The Sackler family, through their pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma, deliberately manufactured and marketed OxyContin using deceptive practices, prioritizing profit over patient safety, which directly fueled the devastating opioid crisis.
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It's the 1940s at Creedmore Psychiatric
Hospital, a vast mental asylum. These
patients are suffering from mental
illness, a topic which is severely misunderstood.
misunderstood.
As a result, one common technique
applied to these patients is the
labbotomy, which involves severing
nerves in their brain. The result is
like turning a light out in someone's
mind, often leaving them a shell of
their former selves in a zombie-like
state. It is here at Creedor Psychiatric
Hospital that we meet our story's
protagonist, the Sackler family, the
family that would go on to create a 14
billion dollar drug empire and play the
leading role in starting the opioid crisis.
crisis.
But way before all of that, back in the
1940s, three brothers from the Sackler
family were working at Creedmore.
They spent much of their time
administering another brutal treatment,
electroshock therapy. This involved
tying a patient down and sending an
electric current through their brain. It
often left patients deeply traumatized.
After administering this procedure
thousands of times, the Sackler brothers
became convinced there must be a better
way. They believed mental disorders were
caused by problems with someone's brain
chemistry. And if it was a chemical
problem, there must be a chemical
solution. In other words, there could be
a pill to fix any mental issue. Based on
this, the three Sackler brothers bought
a small pharmaceutical company named
Purdue. and the two younger brothers
begin working on the business.
Meanwhile, the eldest brother, Arthur
Sackler, went on an audacious side
quest. Arthur bought a medical
advertising company and pioneered some
shady but revolutionary ideas on how to
sell drugs. He hired doctors and used
them as salesmen to pitch products to
other doctors. He also paid a division
head at the FDA to promote his drugs.
And he even created ads listing medical
professionals that had recommended a
certain drug, but in reality, they
weren't even real people. He just made
them up. Basically, Arthur Sackler
crossed all kinds of ethical lines to
sell his pharmaceuticals and in some
cases committed outright fraud, but in
doing so, he became extremely wealthy.
However, Arthur's biggest breakthrough
was expanding the market for addictive tranquilizers.
tranquilizers.
Using various shady techniques, he
convinced doctors and patients that they
needed Valium and Librium for everyday
anxiety. Unsurprisingly, widespread
abuse and addiction soon followed. But
when questioned about the growing
problem of addiction, Arthur Sackler had
a chilling response.
He said, "The drug is not the problem.
Reckless patients are the problem."
Arthur died before the modern-day opioid
crisis started. But he created the
environment in which it could happen.
And with Arthur gone, new members of the
Sackler family would take over the
company, and they would look for new
products to grow their fortune further.
And this is where things start to get
[Music] [Applause]
[Applause] [Music]
The Sackler's first successful pain drug
was called MS Contin. This was morphine
with a seal around the pill which caused
the chemical to enter the bloodstream
slowly and continuously over a period of
time. That's where the contin part of
the name comes from. This drug was
mostly used in cancer patients.
But the Sacklers had a huge problem.
Their patent was expiring soon, which
meant other companies could produce
generic versions of their drug, which
would drastically reduce their profit.
So, the Sacklas began looking for a new
drug to sell.
They suggested oxycodone,
a very powerful opioid that was
addictive and a lot stronger than
morphine. But they said, "What if we use
the same contin system we created for
morphine? So instead of someone getting
a big dose of oxycodone, it'll slowly go
into the bloodstream over 12 hours."
They would call it oxycontin.
And it had a similar effect to heroin.
The truth was this could be a good drug
for end of life pain or for a short
period after a really serious accident
as in those cases the benefits could
outweigh the harm of taking this very
strong addictive drug. But unfortunately
the sacklers had other ideas.
They wanted a blockbuster drug that they
could sell to as many people as
possible. If they only promoted it as an
end of life drug, that would mean a much
smaller market. But what if they could
get doctors to prescribe it for common
conditions like knee or back pain? If
Oxycontton was a drug for everyone with
any pain, that could make them very
rich. Through a set of secret documents,
we now know that Purdue deliberately set
out to hide the dangers of their drug
and instead market it to the widest
possible audience using one of the
largest pharmaceutical marketing
campaigns in history.
