Part Two: The Sackler Family: America's Deadliest Drug Dealers

Robert is joined  again by James Heaney (Alchemy This) to continue discussing: The Sackler Family, Purdue Pharma and the Opioid Epidemic.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
M We're back. I'm Robert Evans podcasts Behind the Bastards.
Bad people talk about him. This is part two of
our episode on the Sacklers. So you should have listened
to the first one by now, and this intro shouldn't
seem out of place if you haven't, what the hell
is going on, weirdo? Listen to listen to the episodes

(00:20):
in the right order. Now, this is not Memento. This
is Behind the Bastards. And this is and by this
I mean you James Heney, actor, comedian. Uh, street fighting champion,
Well I never won, but I've been in a street
fighter too. And uh, you get the blue blue plugs
in the zone. I'm in Alchemy. This. Yes, it airs

(00:40):
every Tuesday and Thursday. It's an improp show. We get
suggestions from the audience emails and it's with Kevin Pollock.
That Kevin Pollock. We have a live show May seven
at the Dynasty Typewriter Theater in downtown l A. I
really hope you're there. You specifically me, specifically, I might
be I might be a state. It was actually talking
to specifically to the listener, to the listeners. Specific Yes,

(01:03):
I mean you're welcome to come, but I'm not going
to reserve a seat for you. I've stated my desire
that listeners gang up on the on the venue and
force their way in, and a mighty surge the weapons
was probably maybe too far. Well okay, but think about
think about it this way. Remember Escape from New York.
Pretty pretty cool movie. Sure, pretty fun movie. Remember the

(01:25):
sequel in l A when he has to shoot the
basketballs also a pretty cool movie. Yeah, I guess you're right, Yeah,
exactly what I if that was a comedy show, yeah,
it would be like the It would be like that.
It also reminds me of people were invading the theater
to see the show live armed. They'd be prepared if
it happened here, if it happened here, because which is
my other podcast? Yeah? Is that it? It could. Now

(01:48):
let's let's move off from that depressing topic to a
different depressing topic. The origins of our nightmares. Sh would
be at crisis. We've been talking about, of course, the
Sackler family, which you know most of these Sackler men are,
and where of course doctors uh, you know, from Arthur
down to Richard. But their real talent and passion seems
to have been for marketing rather than medicine. When OxyContin

(02:08):
first went onto the market, produced salesforce was around three
hundred people. By the end of a millennium, it had
doubled to more than six hundred people, equal to the
number of d agents fighting the abuse of prescription drugs.
That is most likely a coincidence, but that salesforce was
absolutely critical to Oxycontin's commercial success and the opiate epidemic
currently burning its way through the American heartland. I found

(02:29):
a great study on this published in the U S
National Library of Medicine, titled The Promotion and Marketing of
OxyContin Commercial Triumph, Public Health Tragedy. It lays out exactly
how Producee Pharmaceutical, at the direction of Richard Sackler, president
and co chairman of the board for the company, quote,
from nine to two thousand one, Produce conducted more than
forty national pain management and speaker training conferences it resorts

(02:50):
in Florida, Arizona, and California. More than five thousand physicians,
pharmacists and nurses attend to these all expenses paid symposia
where they were recruited and trained for produced National Speaker
Bureau is well documented. This kind of pharmaceutical company symposium
influences physicians prescribing, even though the physicians who attend such
symposia believe that such enticements do not alter their prescribing patterns.

(03:10):
One of the cornerstones that produce marketing plan was the
use of sophisticated marketing data to influence physicians prescribing. Drug
companies compile prescriber profiles and individual physicians detailing the prescribing
patterns of physicians nationwide, and an effort to influence doctors
prescribing habits. Through these profiles, a drug company can identify
the highest and lowest prescribers of particular drugs in a
single zip code, county, state, or the entire country. One

(03:32):
of the critical foundations of produced marketing plan for OxyContin
was to target the physicians who were highest prescribers for
opioids across the country. Another name for these guys would
be pill mill. Pill mill, that's what you've heard for
Producee Pharmaceuticals stated plan was to essentially make pill mills
happen by finding the doctors who were most willing to
just give anyone a prescription for opiates and then essentially

(03:55):
giving them more money having them speak at events and
flying them level marketing thing does It does kind of
sound like that kind of sounds like, Oh, you're really
good at selling these, Why don't you go speak to
other people and get them to get a little cut
of that? Yeah, that is kind of what was going on.
There's a pre trial memo from a case in Massachusetts
that's ongoing this year, and it includes a quote from

(04:17):
one of the promotional videos that Produe mailed with thousands
of doctors. Quote, There's no question that our best strongest
pain medications are the opioids. But these are the same
drugs that have a reputation for causing addiction and other
terrible things. Now, in fact, the rate of addiction amongst
pain patients who are treated by doctors is much less
than one percent. They don't wear out, they go on working,
they do not have serious medical side effects. What year

(04:39):
was that that would have been? Like, I mean, I
don't want to give him like it's it's it's terrible,
but it is only four years in before the whole
crisis is out of control. It is, but it's also why,
as one sales rep later total reporter quote, we were
directed to lie. Why when mens words about it. Greed

