Some of the 500,000 Plus the Sackler Family Killed with OxyContin

Many ended up living under bridges while the Sacklers paid cash for million-dollar homes

The faces you see here are those of dead people. Cut down in the prime of life because some made the innocent mistake of going to the doctor for an ailment: a root canal, minor back pain, or a sprained ankle. The doctor then prescribed way too many painkillers.

Courtesy of the Mail

Mortimer Sackler and his brother Raymond bought out their late father’s options for $22 in 1987. A few years later, they launched a product that they quickly realized would hook people after just a month of regular use. Unconcerned, they pushed their sales and marketing teams to motivate doctors to write more “scripts” to, as it is called in Orwellian English, “manage pain.”

After only two weeks, in some cases, of managing pain, good people became hooked, and the journey to the end of their lives was set.

Courtesy of Financial Times

Some of the faces seen above, like one not here, my 32-year-old brother, started messing around with pills when in high school at parties. The pills were good, plentiful, and everywhere. Then one fine day, though, the prices went way up, and so unable to acquire them, many of the hooked transitioned to heroin and then fentanyl — like my brother. He was found blueish from not breathing on the floor near the couch. He just fell asleep, and his misery was over.

Courtesy of Fox 29

At the moment his lifeless body was being removed, a double shot of espresso in the home of Richard Sackler was easing out of his Eversys Shot Master Classic. The coffeemaker retails for $27,000.

Meanwhile, overdose is now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50 — greater than gun violence and car accidents combined — and has devastated families across the country (The Family Behind the Opioid Crisis).

Courtesy of National Cappuccino

The Sackler family, the majority owners of Purdue Pharma, the makers of OxyContin, have earned an estimated $35 billion from the poisoning of America. The Sacklers were eventually sued, and a fine capped the Sacklers’ personal liability at $6 billion dollars. After some complaints by states with the most victims, the Sacklers agreed in bankruptcy court to increase the penalty up to $10 billion under the condition that they could not be sued anymore for their role in the death of an estimated 500,000 Americans by 2019.

The Biden administration, now backed by the Supreme Court, has requested that the punishment be paused.

The Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily blocked a bankruptcy deal for Purdue Pharma that would have shielded members of the billionaire Sackler family, which once controlled the company, from additional civil lawsuits over the opioid epidemic and that capped the Sacklers’ personal liability at $6 billion.

The order is likely to delay any payments to the thousands of plaintiffs who have sued the Sacklers and Purdue, the maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin, which is widely blamed for igniting the opioid crisis. Under the deal, the Sacklers had agreed to pay billions to plaintiffs in exchange for full immunity from all civil legal disputes (Supreme Court Pauses Opioid Settlement).

The Biden administration wants the Sacklers to be open to more punishment. America wants this, too. The Sacklers are not bankrupt by any means.

This home cost one of the Sackler clan $22 million.

Courtesy of Curbed

The next house we see in our tour of the Sackler empire was purchased for cash by Madeleine Sackler. She paid $235,000 over the asking price because she didn’t want to bother herself with competition — and because, well, what is a few hundred thousand when your family has billions? Madeleine’s grandfather founded Purdue Pharma.

Courtesy of The Mercury News

The next house was recently sold for $30 million by one of the Sacklers.

Courtesy of Mail Online

The Sacklers are crying poverty and so used the bankruptcy courts to protect them, but real bankruptcy looks entirely different. Many abusers of OxyContin lost their jobs because they couldn’t stay awake. Then, they lost their houses and everything as the costs for the daily fix soared.

Courtesy of Urban Istitute

This is bankruptcy, and this is what happens to thousands of American families every year — they get evicted from their homes. I don’t see any of the Sacklers standing on their front lawns trying to figure out what to do next after the town’s sheriff and deputies have padlocked the house and driven off.

Every member of the Sackler family who has taken just one dollar from the company’s OxyContin profits should be entitled to a tent in places like Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood or around the Center City area just off of I-95 exits.

Courtesy of Fox 29

Philadelphia and many cities around the country are trying to clean up their communities. They are trying to help the victims, but they don’t have the money in many cases. The Sacklers have money — still. The Johnson family (Johnson & Johnson was also ordered to pay fines) has money — still.

Courtesy of The Philadelphia Enquirer

The city’s plan to steer millions of dollars to Kensington to combat the opioid crisis is a much-needed welcome start. But without a comprehensive plan to address the rampant open-air drug markets and homelessness lining the main business corridor there, the city will be throwing good money after bad.

Mayor Jim Kenney announced plans to distribute $20 million to community groups in Kensington to fund a variety of efforts, including overdose prevention, home repairs, and improvements to parks and schools (It’s Going to Take More).

Courtesy of WHYY

All these images make you feel proud of the good, old American way, right? Profit over people. Wealth is divine, and if you don’t have it or aren’t at least aspiring to be wealthy, then you are a loser.

And, seemingly, you belong under a bridge.

Courtesy of Visit Philadelphia