It would be this decision to put profits
over safety that would begin what we
call the opioid crisis, taking hundreds
of thousands of lives.
However, in order to claim that their
drug was safe and effective for a wide
range of uses, they would need FDA
approval. And since the Sacklers didn't
have any evidence of this, surely they
wouldn't be able to get it approved,
right? Well, unfortunately, this is
where things start to get more controversial.
[Music]
Purdue Farmer achieved something very
unusual. They obtained the help of a
medical officer at the FDA. His name was
Curtis Wright and he was the medical
reviewer in charge of deciding whether
to approve Oxycontton. And yet he was
working closely with Purdue on the
wording. At one point, Purdue executives
camped out for 3 days in a rented room
near Curtis's office and together they
helped draft the FDA review of
Oxycontton in a way that Curtis promised
would be approved. Rather than being an
impartial regulator, it was like he was
working for Purdue.
It was unprecedented for an FDA official
and a drug company to have this much
contact and to have a drug company
literally help draft a review of their
own application. That should never have
happened. But not only did the FDA
approve Oxycontton, they allowed Purdue
to claim it was not very addictive or
prone to abuse.
Purdue never did any actual studies on
its addictiveness. They simply said
because of the coating on the pill to
release it slowly into the bloodstream
that would prevent addiction.
As a result, on the package insert for
Oxycontton, they added a curious line of
text. Delayed absorption is believed to
reduce the abuse liability of the drug.
This did not sound very scientific. It's
believed by who? And based on what
evidence? It was very vague and there
had never been a label like this before.
But Curtis Wright from the FDA approved
it and this would become Purdue's
greatest marketing tool.
You see, doctors had always been very
careful in prescribing opioids as their
addictiveness is well established.
But Padu would use this label to tell
doctors that Oxycontton is basically non-addictive.
non-addictive.
The sales reps would say it's right here
on the packaging and the FDA approved
it. And this would be the catalyst for
doctors prescribing this drug so much
more. But here's where this gets fascinating.
fascinating.
Curtis Wright soon left the FDA and in
just over a year, he got a new job
working for Purdue Pharma for more than $370,000
$370,000
per year.
So to summarize, the FDA granted Purdue
an extremely unusual label which turned
out to be a lie. That label helped make
the company billions and the man who
approved it went to work for that
company. And sadly, things were about to
[Music]
Purdue began one of the most aggressive
sales campaigns in history. Hundreds of
sales reps began pitching doctors all
over the country to begin prescribing
Oxycontton for any patients with any
kind of pain. These sales reps had no
medical training, but Purdue coached the
salesman to overcome any concerns from
doctors. They were given sound bites to
use that Purdue knew were total lies.
Like saying the drug could be taken for
years with no risks. Purdue's boldest
lie was that less than 1% of patients
got addicted due to the pill's unique
timerelease system. Many doctors
prescribed it based on this claim.
However, it was later discovered that
the study Purdue based this on wasn't a
peer-reviewed study at all. It was a
five-s sentence letter from a doctor who
had done a short test using opioids in a
hospital setting with a very small
sample size. And it wasn't even about
Oxycontton. The letter was sent to a
magazine in 1980.
When the author of the letter found out
that Padu used this to justify the mass
marketing of strong opioids, he was
astounded. But tragically, it was too
late. Padu used this false claim to tell
doctors there was no maximum dose of Oxy
since it was essentially non-addictive.
Still, many doctors needed a lot of
convincing. And so sales reps were
instructed to essentially bribe doctors
and receptionists by giving them gifts,
flowers, taking them out to fancy
lunches, whatever it takes. Purdue was
spending millions a year just on food
for doctors so they could use that as a
way in to pitch them on prescribing more
of their pills. And it worked. According
to Padu's own data, physicians who
attended dinners wrote more than double
the number of oxy prescriptions.
Since Oxycontton was actually addictive,
once you got a patient hooked, they
would get monthly recurring
prescriptions, which meant even more
commissions for sales reps. And unlike
other farmer companies who cap bonuses,
Purdue didn't put any limit on how much
salesmen could earn. In fact, Purdue
even held sales contests offering prizes
to encourage them to push Oxy more
aggressively, and sales reps earned more
if they sold larger doses of the drug.