(05:01):
took hold and overruled everything. They saw that potential for
billions of dollars and just went after it. Sean Thatcher
was a produced sales up from two thousand nine to
two thousand and fifteen. He went into more detail on
this when he was deposed in court. Quote. High decile
prescribers were those who prescribed more produced drugs, or because
of their prescribing of other opioids, were potentially high prescribers.
They were priority targets for the sales team. Salesmen and

(05:24):
women were paid lavish bonuses for increasing OxyContin sales in
their territories, and two thousand one annual bonuses for sales
averaged seventy one thousand, five hundred dollars. Produce paid more
than forty million dollars that year to salesmen who managed
to convince doctors to prescribe more oxycontent. From n to
two thousand, Perdue increased its physician call list from between
thirty three and forty five thousand to between seventy and

(05:45):
ninety four thousand doctors. So they're just selling this ship
to doctors as hard as they can. Those people need
a degree and have to know anything about the sales
people under no circumstances. Why would why would they need
to know any amounts? Probably the less the better, Yeah,
the less the better, the better you get it. You
don't have any bullshit in your head about helping people

(06:06):
about doing no harm. Haven't had to sign that hippocratic oath,
because that's the hippocratic oath. You don't want anybody who's
who knows what that is selling pills for you. Now,
one method that Perdue had to convince doctors to be
frequent prescribers was their coupon program. They would give doctors free,
limited time prescription coupons for their patients who are first

(06:27):
time users. These coupons were generally good for a seven
to thirty day supply of boxy content. Now, if your
school was anything like mine, you remember teachers worridly telling
you that drug dealers would regularly give out free pot
or heroin or whatever. Never never once. I mean that,
That's what I was told, is like, yeah, they'll give
you free stuff to get you addicted and then they
start charging you. I've never seen a drug dealer give

(06:48):
away free drugs like that, Not once have I ever
been like head to somebody, be like, here's some free heroin. Man,
you come back to me if you like it like that. Yeah,
But at the same time they were probably teaching people
that would grow up to be sales exactly because that's
that that's that's that's where it actually was done. The business. Yeah,
that's Perdue actually did the thing that, like we joke
about our teachers telling us drug dealers did that. They

(07:09):
obviously didn't. It's fucking nuts. The company gave out more
than thirty four thousand coupons by the time they ended
the program in two thousand one. At that point, OxyContin
did not need any more help. Spreading doctors were also
bribed with lamer gifts, OxyContin, fishing hats, stuffed animals, and
CDs with titles like Get in the Swing with Walk
with Oxyconton, guessing it was swing music. Probably, how embarrassing

(07:33):
would it be for like you to be out with
your family with your dad wearing an oxycotton hat, like
going on the family road trip and popping in an
Oxyconton SKA album Real Addicted Fish Uh figure mighty mighty Addicts.
I don't know. I can't figure that. Mighty mighty bosstons one,
we'll work shop it. According to the d e A,

(07:54):
no one had ever done this before with a schedule
to opioid. Perhaps there is a reason for that. Produce
sales people were also heavily targeted primary care doctors, but
two three, almost half of the doctors prescribing oxycontent were
primary care physicians. The National Institutes of Health explains why
this was an issue quote, some experts were concerned that
primary care physicians were not sufficiently trained in pain management

(08:14):
or addiction issues. Primary care physicians, particularly in a managed
care environment of time constraints, also had the least amount
of time for evaluation and follow up of patients with
complicated chronic pain, so they specifically targeted the kinds of
doctors who didn't have training and prescribing opiates and weren't
likely to check back in with patients to make sure
that they hadn't developed a problem. As a result, primary
care doctors kept prescribing and people kept getting addicted. Good

(08:38):
strategy for producing go to the dummy doctors. Go to
the doctors who don't know what or who you know,
like that's just not what they're supposed to do. Like before,
produced primary care physicians weren't handing out a lot of
opiate prescriptions. Now I'm not a I don't know a
lot about doctors, but isn't a primary care physician the
doctor you go to most regularly unless something is yeah,
unless something exactly, and you used to only get something

(08:58):
like oxycontent if some it was really wrong. Wouldn't you
think that those doctors would have some more investment in
a person that they hopefully know, like you're returning to
this person, they're going to have to see this person
deteriorate over time. I don't know that you are, because
I think a lot of people don't have I think
a lot of these are like doctors at clinics and stuff,
so you don't have You know, if you don't have healthcare,
you're probably not going on a super regular basis, or

(09:20):
even if you do, Like I since I was a kid,
was the last time I don't want to say the
last time I've been to the doctor, but it's been
more than ten years. Yeah, I have. I have texted
some fans who were doctors questions in the past, and
that's like my health care plan. I've always thought primary
care was like, oh, that's your doctor, Like go find
what doctor you want. You go back to that Primarcare doctor.
I think that's what it is for some people, but

(09:42):
I think for a lot of people, it's just like
the doctor at the dock in the box clinic, and
you know, they see you if you've got a problem,
and they're not going to check back in because it's
not their job. Before Purdue, most opioids were prescribed on
a long term basis were used for what's called malignant pain,
which is essentially like what cancer patients are going through,
pain that as the result of a deadly and ongoing illness.
Perdu aggressively pursued the idea that opiate should be for

