five rated show in the country for the week – and was a significant driver of the news cycle in Washington.

In the wake of the investigation, Congressman Marino withdrew his name from consideration as America’s drug czar.

A number of Democrats and at least one Republican are calling for modification or outright repeal of the law Marino shepherded through Congress, which undercuts the DEA’s ability to take action against the drug industry. The law and how it was passed was a central focus of the joint Post/60 Minutes investigation. The inpatient drug rehab can help the victims that have fallen prey to drug abuse overcome the issue.

At a news conference, President Trump said he had watched the 60 Minutes story – and he didn’t call it fake news.

“You know all these people that died happened under my watch,” Rannazzisi told 60 Minutes. “The one thing I wanted to do, the one thing that I just thought would have the most impact, is to lock up, arrest one of these corporate officers. You arrest a corporate officer. You arrest somebody that’s involved in the decision process, knowing what the law is. If you make that arrest, then everybody sits up and takes notice because three-piece-suit guys just don’t do well in prison. They don’t.”

We asked 60 Minutes producer Ira Rosen –  how did the whistleblower in this current story –   the DEA agent Joseph Rannazzisi – come to you?

“Lenny Bernstein of the Washington Post had developed Joe as a source,” Rosen said. “Joe is not a guy who was sitting in the back room of warehouse somewhere. Joe had testified at numerous Congressional hearings. He was a well known figure. He had been on various news programs as a high level DEA official. Lenny had gotten to know him. In October 2016, he did a story about the DEA slowdown.”

“It didn’t have the detail that we would later find out. And it certainly didn’t have the impact. He put the story out a few weeks before the Presidential election. We went back and got in touch with Joe. The more he got comfortable with us, the more he decided to open up a bit and tell us a bit more about the process. That opened the floodgates.”

There was the revolving door – DEA attorneys going to work for the drug distribution companies.

“And we may be doing some further reporting on that point – the profiteering off the opioid crisis. The people in corporate America who receive large paychecks and bonuses. The New York Times did a story about the head of McKesson who made $600 million in compensation at the height of the opiate crisis over a period of years. You will start seeing more stories on who was making money on this.”

“I find the profiteering to be outrageous –  whether it’s members of Congress who are making money through insider trading on stocks of pharmaceutical companies, corporate executives cashing in their bonus checks, or salesmen in the field pushing these drugs.”

“These salesmen get bonuses based on sales. They know there is an opiate crisis going on, but they are in it to make money. They are like car salesmen. If they can sell 6 million pills to a pharmacy, they will go for it. It’s the profiteering that went on at the mid level and the highest levels during the opiate crisis.”

This pattern seems to hold for every major corporate crime. You see the failure to prosecute. You see the revolving door. You see the campaign cash fueling the legislation. Why is it so rare to see this kind of corporate crime reporting on mainstream television?

“A lot of people in television now are motivated by numbers and ratings. They feel they have to do things to attract eyeballs to survive. I saw that when I was at ABC. When I was at ABC during the Primetime years, we did some groundbreaking investigations. We did investigations on race discrimination in America. Pap smear clinics messing up tests. False mammogram readings. On and on and on — one after another. I was the senior producer on the Food Lion story that exposed Food Lion food and health safety practices. We sent people undercover with cameras.”

“If there was a period of time when things began to change, I would say it was during the OJ Simpson case. The OJ case turned the attention of everyone to trials, to crime shows. It was a daily occurrence. The ratings were sky high. Around the same time, there was the Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding story. They were getting large numbers. Television mores began to change. The trend was against the kinds of stories we did on Sunday and toward more crime stories. Eventually, Primetime Live went away. And now ABC’s 20/20 does stories along the lines of moochers and parents who behave badly. They are doing stories about nasty neighbors. It’s not what people signed up for when they went to journalism school. And I have a lot of friends over there and I have heard their complaints.”

“The predictions are that the opioid litigation is going to be as big as tobacco. You have state Attorneys General, local prosecutors, private trial lawyers. They are already beginning to run to the courthouse. The class actions. The drug companies don’t want to take the time to say — yes, we were naive, mistakes were made. That would be admitting liability.”

“I think that people would look kindly on that. Then open up the process of how they are now trying to safeguard the country. Instead, they are saying — it wasn’t us. It was doctors prescribing. It was pharmacies dispensing. Why are you blaming us for it?”

What other fallout might we see?

“The next shoe to drop will be a revision of the Marino bill. They are already fighting about who is going to sponsor remedial legislation to fix the problem. You are going to see that. That’s going to be fast tracked in the Senate and the House.”

“This shoe dropped right as the President is beginning his opioid initiatives. It started today at the Justice Department and it will continue for a week. They want to fix this problem fast.”

“I’d like to see the discovery from the lawsuits. That’s going to be interesting. When did they know that the pills they were sending out were addictive? They were testifying in front of Congress that the pills were not addictive. So, when did they first begin to know? And when did the distributors begin to know that these aberrant orders were causing serious health effects? I want to see that documentation see the light of day.”

You identify three distributors — Cardinal Health, McKesson and AmerisourceBergen. What impact will your show have on them?

“You have to first change the law so that DEA can once again go after those companies for the wrongdoing. Right now, the DEA needs to prove there will be an immediate harmful effect. The previous standard was imminent threat. Imminent threat was an easier standard to meet. The industry changed that standard to one that is almost impossible to meet. They need to revert back to the previous standard.”

[For the complete q/a format Interview with Ira Rosen, see 31 Corporate Crime Reporter 41(13), October 23, 2017, print edition only.]