To help their sales team, Purdue
distributed reading material to
hospitals all over the country that
supposedly was from independent research
groups to educate doctors on new pain research.
research.
However, it later turned out these
groups were secretly owned or funded by
Purdue to spread their lies.
All of these supposed independent pain
societies heavily pushed the use of
Oxycontton and basically infiltrated
hospitals with propaganda.
This meant that the doctor's main source
of information about the drug wasn't
from impartial research like they
thought. It was from companies secretly
owned by Purdue. It wasn't education. It
was a sales tool.
One of Purdue's most influential
resources was a video ad called I got my
life back which featured patients saying
how great their life was after using Oxycontton.
Oxycontton.
In reality, over half of the
participants in the video went on to
develop an opiates addiction.
Padu took things even further when they
started paying doctors to attend medical
conferences, which were really used to
indoctrinate them further on the
benefits of opioids.
The message was that they were safe and
not prescribing them was like wanting
patients to suffer. But it was all an
orchestrated campaign to change doctor's
views on opioids.
However, because oxycodone was less
wellknown, it was less well understood.
Purdue knew many doctors had a
misconception it wasn't as dangerous or
strong as morphine when actually it was
twice as strong. So, Padu and the
Sacklers told sales reps not to correct
doctors and instead exploit this
misconception to sell more pills.
And it wasn't just doctors Purdue
targeted. They also gave out free
samples of Oxycontin to pain patients,
knowing they'd get hooked. By the year
2000, Oxycontton sales had crossed over
$1 billion a year, becoming America's
most profitable drug. And the horrific
consequences of this were about to
sales reps started reporting back to
Purdue that they were hearing concerns
from doctors. Their patients were
showing signs of addiction and severe
withdrawal symptoms if they tried to cut
down their dose. But Purdue told sales
reps to stop raising issues and start
selling more.
One reason pain patients were getting
addicted to Oxy was that Padu's claim
that it would provide 12-hour relief was
not true. Padu's own internal documents
showed that for many patients, the drug
wouldn't last that long, forcing them to
take more. But Padu had a plan. They
started promoting a new concept called
pseudo addiction, which means if a
patient looks like they're getting
addicted or showing withdrawal signs,
they're not really. They're just on too
low of a dose, so they're still
experiencing pain. So, the solution is
to increase their dosage.
Now, there was never any real science
behind this idea. But it was perfect for
Purdue. They could dismiss the evidence
of people experiencing withdrawal
symptoms as pseudo addiction. who
actually need more of their drug. So,
Padu started using the term pseudo
addiction in all their literature they
distributed to doctors. And the person
who coined this term, David Hadex, would
go on to work for Purdue and become
their lead spokesperson.
But Purdue soon had a bigger problem. People
People
had quickly figured out if you crushed
an Oxycontton pill, you could get around
the time release and instead get the
full dose all at once. The result was
immediate euphoria with a purity similar
to heroin. In fact, Oxycontton became
known as hillbilly heroin as it became
an alternative for those looking for a
heroin high. And it was easy to get
since doctors have been trained to
prescribe it so freely for any pain. So
people would simply book appointments at
different physicians across the country
and stockpile pills. As a result, a
black market popped up and Oxycontton
became the hottest street drug. More and
more people were sent into a spiral of
dependence and addiction. In some areas,
9% of 7th graders had tried Oxycontton
and 25% of 11th graders. The ease at
which Oxycontton was available and how
easy it was to abuse also directly
caused a rising crime. In regions where
the drug had been most heavily
prescribed, 70% of serious crime became
drugrelated and there were many cases
ofarmacies being robbed and all that was
taken was Oxycontton.
A lot ofarmacies wanted to stop stocking
it, but Purdue would threaten them if
they did.
The data was clear. Since Oxycontton was
introduced, there were more overdoses,
more crime, and more full jails. [Music]
[Music]
Purdue pretended they had no idea the
drug was being abused, but internal
emails later revealed that all of the
top PU executives and the Sacklers were
very well aware their drug was widely
and easily abused. In fact, they
specifically told staff to delete all
mentions of addiction from their
communication because they wanted to
hide any trace of their knowledge. One
employee actually sent the Sacklers a
report showing how widely abused Oxy was
becoming, but she was screamed at and
told to delete every copy. Instead,
their plan was to blame the people
getting hooked on their drug. Richard
Sackler, who was president of Purdue,
said in an email, "We have to hammer on
the abusers in every way possible.
