Sackler Family’s $6 Billion Deal to Settle Oxycontin Lawsuits. Opioids Have Killed 500K Americans.

Members of the billionaire Sackler family who control Purdue Pharma have agreed to pay as much as $6 billion in a controversial settlement with state governments for the family’s role in fueling the US opioid epidemic. Over 500,000 Americans have died from opioid addiction over the past two decades.

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Summary by JW Williams

Members of the billionaire Sackler family who control Purdue Pharma have agreed to pay as much as $6 billion in a settlement with state governments for their role in fueling the US opioid epidemic. States sued to recover money spent on addiction treatment centers. Over 500,000 American individuals died from opioid addiction over the past two decades. The settlement will pay state governments that will disburse payments ranging from $3,500 to $48,000 to victims and victims’ families.

The Sacklers demanded that a bankruptcy deal wouldn’t be possible unless they were released from all future liability from lawsuits related to Purdue’s OxyContin. The settlement denies families their day in court. The deal has not yet been approved. Under the plan, the Sackler family would forfeit ownership of Purdue Pharma, valued at $10 billion, which includes proceeds from the company’s addiction treatment and overdose antidote drugs it is developing.

Purdue Pharma has generated more than $30 billion since bringing OxyContin to market in 1996, and the Sackler family has withdrawn more than $10 billion from the company, profiting from the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Critics allege that working class people in the rust belt who were losing their jobs were targeted by the Sackler’s company. In 2017, the House Energy and Commerce Committee opened an investigation into the distribution of prescription opioids by wholesale drug distributors, and focused on West Virginia.

The committee found that in the small community of Kermit, WV, with a population of 392, a single pharmacy received nearly nine million hydrocodone pills over two years. Three drug distributors, McKesson, AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal Health, shipped more than 900 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills between 2005 and 2016.

Thousands of West Virginians fatally overdosed after taking those prescription opioids during that time.

The report also blasted the DEA for turning a blind eye to the problem.

According to two state lawsuits against Purdue Pharma, political adviser Frank Luntz helped the Sackler family to to devise ways of “deflecting blame from Purdue’s addictive drugs by stigmatizing people who become addicted.” One of Luntz’s messages read: “It’s not addiction, it’s abuse. It’s about personal responsibility.”

Sources:

ZeroHedge:   https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/sacklers-reach-6-billion-deal-over-purdue-pharma-oxycontin-lawsuits

House Energy and Commerce Committee report:  https://republicans-energycommerce.house.gov/opioids-pilldumping/

Herald-Dispatch:  https://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/report-exposes-drug-distributor-wv-town-got-millions-of-pills/article_4bf8c497-178f-525f-bbd2-0ac9fcdddfde.html

MSN:    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/judge-oks-controversial-purdue-pharma-opioid-settlement/ar-AANZGMD




How the Opioid-Billionaire Sackler Family has Avoided Prosecution


While drug dealers are being charged with tough drug-crime laws, members of the billionaire Sackler family who control Purdue Pharma that manufactures Oxycontin, likely will receive immunity from litigation relating to their role that led to the opioid crisis. The Sacklers have avoided accountability by threatening legal action against editors when their journalists investigate Purdue. They hired former US Attorneys Rudy Giuliani and Mary Jo White because of their connections in the Department of Justice, and they advised federal prosecutors in Virginia against charging top executives accused of crimes with felonies; Purdue avoided a criminal prosecution last year, and paid $225-million to settle a civil investigation. Over years, the Sacklers pulled over $10-billion out of Purdue Pharma that was valued at $35-billion, and transferred the money to their accounts. In 2019, Purdue Pharma, engulfed by lawsuits, declared bankruptcy, thus shielding Purdue from lawsuits while restructuring its debt. In October 2020, Attorneys General challenged the proposed $8-billion settlement between Purdue and the Justice Department because there were no criminal charges against the Sacklers. In this fashion, Purdue was protected from the lawsuits. The Sacklers offered to settle for $4.5-billion to be paid over nine years without admitting any liability. The deal grants permanent immunity from all further lawsuits. If the settlement is carried out, the Sacklers can simply pay off the fine with interest from the principal amount of the fine, which they will be allowed to keep. -GEG

In 2016, a small-time drug dealer in Leesburg, Va., named Darnell Washington sold a customer a batch of what he thought was heroin. It turned out to be fentanyl. The customer shared it with a friend, and the friend died from an overdose.

