This family made a product they swore was safe, I took this medicine for nearly 20 years it took my life away and my family as well it stole my sons and almost killed him, thank God he brought him back to us after a 10 day coma, paralyzed from the waist down and he is still in Physical Therapy, and an electric wheelchair. I agree this family should be in prison for the damage their product has done to our country. But more than that they should be made to pay, (Cash) to every life they destroyed and ended why should they enjoy being rich when so many of us live in near poverty because of the destruction they caused everyone of us that trusted their words their product was safe.
20
Thank God for the New York attorney's office; helping to keep justice alive in the US. Please don't stop!
10
If Felicity Huffman is getting 14 days in prison for bribing someone to get one of her children into college, why aren’t we talking about prison time for these CEOs? Fines are a waste of time when it comes to trying to make CEOs responsible for their actions. They will always have money stashed away. Greed is a kind of mania of arrogance, prison is a great equalizer and slows things down, making it a perfect place for people like these to think more seriously about life. Whereas prison is disastrous in every way for low level black criminals, it is perfect for high level white ones. After compensating victims, AGs should use the money from those fines to re-organize the company so it lowers its price and distributes more responsibly.
15
Let's make the Sacklers the first in a series of examples that demonstrate that we actually have a fair justice system. If poor people with traffic tickets get sent to jail and kept there until they can pay constantly mounting fees on top of the original ticket, the Sacklers should be imprisoned in an ordinary prison, no special treatment and all their wealth used to help those whose lives they have wrecked. If people with few or no financial assets can take it for the good of society, so can the Sacklers.
1471
@willow That sounds scarily similar to communism. I support socialist policies, but I am leery of anything resembling the communist trials of China and Russia, where mobs would abuse anyone perceived as moderately wealthy and steal all their possessions.
Those responsible should be held culpable for their actions and tried in court accordingly. They should not be imprisoned and robbed of any and all wealth for being a Sackler.
6
@willow Trump/GOP follows their business model. Strip them of all their money and put them in jail.
43
@willow
There are people who have been incarcerated for several decades for stealing a pack of cigarettes from a store. The Sacklers pilfered billions from their company, knowingly peddled opioids that killed thousands, and will walk free with their investment accounts worth billions.
This is how justice works in the United States.
120
Once famous as the epitome of good works funded by the fruits of the capitalist system, the Sacklers/Purdue Pharma are finally being held to account for earning their fortune at the expense of millions of people who are addicted. Although it's shocking how long they have gotten away with it, legal proceedings against them, if carried out in full, thankfully will avoid the ‘justice delayed, justice denied’ conundrum.
The recent painful and untimely overdosing death of singer Tom Petty can be traced to the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma according to many addiction specialists. By misleading physicians about the safety of OxyContin in order to earn $35bn in sales revenue from the toxic pain drug between 1995 and 2015, addiction specialists say that Purdue Pharma and owners, the Sackler family, bear the lion’s share of the responsibility for many deaths and today's opioid crisis.
8
$1 billion
swiss bank accounts
only a family of serial murderers would take these steps and then try to settle the situation out of court to "avoid lengthy and needless litigation."
i think the litigation is needed to reveal the evidence of the actions of this family and punish them accordingly.
charitable contributions may have helped them deal with their conscience over all the deaths they are responsible for, but they don't offset the facts.
despite the true need for pain killing medication for the seriously ill and injured, the vast bulk of the billions of dollars earned came from addicting individuals to opiates that resulted in their deaths.
those facts are unassailable. the deaths are irreversible. but the profit from those deaths can be confiscated. put them in the poor house. and, if the facts prove the case to a jury, the jailhouse.
8
Why not demand retribution from shareholders of CVS, like pension funds, retirement accounts since pharmacies like CVS holds responsibility as well?
1
Please write an article on how people can think this way. Why or how does their ethical switch get turned off? This goes for most CEO’s of tech companies too who pay so little yet they make billions. Why is not a fair profit enough vs taking all and your employees work two jobs or not wanting to pay your fair share of taxes. I am a proud tax payer and in integrity with my money and life how does this switch happen. Please Inform all we read is what they’ve done but give us insight into personalities.
4
Every penny of profits the Sacklers received from sales of OxyContin should be recovered by the states and used for treatment programs, and the rest of their wealth should be taken in the form of civil penalties to provide restitution to the families that have been damaged or destroyed by their greed. Then, the Sacklers should be imprisoned for murder. With this, we might be able to say that justice has been done.