(10:04):
any kind of pain, especially chronic pain. By the non
cancer pain related market had grown to be eight six
percent of the opioid market. Produce company training emphasized to
sales people at the risk of addiction with oxycont was
less than one percent. This was based on two large
studies that found addiction to opioids was not common with
people who have prescribed them after serious injuries like a burn.
None of the research produced based their less than one

(10:26):
percent stat on was done on people who were actually
given opioids for chronic pain. We know now that the
rate can be as high as fifty. So yeah, they
made the claim that like it it's not addictive based
on like someone would come in with like a serious
injury and they'd get like, okay, well, we'll give you
a month or two of oxy to deal with this.
Most of those people didn't get addicted, so they were like, see,
it's not addictive, but if you're given it for chronic pain,

(10:48):
it's incredibly easy to get addicted. But they weren't correct
me if I'm wrong, because you're saying people get addicted
to Depending on the types of chronic pain, the rate
of addiction can be as high as fifty I would
expect that maybe addiction to the point of abuse and
throwing your life away. But wouldn't anybody like physically simply
become addicted because a chemical your doesn't your body assimilate

(11:11):
to any chemical it puts in there, Like, it's not
necessarily So addiction is pretty complicated and a lot of
it has to do with the circumstances of your life. Um,
So generally, like you're less likely to get addicted if
you're like reasonably happy, if you're okay with like your situation.
So like an injury like a burn or something that
hurts for a little while, you might just use the
pain killers until the pain stops and you're unless Like,

(11:33):
but if you're in a chronic pain situation, because like
depression is so common with chronic pain, like, those people
are more likely to have other stuff that like it
makes them more vulnerable to to to being addicted to
because a lot of it is social, Like a lot
of it has to do with what's going on in
your life. It's why the rates of addiction out in
the country where there's not much going on is so
much higher. It's the same reason why the rate of

(11:54):
alcoholism and like Alaska is through the roof is because,
like there's a lot of isolated people who don't have
much else to do. So I think it probably has
a lot to do with that. I just thought that
no matter what, if you took some drug to get
rid of pain, and you took it for a long
period of time, your body assimilates to having that drug
to not have pain. So is that not in itself?
It is, But these people, like the studies where they

(12:15):
said it wasn't addictive were based on people who just
were taking for a short time. You have a burn,
You're not taking it for months for a burn usually,
or even like a broken you know, bone or something like.
It's it's just to get you through the worst part
of it and then you stop. Then I was drawing
around conclusion for some reason. I thought we were talking
about the chronic pain. No, no, no, chronic pain. It's
super easy to get addicted to pain killers if they
prescribed for chronic pain. Sean Thatcher that sales were up

(12:37):
I quoted earlier, also alleged that he and his fellow
sales people were urged to use the term pseudo addiction
rather than addiction when talking about the risk of people
getting addicted to oxy content, or to make it seem
less love of problem. By the early two thousands, it
was clear that these strategies worked, so Produce kicked it
in a high gear. They bribed every single level of
the distribution chain, and they did it legally. In addition
to the free drug coupons for users, Produce gave wholesalers

(12:58):
rebates for keeping oxy content off their prior authorization lists.
These are lists healthcare companies keep of drugs and medical
devices that require extra approval before dispensation. Pretty also bribed
pharmacists by giving them free refunds for their first orders.
Medical researchers got grants, presumably to keep showing that oxycontent
wasn't addictive. Pretty also spent millions advertising in medical journals.
And here's one example you can see. Should I describe

(13:21):
the So it's a picture walking upstairs, take the next
step in pain relief? Well, that makes sense. The person
is going up the stairs. Oxy cotton of some letters
that I don't associate with anything, and rapid onset of
I don't know that word for six months. One to
start and stay with, easy to dose, easy to tyrate,

(13:43):
tight trate. Yeah, I know that word, tight trade. I
use it all the time. I was just tight trading. Uh.
To see this clearly, I had to hold it further
away from my face. So one to start and stay
with it sounds like start once you pop, you just
can't stop. Yeah it is. There's kind of a little
bit of like sinister in there, like one to start
and stay with, Yeah, take the next step in pain.

(14:06):
The intentions with this was never for chronic pain, but
that seems like it's targeted to chronic Oh no, that's
what they were trying to sell it for. It just
doesn't work well. For that just doesn't work because it's
going to be addictive. Yeah, it's going to be addictive,
and it's not going to like deal with the problem
like that. One of the things that they found particularly
recently is that it's just a bad idea to give
people opiates for chronic pain, like therefore acute pain and

(14:28):
therefore people who are dealing with like malignant pain. And
we're not going to solve all the problems today, But
what is the better option for chronic pain? I mean
usually a combination of like physical therapy. There are some
lighter sort of pain killers that can help a lot
of people do find relief with stuff like marijuana. Um,
but like if you're some of it is like just
dealing with a higher level of pain, which it had

(14:50):
to deal with pain. But it's better than a life
of being addicted exactly. It's it's a better and healthier
than that. And like you can have you know, sometimes
you use medication for help sleeping and stuff, but like
prescribing someone see content because they've got chronic back pain,
it just gets a lot of people killed. Yeah, and
it stops them from from healing in some cases, because
some of these things people can get better from, but

(15:10):
like then they just instead just do a lot of oxy.
So Perdue and the Sackler family also made certain to
donate piles and piles of cash to senators and congress
people and important committees. The company itself was fairly bipartisan,
but Richard Sackler preferred to donate to Republicans. We'll talk
a little bit more about his donations later. So the
bribery or legally distinct from bribery, occurred on every possible level,

