OxyContin Maker Explored Expansion Into "Attractive" Anti-Addiction Market
Source: ProPublica
Secret portions of a lawsuit allege that Purdue Pharma, controlled by the Sackler family, considered capitalizing on the addiction treatment boom while going to extreme lengths to boost sales of its controversial opioid.
Not content with billions of dollars in profits from the potent painkiller OxyContin, its maker explored expanding into an attractive market fueled by the drugs popularity treatment of opioid addiction, according to previously secret passages in a court document filed by the state of Massachusetts.
In internal correspondence beginning in 2014, Purdue Pharma executives discussed how the sale of opioids and the treatment of opioid addiction are naturally linked and that the company should expand across the pain and addiction spectrum, according to redacted sections of the lawsuit by the Massachusetts attorney general. A member of the billionaire Sackler family, which founded and controls the privately held company, joined in those discussions and urged staff in an email to give immediate attention to this business opportunity, the complaint alleges.
ProPublica reviewed the scores of redacted paragraphs in Massachusetts 274-page civil complaint against Purdue, eight Sackler family members, company directors and current and former executives, which alleges that they created the opioid epidemic through illegal deceit. These passages remain blacked out at the companys request after the rest of the complaint was made public on Jan. 15. A Massachusetts Superior Court judge on Monday ordered that the entire document be released, but the judge gave Purdue until Friday to seek a further stay of the ruling.
Read more: https://www.propublica.org/article/oxycontin-purdue-pharma-massachusetts-lawsuit-anti-addiction-market?utm_content=buffer2c3c1&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=buffer
From ProPublica's Twitter feed:
"Scoop: In internal correspondence beginning in 2014, Purdue Pharma executives discussed how the sale of opioids and the treatment of opioid addiction are naturally linked and that the company should expand across the pain and addiction spectrum.
Link to tweet
ZeroSomeBrains
(638 posts)In addition the company should have to have all their assets liquidated, their drug-dealing executives thrown in jail and then have the government expropriate their wealth while they're at it. Then they should have to meet with all the families who have been destroyed by their greed and negligence. And that doesn't even come close to a just enough punishment for these monsters.
JaneQPublic
(7,113 posts)I agree. This is beyond evil, to scheme to profit from both the poison and the cure.
ZeroSomeBrains
(638 posts)And his drug of choice was weed. This was ten years ago and he had mental illness when he brought a packed pipe to a police station. Instead of viewing it as a mental health issue they charged him and made him do piss tests. And what's the easiest to test for? Marijuana. And heroin gets out of ur system in a day. He would be alive if this opiod crisis had been dealt with and or if weed was legalized.
The only good thing that came from it is that it got me politically engaged but that probably would've happened regardless. It's a damn shame how many others have died from it as well. Something needs to change and these people need to be helped who are addicted and those who profited from it need to be exposed and thrown in jail.
area51
(11,908 posts)ck4829
(35,069 posts)ananda
(28,858 posts)Get rich off getting them addicted, and then get even
richer by selling anti-addiction products!
This sucks!
DemoTex
(25,396 posts)Or 21st century alchemy?
ck4829
(35,069 posts)marble falls
(57,080 posts)Initech
(100,068 posts)If corporations are people, couldn't we jail and execute some of them? Purdue Pharma seems like an ideal candidate! Huawei is up next!
And the even greater upside - no innocent lives would be lost!
marble falls
(57,080 posts)people they need to offer up some managers for prison terms. That is true. Its like criminals diluting their culpability by having a bureaucracy of suits to share the responsibility for the crimes they commit. John Gotti went to prison and died there. Why shouldn't Perdue offer up their "mob bosses" to the same fate?
WestMichRad
(1,320 posts)Hell NO!! Corporate executives are the ones who should have their heads on the proverbial chopping block!
marble falls
(57,080 posts)is no excuse or protection. Firewalls from culpability should not keep anyone from moral responsibility.
When we bust drug king pins, we pop the street dealers, mules, drivers, strong arms, book keepers, cookers and packagers, too.
ck4829
(35,069 posts)Initech
(100,068 posts)Making a dangerously addictive drug and then getting rich off the addiction treatment is the textbook definition of evil. These executives should be doing hard time for this, instead they will be getting billions and going scot-free.
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)Journeyman
(15,031 posts)then made a greater fortune selling armor-piercing shells.
Most prescient words David Byrne ever wrote: "Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was."
blue neen
(12,319 posts)Really, really sick.
ck4829
(35,069 posts)mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)Do you guys really think that the companies that make, say Buprenorphine (aka Suboxone) and Methadone ... do not also make generic Vicodin, Percocets, Dilaudid etc?
I'd be pretty freaking sure that many do, and there's no reason they shouldn't, frankly.
I'm far more disturbed with the OTHER shit Purdue did to push the Oxycontin Rx's.
ck4829
(35,069 posts)Dave Starsky
(5,914 posts)That guy was a true prophet.
ck4829
(35,069 posts)Dave Starsky
(5,914 posts)Or if today's corporate assholes are learning from what those authors wrote, and they are putting those ideas into practice, because it worked so well in fiction.
It's food for thought, I guess.