8
Have not read enough about the Sacklers' role in the marketing of Oxycontin. Presumably, they were in it for the money, as most business people are.
It may well be that they made a product which in the wrong hands, used the wrong way, caused great harm.
But this is not like a defective wheel bearing which will kill innocent people when it malfunctions, or tainted baby food.
Why is there no discussion in the NYT coverage about the responsibility of the doctors who prescribed this, their duty to evaluate its safety and to warn patients of its risks?
And what of the patients who became addicted? Are they completely blameless?
Presumably millions used Oxycontin and got pain relief and never got addicted. That has to be true, given the vast quantities sold.
The hysteria, vilification of the Sacklers may or may not be justified--I cannot tell from the reporting. But it is impossible to make such a judgment given the breathless and uncritical reporting I find in the NYT and elsewhere.
The one thing which is evident, is the sharks smell blood in the water and every state attorney general is competing to be holier than anyone else.
5
These people and the institutions they run only understand money. When they violate the law they should be vigorously prosecuted. If found guilty the punishment should be appropriate. Forget trivial fines, short prison terms at Club Fed, and other ineffective punishments. Seize all of their assets and nationalize their companies. Too bad for the shareholders, they are part of a criminal enterprise. Bet the problem stops quick.
1
Will they, like other businesspeople who’ve cheated, wrecked, lied and gorged on their ill gotten spoils pay a fine and live free, apart from the wreckage? Think 2008 bankers; think Zuckerberg/Sandburg knowingly crossing the line but did no time; pay a fine. With a yawn and a shrug and slick PR, they move on. No perp walk; no real punishment, creating a moral hazard for us all as other evil lurks and make no mistake will unleash itself in ways we can not imagine as they’ve witnessed no consequences and motivated to game the system.
3
The Sacklers peddled a drug they claimed was safe. But it was really heroin in a pill. The telling statement to me was one person said she took it for bad back pain. It didn't make the pain go away, but she didn't care because she felt so wonderful from the high it gave her. That is the description of a heroin high.
This family is responsible for killing thousands of people. They should lose all their money and be in jail. Not only do they owe the victims, but they owe society. Small municipalities as well as large cities have had to spend so much on police, EMS, courts etc. to deal with the opioid epidemic this family created.
It's simple. They need to pay for the damage they have caused.
6
If they were common, everyday drug dealers, this would tank any tentative plea deal and prosecutors would through the book at members of this criminal syndication. Just because they bamboozled the government to believe their opium and heroin was anything other than addictive narcotics should not diminish the severity of their crimes.
2
“Purdue has already produced more than 51 million pages of documents to the state, including voluminous financial and business information,”
I wonder if they'll get a $350,000 credit for the amount they've spent on paper
26yrs yrs ago 1st back surgery Christmas break grad school. 6 weeks later a car rear ended our's as was mess on highway. Pain! Dropped 2x12hrs ER, intern cancer unit and finished 1st yrs grad school. 2nd larger surgery and now diagnosed mild TBI. Large debts for post opp meds as insurance stalling. Attempted suicide sick of pain and trauma. I didn't stay dead. Off all meds until bus driver failed to wait until I sat down as requested. Thrown to floor on seats twisted. Small settlement. More crowded roads and new folks. Other rear end crashes. Long time recouping, rebuilding. 4 back surgeries each allowed life. DEA, CDC compiled all data together of misusing street drugs and medical need together. Would be similar to including heart meds, renal and diabetes as they also are medically necessary. People are dying because of the misused and mis-compiled data. Stop including people living in long-term intractable pain with people using drugs. That's a false equilibration.
3
The smoking gun they are a crime/drug kingpin family and their company a criminal enterprise. What other criminal enterprise has cost the US so dearly in terms of blood and treasure? Not terrorism. The death penalty is called for where hundreds of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars have been stolen from us all.
Where is the FBI, the DEA, the NSS? Making sure prisons are full of hundreds of thousands of low level dealers and addicts, it seems; they don't do oligarchs, if the Sackler, Trump, and Kushner familias are any indication.
1
Companies guilty of gross malfeasance like this should be broken up and stripped of assets, their executives tried, jailed, and along with major shareholders, made personally responsible for paying out criminal penalties and civil awards. Fines are not clearly not enough to deter bad behavior; they are far less than the taxes that corporations would be paying in a just system.
1
No one is above the law. If every cent of their fortune goes to attorneys as they desperately try to avoid jail time then I consider that a win.