To combat the opioid crisis, prosecutors have begun treating overdose deaths not as accidents but as crimes, using tough statutes to charge the dealers who sold the drugs. Mr. Washington had never met the person who overdosed. But, facing a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 20 years for distribution resulting in death, he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of distribution and is now serving a 15-year sentence in federal prison.

It has become clear clear that members of the billionaire Sackler family will most likely receive a grant of immunity from all litigation relating to their role in helping to precipitate the opioid crisis. Through their control of Purdue Pharma, the families of Raymond and Mortimer Sackler made a vast fortune selling OxyContin, a powerful prescription opioid painkiller that, like fentanyl, is a chemical cousin of heroin.

Though they are widely reviled for profiting from a public health crisis that has resulted in the death of half a million Americans, they have used their money and influence to play the system, which treats people like Mr. Washington with sledgehammer vengeance and treats people like the Sacklers with velvet gloves.

For a long time, the families of Raymond and Mortimer Sackler simply evaded scrutiny, pruning their public image so that people knew about the philanthropic contributions like the Sackler Library at Oxford but not about the source of their wealth. After the press started writing stories, in 2001, about how OxyContin had given rise to a wave of addiction, spin doctors labored to keep the Sackler name out of the controversy.

As the death toll associated with OxyContin grew, Purdue continued to argue in its marketing campaign that the drug was rarely addictive. When journalists raised tough questions, the company sent its lawyers to intervene with their editors.

This “can I see your manager” approach works even with law enforcement. In 2006, federal prosecutors in Virginia were preparing to charge Purdue with felonies. They focused on three senior lieutenants who worked for the company, expecting them to flip on the Sacklers — the ultimate target, according to the lead prosecutor — when faced with potential prison time. But Purdue had enlisted two former U.S. attorneys, Rudy Giuliani and Mary Jo White. Ms. White telephoned Paul McNulty, who was then the deputy attorney general. “It’s Mary Jo White,” Mr. McNulty recalled recently. “It’s somebody who thought of herself as having access.”

The Department of Justice informed the federal prosecutors in Virginia that they could not charge the executives with felonies, robbing them of their most significant point of leverage: the threat of incarceration. The executives did not cooperate with efforts to implicate the Sacklers; instead, they pleaded guilty to misdemeanors while maintaining that they had done nothing wrong. The company pleaded guilty to felony “misbranding” and paid a $600-million fine.

You would not be alone in detecting a whiff of La Cosa Nostra. In an expert report filed in a recent lawsuit, John C. Coffee Jr., who directs the Center on Corporate Governance at Columbia Law School, concluded that “there is little to distinguish the control the Sacklers exercised over Purdue from the control that the godfather held over his Mafia family.” After the executives took the fall, the Sacklers voted to pay one of them $3-million. Another got $5-million. According to court documents, a single law firm billed Purdue more than $50-million for the case.

Yet the Sacklers were unchastened. Last year, Purdue pleaded guilty to a new set of felony charges related to the marketing of OxyContin. Once again, none of the Sacklers were charged criminally; instead, they agreed to pay a relatively meager $225-million to settle a civil investigation without any admission of wrongdoing. Astonishingly, prosecutors appear to have settled with the Sacklers without ever bothering to interview them. Asked in a deposition whether any of the Sacklers had “direct contact with the D.O.J. in connection with the investigation,” David Sackler, who served on Purdue’s board from 2012 to August 2018, replied, “I do not believe that any of them have.”

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Purdue Pharma and the Sackler Family Hope to Settle Opioid Lawsuit with 2,300 Plaintiffs for Profits from Selling More Oxycontin


Purdue Pharma and its owners, members of the Sackler family, are reported to be close to settling nearly 2,300 lawsuits by municipal governments and 23 states, rolled into one case, for allegedly driving the opioid-addiction crisis that caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. The deal would include Purdue filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company would be dissolved, and a new one would be formed to continue selling OxyContin and other medicines, with some of the profits used to pay the plaintiffs. [Amazing! The lawyers figured out a way to make plaintiffs need the company to continue selling the killer drugs for them to get paid. Turn your opponents into partners. Brilliant!] -GEG

Thousands of municipal governments nationwide and nearly two dozen states that sued the pharmaceutical industry for the destructive opioid crisis have tentatively reached a settlement with Purdue Pharma and its owners, members of the Sackler family.

