Recent Commentary from Inter Alia

YLPR’s online edition
Robert Capodilupo & Jacob James Rich
Tuesday, February 7, 2023 - 10:45am

The opioid crisis continues to ravage communities across the United States, which has motivated policymakers to seek interventions that reduce reckless medical practices that put patients in danger of addiction. In her Yale Law & Policy Review Article, The Prescription Abuse Prevention Act: A New Federal Statute to Criminalize Overprescribing Opioids, Rebecca A. Delfino proposes novel legislation to reform how the federal government prosecutes doctors who overprescribe controlled substances. However, many of the statistics Delfino cites to justify her legislation, such as “[s]eventy percent of [opioid overdose] deaths involve an opioid that a doctor legally prescribed,” are not supported by the literature. This comment corrects the errors presented in Delfino’s Article and presents novel data describing the origins of the opioid crisis. According to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA), Purdue Pharma’s OxyContin was rarely used for nonmedical purposes in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Overall, given that opioid prescribing has decreased every year over the past decade, further reductions in prescribing that follow Delfino’s proposed Prescription Abuse Prevention Act may further exacerbate opioid overdoses by orienting both pain patients and recreational users to illicit alternatives, like heroin and fentanyl.

Matene Alikhani & Bruno Renzetti
Sunday, January 22, 2023 - 4:45pm

We argue that new technologies that allow greater data collection in food retail markets allow companies to exploit consumers’ personal data, potentially giving rise to new anticompetitive strategies. We look at the example of Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” technology to show how the company replicates online surveillance into the real world. We pinpoint privacy and competitive concerns related to the technology and propose policy solutions to the issues raised. We show that exploitation of consumers’ data is not inherently to the viability of this technology in the market.

Karissa Kang
Sunday, January 22, 2023 - 4:15pm

Stop & Shop uses restrictive covenants to reduce competition. Here’s how to fight back. 

Aliza Shatzman
Monday, August 29, 2022 - 10:00am

Judicial misconduct against clerks is poorly understood, which enables predatory behavior. By requiring law schools to collect and organize data about misbehaving judges as a condition of their accreditation, law schools can help ensure that students are safe and bring pressure on judges to behave better. 

Ann Lininger
Monday, January 3, 2022 - 11:00am

The author routinely sees people cycle through court who lack the harm reduction and recovery support they need to be stable and safe in their communities. New laws in Oregon and Washington could change that: they could help people permanently leave - or even avoid - the criminal justice system. Oregon’s Ballot Measure 110 decriminalizes low-level drug possession, and Washington state’s Senate Bill 5476 directs public safety officials to divert many people caught with drugs to social services twice before arresting or prosecuting them. Both laws increase funding for community-based programs that could help people live successfully in their neighborhoods. Leaders working to improve our justice system should convene a council to compare the results of the Oregon and Washington programs with results from states that respond more traditionally to drugs and addiction and with results from Portugal, which decriminalized drug use in 2001. By identifying the most effective interventions, this council could help jurisdictions make concrete, well-considered reforms to improve justice in their communities.