They created this epidemic. They lied and lobbied to get the drug approved. They marketed their product as a cure when it was a highly contagious fatal disease.
True, the money could help some Americans but this family would still be billionaires several times over. Opioids are also needed in medicine. But this family turned medicine into a destructive plague that made them rich.
There are over 400,000 Americans dead from a plague they started and fought to spread. Now we are suppose to believe they are turning a new leaf? Now they say they will stop killing Americans but they will still take their plague internationally through a different company and handover a portion of their fortune. Americans do not care about who gets their money as long as this family is in jail.
We cannot allow them to export their crimes against humanity. They should be in a supermax prison with the other terrorists and mass murderers.
1
Drug lords lose their drug generated assets. Why not the Sackler's too? Indeed, this family should be mansion-less living on the streets like many of their customers whose lives they've wrecked for ungodly sums of cash and enrichment taken out at society's expense. Now they are pulling an "El Chapo" drug lord style escape for their ill-gotten loot - perfectly laundered, ironed and folded into their Swiss stash.
How much income taxes have the Sacklers evaded? Its not as if they stashed their loot in non-interest bearing accounts or money losing investments.
Government should freeze suspected assets and Easter-eggs of shell companies tied to this family - see how fast they openly claim ownership in spite of their convoluted game of Monty to hide links back to them. Indeed, the government should freeze or confiscate all properties and assets not directly tied to identifiable owners. Let them come out of the shadows to prove the seized assets are theirs and taxes have been properly and fully paid. Shell companies exist only for nefarious purposes. So called wealth management companies are nothing more than tax dodging consultants and enablers.
Of course illegal drug procurement by wealthy right wing extremists like Limbaugh - who illegally procured a twofer of drugs, OxyContin AND hydrocodone - remain unaccountable while reaping millions dividing and dispensing cruel and infectious verbal PAIN on America without a license. No doubt he's in line for a payout from the Sacklers.
2
Let me start by saying, without question, the Sacklers/Purdue Pharma must be held responsible.
BUT....
Where have all you pitch-fork, bat-holding, mob-mentality people been when cigarettes were discovered to be addictive and killed people? Or alcohol and the downward spiral that it can cause? You want to talk about aggressive marketing and sales? At least OxyContin serves a purpose, albeit an abused purpose. I'm not sure what scares me more: That one company/family's creation can get so abused or that so many people's sense of justice can get so extreme. It seems to be the same mentality people have when talking about politics today...with no middle ground.
With the amount of money at stake, and a company with an accumulated brain trust at it's disposal, wouldn't it be better to think of justice in terms of what good they could be made to do? Yes, yes...restitution for the victims. But how about some sort of restitution for all? Invent a needed drug without a patent attached to it. If a patent must be kept, drop the ridiculous prices. Start overhauling the healthcare system, with this company, by creating a business model that allows for good medicine without the grotesque profits that have crippled our healthcare system.
And throw the Sacklers in jail for a few years. Trust me, reform doesn't take 20 years to life. If they do it again, then throw away the keys.
2
“Purdue has already produced more than 51 million pages of documents to the state, including voluminous financial and business information,”
This in effect simply means they are trying to hide a needle in a haystack. As a person who works in healthcare for 45 years, I find it revolting that this family and the corporation they own have deceived not just Americans but humans worldwide with their LIES about the product they produce. Doctors and nurses use treatments based on solid research and testing of products. The Sacklers simply are akin to the drug pusher outside the school grounds stating to children, "Come on kid. Everyone is doing it and it is harmless." To me, if they did all this with intent, is considered a violent crime punishable by prison.
But let's not stop there. Our own government (FDA) allowed this to continue. If we stand to hold the pathetic individual in the Oval Office accountable for his actions by putting light on his finances as well as his lack of character, then we must also hold our government agencies to the same scrutiny and standards. People got rich off this drug. And I am not referring to the pusher on the street. It is the ones who have 7 and 8 digit bank accounts who sit behind a desk in private office. They need to be punished just like the pusher. Only worse! They made the drug and then pushed it.
I was training to return for trekking in the Himalayas, but gave in to 5 years of push from my doctors and took a statin drug for 7 months. That was seven years ago, and was the end of not only trekking, but even walking around the block.
Like others I know (a couple of them local MDs), I got a permanent, progressive and very painful disease.
When I'd accumulated almost 150 pain pills via primary care physicians, I decided to go to a pain specialist. In fact, that's how I met the other people with statin-triggered diseases.