They're the culprit and the problem.
They are reckless criminals." He called
them the scum of the earth. So, his plan
was to portray Purdue as the victim in
all of this and put all the blame on the
people getting addicted. The issue with
this plan was many of the people
becoming addicted were legitimate pain
patients who'd been using the drug
exactly as prescribed. They take Oxy but
then develop a tolerance and need a
higher dose. And Purdue kept telling
doctors it was safe to just keep
increasing the dose even though the
evidence clearly showed otherwise.
Seeing the damage that was unfolding,
this was the moment Purdue could have
put a halt to everything. But instead,
they doubled down. They launched a new
pill with an even larger dosage, 160 mg,
and continued using the same fraudulent
sales techniques to push it. One lower
level PDU employee raised concerns,
saying they're killing themselves with
80 mg. Why would we come out with 160
pill? The answer once again was greed.
The truth was that the higher the dose,
the more money the Sacklers made. [Music]
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Purdue and the Sacklers were making so
much money from Oxycontton, they could
easily afford to silence their critics
and buy off the people supposed to be
regulating them. For years, Purdue paid
off politicians with big campaign
donations, and several other officials
later went to work for Purdue for huge salaries.
salaries.
But by 2007, the United States was in
the midst of an opioid crisis. So many
lives were being lost and the CDC
estimated the opioid crisis was costing
the US economy $80 billion a year. So
more and more people were talking about
the issue. Eventually Purdue began to
come under more scrutiny. And this was
largely thanks to a small group of
government officials who refused to be
bought off and spent years mounting a
case against Padu showing all of the
insane and manipulative tactics they had
used. The evidence was overwhelming.
There were graphs Purdue had manipulated
to make their drug look safer than it
was. There were videos of them coaching
sales reps how to lie to doctors. There
were doctors they paid off to do ads for
them, but not disclosed that it was an
ad. And so many more cases of bribery
and lies. So later in 2007, Purdue
Farmer was taken to trial.
Even though Purdue was a private company
owned by the Sacklers, the family did
not attend the trial. However, several
families who had been torn apart by
Oxycontton did. One mother said to
Purdue, "You created this drug. You
pushed it. You lied about it. You killed
my son and so many others and continue
to do so as I speak." In the end, Padu
was convicted for misrepresenting the
risk of Oxycontton.
They would pay $600 million in fines and
admit that for years they had
fraudulently marketed Oxy and
deliberately hidden the drug's addiction
and abuse potential, even though Purdue
had known the dangers all along. Three
top executives from Purdue would also
plead guilty to misdemeanors.
But here's the problem.
Even though 600 million is a lot, that
very same year, Oxycontton made 3
billion. Internally at the company, the
600 million fine was viewed more like a
speeding ticket. Not just that, the
executives who' plead guilty got no jail
time. And after the trial, they got back
onto Padu's private jets and received
financial bonuses from the Sacklers for
the pain they'd suffered. And worse
still, right after the trial, Purdue
just doubled down on selling the drug
even more. They didn't change their
aggressive sales tactics like they
promised. Instead, the Sacklers voted to
expand their sales force by a hundred
more sales reps and would go on to make
many billions of dollars more from the
drug. The Sacklers also voted to pay
themselves hundreds of millions of
dollars of dividends from the company.
So, even though the trial was painted as
a success by the government, true
justice hadn't been done, nothing had
really changed. And anyone who was
paying close attention would realize an
One seemingly positive consequence of
the trial against Purdue was that some
doctors did begin to slow down their
prescribing of opioids like Oxycontton.
Now that it was clear Purdue had so
blatantly lied about the risks. But it
was too late. The damage had already
been done. Millions of people had
already got hooked on prescription
drugs. And now that Oxy was getting
harder to obtain, they found themselves
turning to drugs like heroin and
fentinyl instead.