(15:30):
but Perdue lavished most of its attention on doctors. Here's
Esquire again quote. We used to fly doctors to these seminar,
said Sherman, which were in practice just golf trips to
pebll Beach. It was graft. Though offering perks and freebes
to doctors was hardly uncommon in the industry, it was
unprecedented in the marketing of a schedule to a narcotic.
For some physicians, the junkets to sunny locales weren't enough
to persuade them to prescribe. To entice the holdouts, a

(15:51):
group the company referred to internally as problem doctors. The
reps would dangle the lure of produced lucrative speakers bureau.
Everyone was automatically approved, said Sherman. And we would set
up these little dinners and they'd make their fifteen minute
talk and they get five dollars. That's not bribery, because reasons,
because reasons, because reasons. It sounds like they're giving a speech.
It's not bribery. But the loophole is, yeah, the speech

(16:13):
just doing some sort of work exactly, it's it's yeah,
it's super shady um speaking of things that are shaped. No,
that's not a good way to pivot into the ad, Sophie,
I'm tail spending here. What do we what do we?
We gotta we gotta, we gotta put some daylight in
between that. Whenever I need to be saved, I do
commercial work. I'm a commercial actor. Oh yeah, well, could

(16:36):
you do a commercial for something on this table? Maybe
you're gonna be surprised how well I can change my voice.
Maybe these halls triple soothing action meant uh yeah, sure, yeah,
halls sometimes just the name. I'm ready to buy some halls, Sophie.
Can we order a thousand of these? You at the listener,

(16:56):
order a thousand halls, and also order a thousand of
whatever products are advertised, unless it's again oxycontent, which I
hope is not being advertised on this podcast, although if
if they do, I want some free oxy, Sophie, can
we can we set that up. We can't set that up.
That would be a huge conflict of entrance products. We're back.

(17:24):
Oh boy, those were great products. I threw my money
at the microphone, but nothing came out. And I know
I know you did. You did you have to throw
your money harder? Well, it's quarters. I figured i'd have
to throw it hard. I recommend everyone throw their money
at whatever is nearest to them. Uh it will. I'm
very hungover. Um, let's just let's just talk more about

(17:44):
the fucking sack all right? Uh? Perdu when the sackler's
face no consequences for any of their mouthfeasance until two
thousand seven, when the State of Virginia suthed their asses
from miss branding oxycontent in legallys miss Branding is a
wide term that includes outright lying about a medication, straight
and addictiveness. Three company executives pled guilty to misleading regulators
in a public statement. Produce said this quote. Nearly six

(18:07):
years and longer ago, some employees made or told other
employees to make certain statements about oxycontent to some healthcare
professionals that were inconsistent with the FDA approved prescribing information
for oxycontent and the express warnings that contained about risks
associated with the medicine. The statements also violated written company
policies requiring adherence to the prescribing information. We accept responsibility
for those past misstatements and regret that they were made.

(18:31):
It sounds pretty good. Oh yeah, of course if they
were they regretted they yeah, and they accept responsibility. So
I'm sure that there's going to be paying back and
covering medical bills, right, I mean there there was actually
some of that. We'll get into what kind of payback
they had to give. The Sacklers were not forced to
take responsibility, however, so this is I guess I understood that. No,
this is just per due, and in fact they explicitly

(18:53):
None of the Sacklers were were implicated, especially not Richard Sackler,
former CEO of the company and co chairman of the board. Now,
according to propublic a quote Freedman, who by then had
risen to chief executive officer, was one of three Predue
executives who pled guilty to a misdemeanor of miss branding
oxy content. No members of the Sackler family were charged
or named as part of the plea agreement. The Massachusetts

(19:14):
lawsuit alleges that Sackler controlled Purdue board voted that the
three executives but no family members, should plead guilty as individuals.
After the case concluded, the Sacklers were concerned about maintaining
the allegiance of freedmen and the other executives, According to
the Massachusetts lawsuit, to protect the family, Produce paid the
two executives at least eight million dollars. At that lawsuit alleges,
so they did the mom thing. They had three of

(19:35):
their three of their made men go to like I mean,
they didn't actually go to jail, but like they got
like two or a half years probation and they got
community service. So they had three of their guys who
weren't members of the family give themselves up and then
they bribed them millions of dollars. And in theory, there's
two things I want to mention. First of all, when
you call it miss branding. It sounds like you're describing fraud.