The second thing the pain management physician did was present me with a form to sign (the first thing was to tell me how sorry he was that this had happened to me):
The form required me to agree to:
1) surprise urine samples
2) pill counts.
I responded by informing the doctor that these requirements were a big reason for my going to his practice. No one is immune to the danger of addiction to opioids. Opioids are a blessing to those of us in severe pain, but monitoring is absolutely necessary.
Aside from the issue of my own possible addiction, urine tests and pill counts help assure that the person getting the prescription is taking, rather than selling, the medication.
It takes some work, but if the physician is honorable (as I believe that most doctors are), safe use of opioids is a blessing to those of us in chronic pain.
If you're in a similar situation, and might help others, perhaps you can send us your story.
StatinStories.com
4
It should have been possible to design a distribution system for opioids that would make them available for people with severe intractable pain and not for others. But few were interested in doing this, and they were blocked.
Sufferers from chronic pain protest that their meds are unavailable, not that the distribution system is broken so that we get to choose between making them available to all and to nobody. So the chronic pain sufferers wind up supporting Purdue's attempts to keep its business thriving, and generally give no sign that they care about being used by Purdue.
Where is the true justice for thousands who have died? Money settlements are always treated as the cost doing business by big corporations. They may help finance rehab for some of those caught by opioid addiction but do not address the collateral deaths. It seems to me that the leaders of Purdue pharma and other companies are truly guilty manslaughter and some folks should go to jail. Unless that happens, justice is not served and the wealthy corporations get away with murder. The great class divide with a separate set of rules for the wealthy will continue to generate the social discontent that has spread through this country and we will all suffer in one way or the other.
3
I think jail time is appropriate, in addition to a $13 billion payout. And how much will they make off with after that? Over $4 billion? Time to ferret out ALL that cash.
7
The Sacklers or their accountants and attorneys must have known that you can't move a billion dollars without leaving a big footprint. They must have calculated that the money they protect will be more valuable than the penalty they must endure for moving it. They probably added the pros and cons and decided that they can make a deal, pay a fine, and keep the rest.
At the end of the day, if they are still rich and free, we all lose.
12
Of course the attorneys and accountants knew they were leaving a trail. It was a distraction, as I believe the bulk is hidden. This trail led to their chump change.
1
This whole story has many moving parts, but the inability of the health care industry to deal with soft tissue injuries and chronic pain is one of them. This is the rationale that the Sacklers used to foist this addiction on the physicians and their patients; those people are hurting and this will deaden their pain.
I recall another story I read, about a person born with a condition where they couldn't feel physical pain. The story noted that this person was extraordinarily easy going and mostly immune to problems that would upset ordinary people.
In the context of opiates, this suggests to me that any substance that relieves physical will also relieve psychic pain. Opiates fit the bill perfectly. However the relief is temporary, so if the pain is chronic, addiction becomes a factor, whether the pain is physical or psychic.
Not only did the Sacklers formulate a stronger, more addictive pill, they pushed the industry to overuse it, which addicted and killed many people. And most likely, they made it harder for ordinary, non-addicted people to get effective pain relief for temporary conditions, such as a sprained ankle.
At the end of the day, if they are still free and rich, we lose.
10
I’d be very interested in knowing if these drug dealers pay taxes, much less the self employment, fed, State and local taxes that I pay.
4
Any bets on the Sacklers' financial shenanigans being replicated by other "poor" rich people?
Most importantly, is this why Trump has been fighting tooth and nail not to have the banks produce documents to Congressional committees?
6
Their money. No one has obtained a judgment or injunction.
2
The Sacklers and their kind have gamed the system for so long they now own it. It's going to take someone like Warren or Sanders to even begin to make any changes in our plutocracy.
10
I've read the replies that question why the onus of culpability does not lie squarely on those who took these opioids, or how the doctors, salespersons, executives and the Sacklers justified their actions that killed hundreds of thousands, and caused even more to become addicts.
Firstly if one suffered from pain these drugs must have seemed a godsend, worse they were pushed by their own doctors whose opinions are often held in high regard.
As for the motivations of pharma companies, the Sacklers and others including MDs who purposefully set out to enslave people with opiods and greed; are any of us really not aware that when it comes to power and/or money many of us can find more excuses than there are stars?
Ethics, and the adage 'do unto others...' are quickly tossed aside to justify any behaviour.
And we cannot ignore our own culpability, when 'looking out for number one' takes precedence over our family, coworkers, or the guy we cut off in traffic.
Apparently that fall from grace is alot easier for the small and the large among us.
