The Sacklers' Ill-Gotten Gains

If you haven't picked it up already, you should definitely get yourself a copy of Patrick Radden Keefe's Empire of Pain. 

If you haven't read a review, or seen Keefe on every newsy show known to humankind (or at least the newsy shows on MSNBC, CNN, and NPR), Empire of Pain is an accounting of the opioid epidemic as told through the role played by Purdue Pharma (makers and marketers-supreme of OxyContin) and

the Sackler family that owns (and is heavily involved with) the company.

Keefe is an investigative journalist for The New Yorker. He's also a story teller of the highest order. His book Say Nothing told a story about The Troubles in Ireland, focusing on the murder of Jean McConville, a Belfast widowed mother of ten who as killed by the IRA as a suspected informer. Say Nothing was gripping. It read like a novel, except that the story was tragically true.

Empire of Pain isn't quite as novel-esque, but it's gripping and, of course, tragically true.

The opioid crisis was brought to us by the Sackler Brothers (and their offspring) - Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond - the three sons of early-20th immigrants. It's an All-American success story: the trio all became physicians, drug company owners, and billionaires. 

Arthur died before OxyContin was invented, but he had paved the way for it to become a big seller/big killer by pretty much perfecting modern pharmaceutical marketing, i.e., the practice of promoting drugs directly to physicians, wining and dining them, showering them with free samples, paying them for speaking engagements and testimonials, and getting them to push more of whatever drug they were pushing by feeding them information that skimmed the truth.

Arthur, like his brothers, was more businessman than doctor. One of his major ventures was a medical advertising company which helped convince doctors to write millions of prescriptions for Valium (a.k.a., mother's little helper). 

Turned out to be good training for OxyContin marketing. But it was Arthur's brothers, and assorted members of the next generation, who gave us OxyContin.

Initially conceived as a drug for end-stage cancer patients - who cares if they become addicted? - Purdue expanded the market to take care of all sorts of pain. 

Like Big Tobacco, Purdue knew that OxyContin was addictive, but did everything they could to shield this information. The company also played blame-the-victim. Nothing wrong with OxyContin, they argued, it's those damned addicts who are ruining it for everyone. 

What got ruined were a lot of lives, many of them young, who tripped into addiction when OxyContin was prescribed for a sports injury, or back pain, or some other periodic or chronic malady. A number of doctors ran their practices as pill mills. Many of those who got hooked on Oxy ended up heroin/fentanyl addicts. 

Meanwhile, the Sacklers - who notably kept their name off of their drug company (as Arthur had done earlier with his advertising agency) - were playing big-time philanthropists, putting their names on wings and buildings at top-tier museums and universities. (Think The Met, think Tate. Think Harvard, think Yale.) If no one knew where their money came from, what of it? The origins of lots of fortunes are murky. Why look a gift horse in the mouth when that gift horse is wearing saddle bags stuffed with loot?

To shift animals here: OxyContin was a fabulous cash cow for the Sacklers, funding not only philanthropy but a pretty damned nice lifestyle. (And since OxyContin was such a best seller, Purdue Pharma branched out and began selling an antidote to Oxy addiction. Win-win, no?)

The whole shady enterprise started to come tumbling down when states attorneys general began suing Purdue and the Sacklers - and there were plenty of damning smoking gun memos connecting some of the Sackler family members to the day to day operations of Purdue in general, and to the OxyContin hustling in particular.

Empire of Pain meticulously documents the careers of the Sackler brothers, as well as the involvement of their spouses and offspring. (All weren't involved directly with the Purdue Pharma; but all profited handsomely from the company's success.)

Anyway, the Sackler philanthropy thang is going south. Many of the institutions that took Sackler money are no longer accepting their donations. Some are chiseling the Sackler name off of schools, galleries, buildings.

And then there's the matter of whether anyone's going to get at the deep pockets of the Sackler family themselves.

There've been some settlements with Purdue Pharma announced, and in March the family offered to give up control of (now bankrupt) Purdue Pharma and kick in a bit over $4.2B of their own money. After that, the Sacklers would be off the hook, personally untouchable in the courts. (The family continues to deny that they did anything wrong, remaining more of less peeved at those who question them and who have turned their good name into a bad name.)

But two-dozen state attorneys general, alongside the AG for Washington DC, have filed a "not so fast" brief. "

"The bankruptcy system should not be allowed to shield non-bankrupt billionaires," said Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey in an interview with NPR.

"It would set a terrible precedent. If the Sacklers are allowed to use bankruptcy to escape the consequences of their actions, it would be a roadmap for other powerful bad actors." (Source: NPR)

I'm a regular volunteer in a homeless shelter. I'm not doing anything major. I give out toothbrushes, sign folks up for showers, try to find a soft piece of bread when someone toothless comes through the breakfast line. But I've gotten to see plenty of those suffering from opioid addiction. I've seen NarCan administered when someone OD's, and I've called 911 to get an ambulance. 

For decades, the Sacklers enjoyed their ill-gotten gains, living quite nicely while also swanning around the philanthropy circuit. 

I hope those state AG's prevail. It's about time the Sacklers got their comeuppance. Sure, they won't have as much walking around money, and no prestigious organization is going to court them, but they'll be alive. Which is more than the nearly half-a-million folks who've died (so far) thanks to the opioid crisis.

Meanwhile, go read Patrick Radden Keefe's new book. It's a good one.