(19:56):
I don't understand the difference. I think the difference is
that their lawyers preferred the term. I think miss branding
is like the legal honestly, I want to Fraud's much
nicer than miss branding. Asked me. Second question would be, um,
I don't remember, so I guess we'll just leave it
a it's it's it's it's frustrating. Documents revealed that during

(20:17):
the trial showed that that's what it was. So they
sent their employees to go to jail, right, well, they
didn't go to jail, but sent that they That is
that not the way that shell companies do work. It's
the way work work. Yeah, it is exactly what happens.
You're and then you just open up a new company

(20:37):
or you have new people that start taking charge of
these things, and it's really shady because like one of
the things they said is that, well, no, Sackler was
had a direct position at the company since two thousand
and three I think it was, and that's or like
that's when um or after two seven and like basically
Richard Sackler ran the company until they got into legal trouble.
And then they promoted this guy Freedman to CEO, and
Richard stepped back and was just on the board. But

(20:58):
the majority of Pretty board has always been Sackler family members.
Even though they were claiming so they could say that, like, well,
none of them work for the company. What's because they're
running it and getting all of the profits from the company. Yeah,
it's very, very shady. It's structured like a criminal enterprise,
but is legally distinct from one because they have more
lawyers than mafia dons. Yeah, which is hard to do too,

(21:19):
which is that they because mafiadans do have a lot
of layers. Yeah. In two thousand sixteen, fifty three thousand
Americans died from opioid overdosesdifty three thousand. For comparison, only
thirty five thousand Americans died from gun violence. For more comparison,
that is roughly the same number of Americans dying in
one year has died throughout the duration of the war
in Vietnam. Yeah, two thousand and sixteen, Just two thousand

(21:43):
and sixteen. Chris Christie had of the Commission on Combating
Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis, recently noted that opiates
kill roughly one hundred and forty two Americans per day,
which he noted was a September eleven every three weeks.
Not only a Chris Christie guy, but that's a good comparison.
It's very rare that I'm a In fact, I refused
to be Chris Christi guy, even now he did happen
to accident. He made one good point. One good point.

(22:06):
He made one good point. And that's a good point.
Since than two hundred thousand Americans are believed to have
died from overdosing on prescription pain medication, that is roughly
half of the number of Americans who died fighting in
the Second World War. Yeah, as part of that two
thousand seven plea agreement, Predue Pharmaceuticals was forced to pay
more than six hundred million dollars in fines, which is
simultaneously one of the largest such fines ever leveled on

(22:27):
a company and a slap on the wrist. You want
to guess what produced total profits for boxy content are,
I was just gonna say it's gotta be over multiple billions, right,
multiple billions is one way to put it. It's at
least thirty five billion dollars. Six hundred million dollars doesn't
sound like much of a fine, does not. It's a
drop in a bucket. It's a drop in a bucket.

(22:48):
No members of the Sackler family admitted to do any wrongdoing,
but they in the company's board were all forced to
pinky swear that the company would not break the law again.
So that's something, right, you know, I feel like we
can trust. Well, it depends on whether or not they're
couldn't not break the law. Well, let's read the next
It's a good start. The plea agreement also included a
non prosecution agreement similar to the one Jeffrey Epstein signed.

(23:08):
It basically made the Sacklers and company executives immune to
any new criminal litigation based on activity that occurred before
two thousand seven. Since none of the Sacklers have been
executives at produced since that point, it's likely they're pretty
safe from the possible consequences for their crimes. That was
the plan. That's absolute. It's really frustrating, right, really pisses
you off. Yeah, speaking of their crimes, the Sackler family

(23:31):
has done extraordinarily well off of oxy content. Before the
drug they were just multimillionaires now, their families worth in
estimated fourteen billion dollars, perhaps much much more. Forbes put
them on its list of America's richest families in two
thousand fifteen, a sign of how quickly they rose with
the help of America's deadly at drug. We have mostly
focused on Richard Sackler in this episode, and he is

(23:52):
the man morally most culpable, but Sackler family members made
up the majority of Produce Pharmaceuticals Board for the entirety
of the time. We've discussed the Sacklers as a family
run the company, and they are notoriously tight lipped about
the source of their wealth. During his eleven hour deposition
in Kentucky in two thousand seventeen, Richard Sackler said quote,
I don't know. More than a hundred times he failed

(24:12):
to recall exactly how much money his family had netted
from the drug. He confirmed it was more than a billion,
and said I don't think so when asked if it
was more than ten billion. While the Sacklers got unspeakably
rich off oxy content, the United States as a nation
has suffered greatly. According to the American Public Health Association
in two thousand thirteen, the economic impact of opioid use
totaled around eighty billion dollars, and that was in two

(24:33):
thousand thirteen, before the opiate crisis hit its peak. A
two thousand nineteen paper by Princeton economist Alan Krueger suggests
that opioid addiction is responsible for fully twenty of the
decline in labor force participation from two thousand and fifteen.
It is unlikely that the full extent of the damage
caused by the sacklers and produce pharmaceutical will ever be known.

(24:53):
Cool did they create the hunger for a world of fentanyl? Yeah?
Oh I don't. I don't see a world with fentanyl.
It wasn't for them, it would exist, putting down the
red carpet of the oxycont mm hmm. I think if
if oxyconton hadn't existed, our problems with fentonyl would be
veterans who got injured in the field and prescribed fentyl
maybe continue, like with Vietnam and morphine and stuff like.

(25:15):
I think that would have still been a problem because
it's like, you know, you you lose a leg to
a car bomb or whatever, and they give you a
fentnyl lollipop and they shoot you full of it for
weeks and then you come home and you're addicted. But
I don't think the whole towns would be being wiped
out in the in the Midwest, in the Northeast, and
the rural America would be suffering the way it is.
I think that's all on I think the hunger for

(25:36):
fentanyl in the US consumes something like nine of the
world's pain killers. Like we're not of the world, Like
there's not of the world's pain Yeah, yeah, Like it's incredible. Um,
it's it's just incredible. Near the end of the deposition,
a lawyer for the state of Kentucky asked Richard Zackley, this,
sitting here today, after all you've come to learn as

(25:57):
a witness, do you believe that produced conduct and market
and promoting OxyContin in Kentucky caused any of the prescription
A drug addiction problems now plaguing the commonwealth. Sackler's response was,
I don't believe so. Shockingly, there's still more to say,
because in two thousand nineteen, a bunch of information from
several depositions was finally released onto the public record after
a year's long fight by Purdue to keep it hidden.