5
When there are discussions of "hidden" transactions and financial accounts, I always wonder if the IRS and the FATCA people should be getting involved.
3
The Sacklers enriched themselves on the misery of others. There should be no "agreement" with them. Their wealth should be confiscated no differently than any other drug dealers' and used to help those afflicted by their greed.
9
The fines should be in the quadrillions plus 20 years without parole for each ember involved.
The Sacklers and Purdue Pharma perfectly crystalize all that is wrong with American consumer capitalism. Every other major corporation follows a similar script, perhaps without such visibly terrible consequences. They create slave labor supply chains, objectify the consumer, create a sense of overwhelming need regardless of the personal consequences to the individual user, build a network of product pushers, minimize corporate taxation, and obscenely compensate a few at the top who then use every means available to hide their wealth and avoid personal taxation. The opioid crisis should open our eyes to modern capitalism's corrupt values which place greed, profit, power and personal wealth above the nation, community and people.
10
@DB I need to ask you a question. Are you suggesting that a patient with chronic pain is supposed to 1. not trust his/her doctor and/or 2. should have more knowledge than most biochemists in order to know that this or that painkiller is going to make them addicted and eventually possibly kill them?
The answer is simple: Yes or no? No wiggling.
3
@Sten Moeller What you write is not only true of pain killers (with which I'm now, unfortunately familiar thanks to the adverse effect of another drug), but of pretty much all medications.
Most of us do trust our doctors, even when we see advertisements for drugs in their offices (eg anatomical charts on the walls from some pharmaceutical company or other ) and even when we share doctors' waiting rooms with drug pushers (pharmaceutical salespeople) handing out "free" samples.
But wait: if you're from Norway, such advertising and drug reps in doctors' offices may not be allowed. But in the U.S., yes indeed.
Most doctors seem to be naive about this, thinking that others may be influenced, but not me.
So sadly, actually tragically, one is wise not to blindly trust one's doctor, because our doctors are mired, like all of us in the USA, in a healthcare system corrupted by money.
The drug that wrecked my life also wrecked the lives of two local MDs whom I know. It's not knowledge of biochemistry that's required, it's familiarity with corrupt business practices, lobbyists, tainted regulatory agencies, and such.
Clearly, I'm not blaming the patient: I'm blaming the noxious healthcare system in the US.
StatinStories.com
1
Where do they live? Can we stand outside their houses and protest?
2
Oxy was specifically formulated to prevent use by addicts - it was supposed to be "time released". Addicts learned they could crush the pills and inject the dissolved powder for their intense high. Did the Sacklers know that when they were 'pushing' for more sales? Tell me a business that doesn't try to sell as much as possible. I don't recall reading that. I agree with commentators who wrote that blame should accrue to more than the Sacklers. What about the pharmacists and doctors who prescribed and sold huge amounts of pills - are they all being held responsible? Maybe they should be even more culpable than the Sacklers. I can't help but feel that much of the disdain for the Sacklers is because most of the addicts were, and are white. When users were mostly blacks who were addicted to heroin, or crack cocaine, society blamed the addicts. with that said, I agree with the commentor who wrote that [many] CEOs are psychopaths.
4
>"This is a cynical attempt by a hostile A.G.’s office to generate defamatory headlines to try to torpedo a mutually beneficial settlement"<
Sorry dude, "mutually beneficial" is not what we're after here. We are talking about premeditated criminal acts that affected millions of people in horrific ways, including death.
6
@zipsprite
Sorry “dude,” this is a civil, not criminal matter. They have not even been charged with any criminal acts.
Hmm, check the accounts of local politicians, and also check the relationships of politicians with the big pharma companies. Once you have reported on that, then an article like this will be put into perspective.
5
A just legal outcome would leave the family with $250 million on which they could manage quite nicely one would think and take the rest of their estimated $13 billion fortune for restitution, claims, etc.
4
Not shocked that banks would want to earn fees on this. Which banks?
8
Karl Marx famously described religion as the “opiate of the masses” when, in actual fact, its opium. The addictive and destructive effects of the drug have been long known: the Boxer Rebellion was ignited by opium being used to sedate Chinese insurrection against the imperial tea trade of the Great Powers. So, using one scant example, it is shown how significant swathes of the population can be drugged in return for vast profits. The Sacklers, and, it has to be said, certain elements of the medical community, have been vastly profiteering for a very long time from a known societal vulnerability. That makes them parasitical and in need of eradication from the pharmaceutical industry and from liberty.