The deal is a landmark moment in the long-running effort to compel Purdue, the company whose signature opioid, OxyContin, is seen as an early driver of the epidemic, and its owners, the Sacklers, to face a reckoning for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people from overdoses and the calamitous systemic costs.

Specifics of the settlement have yet to be hammered out, but according to two people involved in the negotiations, the broad contours of the deal would involve Purdue filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company would be dissolved, and a new one would be formed to continue selling OxyContin and other medicines, with the profits used to pay the plaintiffs. Purdue Pharma also would donate drugs for addiction treatment and overdose reversal, several of which are in development.

Under the deal, the Sackler family would pay $3 billion in cash over seven years.

The settlement does not include an admission of wrongdoing.

The tentative deal emerged after at least a year of talks, which had been intensifying in recent weeks.

The agreement must still be approved by Purdue’s board as well as a bankruptcy court judge.

In a statement, the company said, “Purdue Pharma continues to work with all plaintiffs on reaching a comprehensive resolution to its opioid litigation that will deliver billions of dollars and vital opioid overdose rescue medicines to communities across the country impacted by the opioid crisis.”

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Massachusetts Sues Maker of OxyContin, Personally Naming Executives and the Sackler Family

The state of Massachusetts sued the maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin, which has been blamed for spawning America’s opioid crisis, naming leading executives and members of the multibillionaire Sackler family that owns the Purdue pharmaceutical company. The company is accused of using illegal deceitful practices to boost profits. The lawsuit is unusual as it personally names names 16 current and former executives and board members, including CEO Craig Landau, and eight members across three generations of the Sackler family that wholly owns Purdue. Purdue and some other painkiller makers are currently facing more than 300 lawsuits from city and county authorities across the country.

The state of Massachusetts on Tuesday sued the maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin, which has been blamed for spawning America’s opioids crisis, naming leading executives and members of the multibillionaire Sackler family that owns the pharmaceutical company.

The lawsuit accuses the company, Purdue Pharma, of spinning a “web of illegal deceit” to fuel the deadly drug abuse crisis while boosting profits.

Purdue Pharma is already defending lawsuits from several states and local governments, but Massachusetts is the first state to take the unusual step of personally naming the company’s executives in a complaint, the state attorney general, Maura Healey, said. It names 16 current and former executives and board members, including the chief executive, Craig Landau, and eight members across three generations of the Sackler family that wholly owns Purdue.

The lawsuit alleges Purdue deceived patients and doctors about the risks of opioids, pushed prescribers to keep patients on the drugs longer and aggressively targeted vulnerable populations, such as the elderly and veterans.

“Their strategy was simple: the more drugs they sold, the more money they made, and the more people died,” Healey said on Tuesday.

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New Jersey Is Suing Purdue Pharmaceutical for Hooking the Nation on Opioid Pain Killers


The lawsuit says that Purdue, the makers of the painkiller OxyContin, knowingly published false information about addiction risks from its opioid medication in order to maximize sales. It says that Purdue targeted elderly and other “opioid-naive” patients. The opioid crisis in New Jersey has killed scores of people and cosy taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. The Sackler family which owns Purdue Pharma is listed as the 19th most wealthy family by Forbes, with $13 billion in assets. Two million people in the US are addicted to prescription drugs, and 64,070 Americans died by overdose in 2016.

Officials in New Jersey are suing one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. over its alleged role in igniting the addiction epidemic through purposefully deceptive marketing.

New Jersey Attorney General Christopher Porrino filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Purdue Pharma. The lawsuit against Purdue, the makers of the painkiller OxyContin, will aim to refute claims made by the drug makers that these highly addictive medications are safe for treating chronic pain. Porrino says the company knowingly marketed false information about addiction risks from its opioid medication in order to maximize sales, displaying what Porrino calls a “inconceivable callousness and irresponsibility,” reports Reuters.