(26:18):
Among other things, this information revealed that co chairman Richard
Sackler continue to have a major role in pushing oxycontent
sales after two thousand seven. According to stat News quote,
in two thousand eleven, he decided to shadow sales reps
for a week to make sure his orders were followed.
The complaint states Wressell Ghastia, then the company's vice president
of sales and marketing, who was also a defendant in
the Massachusetts lawsuit, went to produce chief compliance officer to

(26:39):
warn that if Sackler directly promoted opioids, it was a
potential compliance risk l o L. The compliance officer replied,
according to the complaint, other staff raised concerns, but they
ultimately said that Richard needs to be mom and anonymous
when he went to the field. So Richard was going
into the field following sales reps around to find make
sure they were pushing OxyContin enough. In two thousand eleven,
four years after the law suit, four years after the loss,

(27:02):
four years after his company was sued for sake, he
just kept on pushing that he was brave. He was
as addicted to the money as America was to oxy.
I'd like to see him have to take some I
don't know, crocodile tears and then take it away from him. Yeah, yeah,
i'd like I think anything with people like this, you
should just take away all their money and make them
live like normal people in an apartment. We'll also get predicted,

(27:24):
and I wouldn't wish that in anybody, But I feel
like you reap what you so I feel like in
this case, yeah, forced addiction to an opiate might be
might be fair for Richard Sackler give a little taste
of his own medicine. Literally, speaking of tasting your own medicine,
I've been eating halls again. I don't know if you
can smell it all the way over there. It's my favorite.
It sounds triple soothing. What if I was to tell

(27:47):
you I had a dollar seventy five for a bus
ride to Venice speech and I could give you five
dollars to give speeches if you sold thousands of halls.
Thousands of halls you mean you mean sell them to
my readers, tell them about the mental costs of pressent oral.
I don't care who you give these halls too, But
if you can get rid of a bunch of them.
I got a crate of halls free trip to Venice

(28:10):
on a bus, on a bus, buy some halls. Uh,
And you're not as good at commercial I'm not. I'm not.
I would not be able to eat if this were
my job. Products, We're back, Sophie. Sophie approves of that.

(28:32):
And two thousand nine and produced sales manager wrote a
warning letter to a company executive stating that he had
found perdue employees were pushing opioids on an illegal pill mill.
He asked, I feel very certain this is an organized
drug rain. Shouldn't the d A be contacted about this?
Produce took no action for two years? Why would they?
So far rampant dishonesty had netted them tens of billions
of dollars in profits and one tiny fine. Now I

(28:53):
feel like we should probably end by talking just a
bit about how the Sackler family decided to spend their
vast wealth have donated much of it to museums like
the Googgenheim and the Tate and the Louver in the
Middle Oughts. Before any of this was public knowledge. Their
generosity granted the Sackers a reputation as himlinded philanthropists, but
they did not only donate to museums. I'd like to
quote from sledge Now, a website that specializes in revealing

(29:16):
gross donations made to shady organizations by terrible people. Quote.
From two thousand fourteen to sixteen, the Richard and Beth
Sackler Foundation donated seven seven hundred dollars to the Middle
East Forum in addition to a hundred and fifty and
two thousand nine. Middle East Forum is at the center
of an Islamophobia network. According to the Center for American Progress,
the Forum promotes American interests in the Middle East and
protects Western values from Middle Eastern threats and protects the

(29:39):
freedoms of anti Islamist authors. According to its website, the
Middle Eastern Forum funded anti Muslim rallies in London and UH,
including some rallies for a guy named Tommy Robinson who
was essentially a Nazi like like literal Nazi Tommy Robinson.
The Middle East Forum funded him to do rallies and
live and stuff and continue being a Nazi UH and

(30:00):
they got a lot of money from the Sackler family. UM.
The founder of the Middle East Form, Daniel Pipes, gave
a speech in two thousand seventeen in which he said, quote,
Muslim imigrants want to replace existing European civilization with Islam.
You may recognize this sentiment is essentially the same thing
that the christ Church shooter wrote out in a seventy
three page manifesto before murdering fifty people in a mosque. Again,

(30:21):
Daniel Pipes received money from Richard and Beth Sackler. The
Sacklers also gave money to Stephen Emerson, founder of the
Investigative Project on Terrorism and That Role. Emerson has claimed
that Islam quote sanctions genocide, planned genocide as part of
its religious doctrine. He has submitted faked FBI documents to
news outlets in order to claim that American Muslim organizations
are actually terrorist groups. Two fifteen, the Richard and Beth

(30:42):
Sackler Foundation gave fifteen thousand dollars to an Islamophobic group
called Ghadwatch. That same year, they also gave eleven thousand,
five hundred to the American Defense Initiative formerly known as
Stop is Islamization of America. These are just public donations.
Hate groups tend received most of their funding from donor
advised funds. Which are public charities that basically dontle money
from anonymous rich people into groups that they don't want