The fact that they channel assets away from the case against it means that the family understands its culpability and liability. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times; we can’t afford the rich.
13
I wish we could include legislators who made this possible. I presume mostly republican ones but whoever. Deregulation and turning our nations motto to greed is good seems they should hold responsibility for the bad things that their policies have brought on the nation.
10
You cannot blame all of the doctors. I had two ruptured discs in my lower back. Talk about unseen, debilitating, excruciating pain. My doctor, a very empathetic gentleman, prescribed oxy for me, but with many caveats. He bothered to have a conversation with me about this drug: its potential addictive quality, it's potential side effects, and its limitations on how long I should take it. So with this knowledge I took the prescription and thanked my lucky stars to be relieved of that pain, always with an eye on stopping its use as soon as I found surgical remedy for that pain.
Of course, try to find a doctor that's not over burdened enough to be able to "converse with their patient" for more than 10 minutes in our profit motivated system.
18
Your situation is what these drugs were made for. I sympathize with the pain you went through. My sister had the same. She had excruciating pain after surgery (with a very long recovery). Her doctor responsibility explained that he’s prescribing to address that pain and he would strictly limit how much he’d prescribe..which he did.
11
Few years ago I was prescribed narcotics after tooth removal even after I told the dentist that a I didn’t want them. He said that he wanted to give me a prescription just Incase it was after hours and I was in too much pain. This happened again at another dentist’s office. Good things I never took them.
I also work in healthcare and remember 15 years ago how people’s pain had to be less than 3 on a pain scale. Otherwise we were talked to about why we didn’t follow up on people’s pain and do something about it. Guess what we would give when someone had 4/10 pain in the middle of night.
2
Similar situation for me. Had minor foot surgery (and I mean minor). No need for that strong of a narcotic for what amounted to nuisance pain.
2
At what point are the Sacklers deemed to be criminally liable in this matter? Did Purdue engage in illegal activity? In their role as owner / board of directors participants did they have a fiduciary responsibility to prevent this? Were they involved in criminal behavior? These are the questions that need to get on the boards - far too often the financial aspects of these corporate issues take precedence, and the financial liability becomes nothing more than a cost of doing business. Until the management, owners, and boards of companies face personal implications for their actions behavior like this will continue.
8
There are heart-rending stories every so often about families that have gone into deep debt trying for years to cure their addicted family member. There are families with well-documented proof of their expenditures, who have other children who have had to take on the burden of student loans because of the financial destruction that opioid addiction has brought to these specific middle-class families.
Where is their restitution from all these state settlements? I haven’t heard a word about where the money would actually be going. To “the states”?
5
By all means, pursue personal liability and criminal exposure. However, the point that's missing here is the bankruptcy was never about taking the Sackler fortune. Most of the $3 billion they will currently have to pay comes from the reorganization of Purde Pharma through bankruptcy.
Essentially, cities and states are orchestrating a hostile takeover. In a weird way, Purdue Pharma will become government owned if the deal goes through. "Public beneficiary trust" is the technical term. The proceeds from future pharmaceutical sales therefore create an ongoing revenue stream for cities harmed by the crisis. The Sacklers keep the egg, the US government takes the goose.
Neither a billion dollars in secret wire transfers nor mis-evaluation of Sackler wealth changes the basic math behind this equation. Cities are settling in exchange for a pharmaceutical company.
6
@Andy
You have it backward. The 3 billion was going to come from their personal wealth. The rest of the estimated $9 to $10 billion of the settlement was going to come from their turnover of their interest in the two major companies.
1
Wake me up when a billionaire family is laundering money to avoid taxes. This article could be an outline about any wealthy family. They just happen to be caught necause of negligence of human health.
6
I could be an alcoholic, or a drug addict. But because I have character and ethics, I weigh the cost benefit and decline to go down that road. I know, it sounds sarcastic and condescending. That's because it's meant to be. I can't imagine how to react otherwise, am I supposed to cheer people making excuses for the low character that results in opiate addiction? "Hey kids, it's never your fault, it's always the fault of the world around you. You never have to fight against anything, except if you enlist for a useless war, then you can go fight for a useless cause that kills thousands and if you break a toe you can come home we'll call you a hero. What a society!
1
You are completely off base here. Opioid addiction can occur with as little as a few days of OxyContin given for a procedure or injury. This can happen to anyone.
4
What gets me about the Sacklers, Epstein, Trump, Koch, Bezos (just cut health benefits) is that they have social circles, friends. Can you imagine having such horrible people as friends?