The suit alleges that in addition to lying to doctors and other medical professionals about the risks posed from opioid painkillers, Purdue specifically targeted elderly and other “opioid-naive” patients to push its product. Porrino says this marketing strategy ultimately led to the state’s opioid crisis, which is claiming scores of lives and costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. (RELATED: How One Painkiller Ignited The Addiction Epidemic)

A growing number of recent lawsuits allege Purdue launched a fraudulent marketing scheme to boost sales of OxyContin in the late 1990s that downplayed the risks for addiction from opioid pain medication. Officials in Tennessee, which filed a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma Sept. 29, claim the company’s tactics served as a model for other major drug makers like Endo Pharmaceuticals and Teva Pharmaceuticals to do the same thing

Purdue Pharma is owned by the Sackler family, which is listed as the 19th wealthiest family in the country on the annual Forbes list, coming in at being worth $13 billion. The family’s fortune largely comes from OxyContin sales, which their company branded and introduced as an extended release painkiller in 1995.

“I don’t know what I can say about the company except that they’ve been so careful always to keep from harming anybody,” Beverly Sackler, who is 93-years-old and the owner of Purdue Pharma, previously told NJ.com.

Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty in 2007 to felony charges for false marketing of OxyContin and paid $635 million as a result. The company overstated how long the effects of the medication lasted and severely downplayed the addiction risks of the drug. Three executives also pleaded guilty to criminal charges but dodged prison time.

Medical professionals say a shift in the 1990s to “institutionalize” pain management opened the doors for pharmaceutical companies to encourage the mass prescribing of painkillers by doctors, and Purdue Pharma led that effort.

Purdue Pharma denies allegations of complicity in the opioid epidemic and says they are committed to curbing rates of opioid abuse.

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How One RX Drug Ignited Addiction Epidemic That Kills 60,000 Americans Per Year


Opioid drug-addiction in the US caused the death of 60,000 people in 2016.  Purdue Pharma, the maker of the painkiller, OxyContin, is owned by the Sackler family, worth an estimated $13 billion. Purdue has been accused of hooking the nation on opioids, because it overstates how long the effects last and downplays its addictive quality.  The Sacklers paid $635 million for false marketing of Oxycontin in 2007, and three Purdue executives have pleaded guilty to criminal charges, but no one has served prison time. According to medical professionals, Purdue Pharma collaborated with the national hospital accreditation agency to change its pain management standards in such a way as to drive doctors to prescribe opioids. Purdue’s profits from OxyContin topped $1.5 billion in 2001, a stratospheric rise compared its 1996 earnings of $48 million. –GEG

The national drug crisis, which is estimated to have claimed more than 60,000 lives in 2016, is expected to worsen this year and one family-owned company helped set the crisis in motion.

President Donald Trump declared the opioid epidemic a national emergency Aug. 10 on the advice of a White House commission that pointed out, “with approximately 142 Americans dying every day, America is enduring a death toll equal to September 11th every three weeks.” Purdue Pharma, the maker of the popular painkiller OxyContin, often faces the brunt of the blame for the crisis due to the role the company’s marketing played in hooking the nation on opioids.

Purdue Pharma is owned by the Sackler family, listed at 19th on the annual Forbes list of wealthiest families in the country at a worth of $13 billion. The family’s fortune largely comes from OxyContin sales, which their company branded and introduced as an extended release painkiller in 1995.

Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty in 2007 to felony charges for false marketing of OxyContin and paid $635 million as a result. The company overstated how long the effects of the medication lasted and severely downplayed the addiction risks of the drug. Three executives also pleaded guilty to criminal charges but dodged prison time.

Dr. Richard Sackler became president of Purdue Pharma in 1999 and co-chairman of the board of directors in 2003, formative times for the company during which it intensely marketed OxyContin and pushed doctors to prescribe opioids for nearly all forms of pain. Despite the company’s admission of guilt during the 2007 lawsuit, Virginia U.S. Attorney John L. Brownlee found no evidence linking Sackler to any misconduct.

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