By suddenly shutting off people's supply
once they were already addicted, they
were forced to turn to the black market
to escape the horrendous withdrawal
symptoms. Oxycontton had become the
gateway to illegal drugs. In fact, Oxy
had been nicknamed the heroin pill. So,
it only made sense that once people
couldn't get Oxy prescriptions anymore,
they would transition to heroin, which
was cheaper.
According to the American Society of
Addiction Medicine, four out of five
people who started using heroin around
this time did so after initially
starting with prescription opioids like Oxycontton.
Oxycontton.
Drug overdoses began to spike rapidly.
Hundreds of thousands of people were
dying. Purdue had done a great job of
getting people on opioids, but they had
[Music]
Once the truth of how this opioid crisis
began became clear, nearly every state
began suing Purdue. And in 2020, it was
announced the federal government may
bring federal charges. By October 2020,
a gigantic $8 billion settlement was
agreed. Of course, no amount of money
can make up for the lives lost and the
suffering of the families who lost loved
ones, but this sounded like at least
some kind of justice was finally going
to be served. However, it turns out
there was a new twist. Padu declared
bankruptcy and said there was no way it
would be able to pay the fine. From the
outside, this seemed impossible. Padu
had made over $35 billion from selling
Oxy. How could they be bankrupt?
Well, the Sacklers always knew this day
may come. And so, for years, they had
been moving billions of dollars out of
Purdue and into their own personal name.
They had taken more than 10 billion
dollars out of the company, eventually
leaving it as an empty shell. And they'd
funneled hundreds of millions to their
offshore bank accounts the government
couldn't touch. So bizarrely, they said
the only way Purdue would be able to pay
the fines for the damage Oxycontton had
caused would be to sell more Oxycontton.
Of course, this was all quite absurd.
The Sacklers were saying that the
company bank accounts were empty, so it
couldn't pay the 8 billion fine.
Meanwhile, the Sacklers who owned the
company were one of the richest families
in America, and they got that money from
taking it out of the company over the
past decade. But technically the
lawsuits were against Purdue Farmer, not
the Sacklers.
One person involved in the case pointed
out how unfair this was. They said,
"When you're illegal marketing campaign
causes a national crisis, you should not
get to keep most of the money. But
whether or not it was fair, the whole
idea of having a corporation is that
it's a separate legal entity from the
individuals running it, and so they have
limited liability.
However, there are some exceptions, and
it soon became clear to the Sacklers
that if they didn't strike some kind of
deal, they would face endless more
lawsuits against themselves personally.
So, the Sacklers negotiated a deal where
they would pay around 6 billion as long
as they could get full immunity so
nobody could sue them again in future.
This was highly unusual and the
Department of Justice appealed it. So,
at the time of this video, it's still
unclear exactly how much the Sacklers
will pay. Either way, it looks like they
will walk away still very wealthy.
And despite owning Purdue and being
aware of what was happening, the
Sacklers still refused to admit any
personal responsibility, even though
their company plead guilty to felony
charges. One of the Sacklers even
claimed, "I have yet to see anything
illegal or even immoral that this
company has done." She then went on to
complain how unfair it was that the
lives of her children were being ruined
because of all the bad press surrounding
the Sackler family. The irony of one of
the Sacklers talking about lives being
ruined was kind of sickening.
It is true that the Sackler name was
forever tarnished though. They used to
have their name all over museums and
colleges, but now nobody wanted to be
associated with them. They had abused
their wealth and power and left millions
of people worse off. Since Oxycontton
had been introduced, overdose deaths
from opioids have increased exponentially.
exponentially.
Hundreds of thousands have died. And in
America, opioids now take more lives
than cars or guns. Now, to be clear,
Oxycontton can be a very useful drug for
the people who actually need it. The
problem was the Sackler's deliberate
plan to get it widely prescribed for
even mild pain by using illegal tactics.
That was reckless greed. And whilst many
other farmer companies jumped on the
trend, Purdue and the Sacklers were the
ones who started it and profited most.
The disturbing truth is that the opioid
crisis was caused by a business seeking
to profit from pain.
And a single family made some of the key
choices that caused so much of the
opioid epidemic.
If you enjoy hearing the truth behind
these corporate scandals, you're going
to love the insane story of Wei Work,
one of the craziest business stories
ever. Just click here to watch that
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