Makes me glad to be merely middle class (just barely).
7
It is beyond weird that reporting on the alleged crimes of Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family, those perhaps most responsible for the opioid crisis in America and it's estimated $500 BILLION economic cost (Council of Economic Advisors estimate) shares page space with, and sits only slightly above, reporting on the crimes of Felicity Huffman. I'm not arguing the latter is innocent or that her story and what it represents should be ignored. It definitely shouldn't. But the weird fetishization of celebrity misbehavior distracts from the real story there, and the enormous story here. Not to mention that truly bizarre fact that, as of right now, she is also set to serve more time behind bars than any Sackler.
8
In this nation, money makes right. This family is directly responsible for thousands of deaths and the courts sit and quibble about how much of their wealth to take. Meanwhile, some kid who sold $50 worth of pot will have his entire life ruined with a felony. You are looking at the American "justice" system.
12
The following link is a story of unimaginable greed that occurred in Kansas City several years ago. I lived there at the time this nightmare unfolded for hundreds of unsuspecting people. A pharmacist named Robert Courtney owned his own pharmacy in Kansas City. He was personally in charge of mixing extremely expensive compounds to treat very ill cancer patients. He severely diluted these expensive chemotherapy drugs to line his pockets with many millions of dollars. This guy was the only individual involved in this scheme. One example taken by the feds contained only 24% of the prescribed amount of medication. He was making millions of dollars off the suffering of the hundreds of cancer patients that he was compounding the potential life saving drugs for. Authorities estimated his scheme could have touched 400 doctors, 4,200 patients and as many as 98,000 prescriptions. Read the article in the Kansas City Star to see how he was finally caught. It's a fascinating story of justice and how it was severed. As you may imagine he got the book thrown at him.
Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/news/special-reports/kc-true-crime/article705846.html#storylink=cpy
https://www.kansascity.com/news/special-reports/kc-true-crime/article705846.html
2
The Sacklers are the poster family for greed. They have turned doctors and any prescribers of their poison into their street dealers selling out of well-appointed upscale and otherwise doctor's offices. They are no different from Guzman and Escobar, they just had the cover of legalized poison. To sell more, they gave incentives and perks well beyond the ordinary to entice doctors to push as much of this poison as possible. There is a politician in Louisiana who is running for governor and he says he is a vet but he is responsible for pushing over a million and a half doses of opioids on a community of less than 60,000. He's worth $12 million as a result of it. Money does indeed seem to be the root of most high-ranking evil. The Sacklers should be in prison with the rest of the drug dealers who cause so much misery and grief.
6
Consider me shocked. I thought the whole point of big business was to be responsible corporate citizens. Shocked, I say.
3
It's long past time we started sending these Business Criminals to prison with sentences based on the dollar amount of their crime
If they had to spent just ONE second in prison for every dollar they would be sentenced to 31 1/2 years in prison .... That should give anyone a clear idea about the size of this crime
8
More evil than big tobacco.
Greed is not good.
3
The responsibility of this opioid related medical disaster lies flatly on the Sackler’s family and also on those physicians prescribing nonchalantly this addicting drugs .
In the seventies I remember that patients suffering from incurable illnesses were denied opioids with the excuse that they would cause addiction ( ! ) , this means that the medical establishment was fully aware of this problem and in those years mismanaged many medically hopeless situations inflicting unbearable pain on patients with excruciating pain .
The following decades the opioids prescription pattern , under the extreme push of greed , moved in the opposite direction creating the medical disaster we have to cope with now .
I am fully aware of the new medical guidance about pain management, but how come we have reached such a dangerous disaster in medicine without any supervision by the AMA or FDA?
“ Pecunia non olet “ , money doesn’t stink ....but it kills .
1
Track down their assets to the ends of the earth, confiscate every dollar and send them all to prison. For starters.
Oh yes, and do confiscate the Amagansett property to bring the point home that we the people mean business. Might send a pungent message far & wide in those gilded precincts of avarice and hereditary privilege.
7
Did I read this correctly, Mortimer Sackler said the AG is attempting to torpedo a settlement that is "MUTUALLY beneficial". Excuse me. Why should a settlement of a lawsuit over a drug that killed tens of thousands of people be beneficial at all to the killers? The only benefit he should get is being let out of his 8X10 cell once a day for air and exercise.