(31:02):
people to know they're donating to. So we know on
paper that the Sacklers have donated tens of thousands of
dollars to hate and hate adjacent groups. The real number
of their donations may be much higher, and in fact
probably is. What's terrible is they're putting all this money
to hate groups and anti Muslim groups. But when you
look at it, and I'm not an expert, I don't

(31:23):
know the numbers, but I'd bet money right here, right
now that more people have died from oxyconton than terror.
Oh yeah, I mean more people die from OxyContin in
a day than have died from More Americans die from
OxyContin in a day than have been killed by all
of ices, and more total people have been killed by
oxycontent than ISIS has killed, even in Iraq and Syria. Um,
not that they haven't killed a lot of people, but

(31:44):
like sucking, oxyconton is killed way more like it's a lot.
To me, I'm not afraid of terrorism because it's not
it's terrorized. It's a pretty niche risk. Whereas I know
people who have had horrible pill problems. I am so
afraid for my nieces and nephew y. I don't think
they would have for do it, but that's what I'm
afraid of. It that strikes fear into me. More of

(32:04):
a threat, yeah, way more of a threat. Yeah. Oh.
I should also note that the Richard and Best Sackler
Foundation donated money to True the Vote in two thousand sixteen.
That is the voter fraud rotchdog that was the source
of Donald Trump's claim that three million illegal immigrants voted
in the two thousand and sixteen elections. So they gave
money to those guys too. Now, the good news, and
there is at least a little bit of good news,
is that all of the recent press about the rampant

(32:25):
crimes of Perdue with the direction of the Sackler family,
has led to a number of their favorite foundations and
museums to stop accepting their donations. Some of this is
due to a protest at the Goggenheim earlier this year,
activist dumped like a you know, you know that comment
Richard Sackler made about like a blizzard of prescriptions. So
a bunch of activists went to the Guggenheim and dropped
like a literal blizzard of prescription papers and like the

(32:46):
central foyer down like a couple of stairs and stuff,
and you know, the Guggenheim announced that they would not
be taking any more Sackler money. And the tape, yeah, yeah,
the tape made the same thing. Britain's National Portrait Gallery
canceled reception of a one point three million dollar donation
from the family. So like, these people are so toxic
that charities are turning down their money now, although probably
not the racist ones, probably not the racist one. Additional

(33:10):
lawsuits have begun to stack up against Perdue Pharmaceuticals, some
targeting the Sacklers themselves for their involvement in company crimes
after two thousand seven. Last March, Perdu and the Sacklers
agreed to pay two hundred and seventy million dollars to
the state of Oklahoma. Seventy five million dollars of that
will come directly from the Sackler family. The suit in
Massachusetts is still ongoing, and last March another lawsuit was
filed in the state of New York. This lawsuit also

(33:31):
rests heavily on claims that the Sackler family are personally
to blame for a huge amount of the opiate crisis.
I'm going to quote from NPRS coverage of that now quote.
New York's two hundred and fifty one page suit claims
to offer new details of how the Sacklers serving on
produced board pushed year after year to boost the sale
and consumption of their powerful opioid medications, reaping huge profits
even as evidence mounted that the drugs post a deadly risk.

(33:52):
State officials claim they squeeze the company, funneling billions of
dollars out of its coffers into a complex network of trusts, subsidiaries,
and private offshore accounts. We allege that the family has
illicitly transferred funds from Purdue to personal trusts so that
they are potentially outside the reach of law enforcement and
our efforts to seek restitution. Oh my unrelated note, as

(34:12):
the airing of this podcast, approximately a hundred and forty
five Americans die every day from opiot overdoses. So that's insane.
Ticked up a couple since that's sixteen. That's the story,
so and the one of the there's so many bad
parts of this story, but my one of my concerns
it seems like there's no consequences to this. It seems

(34:33):
like this is still there's nothing changing. Yeah, so is
that where something it's it's just not fair. The health
system has to change or else. This is not as
long as there's profit. This might be an like the
worst of it. But as long as there's profit going on,
isn't this what we would expect from our health system?
I mean, if if, if you are making for profit

(34:54):
pain medication, all you care about is that you don't
care that they're using it for pain. You just cared
that they're using it. If you don't take the profit out,
then you can't eliminate that. Yeah, it seems like it
might be an inevitable consequence of the system as it
is set up. And I'm sure everyone else is at
wondering this. I should have asked earlier. When you say perdue,

(35:17):
you do mean the Chicken company, right? No? Oh my god,
Oh my god. So it's not. Oh my god, I'm
so sorry. I thought were talking about the Chicken Company
this whole time. No, no, no, I'm kidding. I'm sorry.
You looked at me like you really thought it was serious.
I'm so sorry. And one of the best things I
could do is say the dumbest thing. The only chicken

(35:37):
company I know is Tyson, because the little town in
Oklahoma where I grew up had a Tyson chicken plant.
So that's that's what I think about. And also the
little town in Oklahoma where I grew up has a
crippling oxy contin problem, killing, killing a lot of people
in it about good times? Good times? Do you think
that there's a Do you think that we've learned a

(35:57):
lesson and that with things like fent and all that
are taking over oxycotton, we're going to tighten up the
rules that we have on these abusable drugs. I suspect
we will continue punishing the users rather than punishing problem
people like Richard Sach. I mean, it looks like the
opioid crisis is such a bipartisan thing. Everybody knows what
a problem it is, and it's like it's it's not

(36:18):
one of those things like climate change that a lot
of chunks of the country don't believe in. Like everybody
knows it's a thing, and so there might be serious
consequences for the sack attentions on it. Now. I hope
that we use this attention to do something. Yeah, I
hope they all wind up in a cell um. I
I would like that for the Sackler family. I would
like them to lose all their money and be in

(36:38):
a prison cell because they killed two d thousand people. Ish,
what what they did is legally distinct from murder. I'll
agree to that. But they killed a lot of people
with their greed and corruption. And I mean they're not incompetence,
very competent, very competent scheme to addict America to pain killers,
but like a trained assassin of the American dream. Yeah,

(37:00):
like a trained assassin of the American dream. Like you
hired someone to kill the American heartland and they were
just like, what have we just fled it with pills?
A little bitty white pills worked great, good plan, pretty
pretty cool, pretty cool and good. It's times like these
I wished I believed that there was something to punish

(37:21):
them in the afterlife. That would be nice, That would
be nice. I feel like if there was a bolt
of lightning would have struck Richardson at some point, like
when he heard that people had died in Massachusetts and
was like, it could be worse. It could have been,
could have been as bad as it's gonna get. Uh So, Uh,

(37:41):
that's that's the episode, James. You want to plug some
plugables before we push out here? Well, yeah, of course
I would. Alchemy this comes out every Tuesday and Thursday.
It's improv inspired by the user's mail email. Uh So,
please check that out and if you can, on May seven,
at the Dynasty type of the theater in downtown Los Angeles,

(38:01):
we're gonna have a live recording of it at eight pm.
Means and I will be on Behind the Bastards dot
com and at Bastard Pod on Instagram and Twitter, although
Sophie manages both of those because I don't know how
to use Instagram and it scares me. I know Beyonce
is on there, and I don't know how to how
to interact with that. Huh is that who's on your shirt?

(38:24):
I don't know much about Beyonce. I mean, I don't.
I just don't know much about her. I know she's
on the Graham. I know she's big, a big Grammar.
She's Graham and hardcore, but I don't know how to
use the Graham. I just I just tried to use
Snapchat for the first time yesterday and it scared me
and I threw my phone in the trash and I
haven't picked those are expensive. I would not throw your

(38:47):
phone around. I would just uninstall thee that. I don't
know how to do that. I'm so sorry. Anything I
know how to do is Twitter, and I do too
much Twitter. Well, you know how to do a damn
good podcast or two? I would say, there's a new
one that you've got coming out? That is there, Sophy?
Do we have another podcast? Well, if it's not new,
it's but it's new to me because I haven't heard
it yet, and I'm excited. What what? What is that?

(39:07):
What is the podcast? It could happen here? When I like,
it's a scary thing. But honestly, when we go through
two hours of talking about oxy cotton and people getting
away with it, there's a six side of myself that wonders,
if it happening here might be it won't all be bad.
I think that maybe some people might pay for serious
consequences for what they've done. Yeah, but I don't want

(39:28):
to say that. I don't want to sound like an anarchist.
I'm okay with sounding like an anarchist. I will say this.
I hope that it doesn't happen here, but if it does,
I hope one of the few positive aspects of it
is that people like the Sacklers are punished. Yeah. Yeah,
that they shouldn't be able to rule without yeah, without balance,
without some sort of somebody controlling that. You know, people

(39:48):
shouldn't be going to prison for sixty years for selling pot.
And then Richard Sackler gets fourteen billion dollars, Like that
doesn't seem fair to me. Well, he paid six million
and he did well, his company did he it's seventy
he did have to just now billions. You haven't been punished, Yeah,
you haven't been punished. Yeah. It's like if you steal

(40:08):
a million dollars from somebody's house and the cops when
they arrest you, make you pay a thousand dollars. It's like, well,
this was worth it. This, I won't do this tomorrow.
I don't believe I'll do this again. Yeah, got him again,
Get him again? You'll believe word? Yeah, I believe. Really

(40:30):
a lot of heavy lifting being done by the word
believe in pretty pharmaceutical acts. All right, Well, this has
been the podcast I've been Robert Evans buy a shirt
off of Tea Public. Sophie grabs her shirt and shakes
it whenever it's time for me to mention the shirts
because I always forget. So get a shirt on Tea Public.
Get some of our branded behind the bastards. Hydrocode on

(40:50):
not OxyContin for some reason that I don't understand, but
it's got my face on it. We can't do that.
You're telling me that's that's drug dealing, But I just
we could. I just heard about a guy who made
thirty four billion dollars stealing drugs. Can we use that not? Okay? Okay,
Well apparently we have to stop doing that. Uh, this
is the end of the episode. It's done. It's finished, Daniel.

(41:14):
Are you going to turn off the episode? Is it?
Or is it time to do that? Is it time
to do that? Am I going on too long again?
If I, like I do have that freedom, this is
a lot of power because nobody can go until I
finished the episode. So this is like I know this,
no one at home is enjoying this, but I'm feeling
such a rush right now, like I'm holding the world
and the all right side. It's done.