10
is it illegal for an individual to wire THEIR own money to another country? of course if the facts later show that the transfers were made to defraud a LEGAL CREDITOR, this article might be relevant. this speculation is just that. it is simply a smear at this time.
i wonder how many persons will end up admitting that they bought these drugs illegally, are in tact druggies who also have used other illegal drugs?
This witch-hunting is what is shameful. It is all too reminiscent of the attacks on the Rothschild Family. The company cannot bear more than one-third of the responsibility, as the doctors and pharmacists, as the users must also take responsibility.
2
There are people, usually African american men, rotting in jail for using or selling a paltry amount of drugs.
The Sacklerswill never see the inside of a prison.
I don't believe in prisons, they should be abolished as they function in the US as part of the new Jim Crow as does the " war on drugs".
As if you can wage war on a mental and physical societal problem.
That said, the Sacklers with their billions could fund drug rehab clinics and efforts toward some prison reform. That would be constructive instead of more punishment.
3
Hiding the blood money shows the endless rapacious greed of the Sacklers. The question that should be asked: Are they too big to jail as accessories to murder?
2
No one forced those addicted to painkillers/prescription drugs/alcohol/tobacco to use them.
The victims did this to themselves.
We Americans seem able to blame anyone but ourselves. And we are sickeningly addicted to revenge against the imagined evildoers.
How about we grow up and look in the mirror.
1
Life in prison without parole for every member of the Sackler family who profited from opioids --that might be justice for the victims. Financial settlements will never cut it.
6
I'd be more impressed with a settlement that requires the Sackler family to start and operate, at their own expense, drug addiction and treatment facilities for all effected. There should never be a settlement that allows a small percentage of wealth to be given to avoid responsibility. They should clean up their mess, whatever it costs.
5
Fines are not a meaningful punishment or deterrent for the wealthy. The financial penalties imposed in the Sackler family will make no meaningful difference in their lifestyles.
The only punishment that has any effect in a felony conviction and/or jail time with the attached stigma that inhibits individuals from holding future executive positions and prevents travel to some countries.
That is a lifetime mark that should be the minimum punishment for people that have caused so much death and suffering in the name of greed.
7
@DB Here we go again! That ole "self responsibility...who chose...to get addicted" and spoke by one who must have the knowledge - why else would anyone carelessly scatter those words?
I have long held the belief that no one is an addict. One may have symptoms of Addictive Disease, akin to one exhibiting symptoms of Diabetes mellitus or any other medical diagnosis. Yet the judgements are always flowing, attesting to an unchecked ignorance of the disease process.
As a Psychiatric Nursing Clinician, I worked in Addictive Disease in the Methadone Clinic for a good number of years. Thinking about the entire fifty years of my nursing career, and without missing a beat, the individuals with hour-to-hour struggles, walking in and out of treatment with forever courageous intent to remain unmedicated, will always be the most memorable.
I am sickened by the Sackler's gross exploitation of these human beings.
9
Numerous studies have shown that the people who sit atop corporations are, at their core, sociopaths. The central figure in their lives is the expansion of wealth and power and what better way to achieve that than through a big company that can charge big dollars and the customer wants the product regardless of the cost.
Public shaming doesn't work on these people, they don't have empathy, just the desire for more wealth and power. Take away that and they will be angry, very angry, and they will do anything and everything to defend it.
The Sackler family never considered the harm being done, only the profit from more-and-more sales and set company goals to increase sales every day. Stories of the human suffering never resonated - it was, and still is, all about the money.
A cornered sociopath is dangerous because without their object of desire they are nothing.
As Trevor Noah noted: "A celebrity goes to prison for manipulating the college admissions system, while the Sacklers get a fine that is but a small portion of their wealth." A strange application of justice.
16
No surprise, given this family's insane greed....but still shocking. Kudos to the attorney general for following the leads. There needs to be steep prison terms for society to change.
9
Isn't this the American way though?
Corporation gets caught doing some horrible. CEO and owners either begin or complete offshoring hidden assets. Lobbying occurs. Trial lawyers step in and sue company so that 1) they earn windfall profit from contingency fees 2) states get enough money to buy new sports stadium, 3) victims see pittance or nothing. Nobody ever goes to jail.
6
If we fine them and settle, it becomes a business expense they budget for. If we jail them, they and others like them will think twice before breaking the law again.
7
@Ashleigh Adams
Jailing them requires that a crime be committed. But they haven’t been charged with any crimes. Think about that; dozens of AGs, and not one could come up with plausible charges.
A staggering $1.6 billion was seized in 2018 from drug dealers (other than the Sacklers) and it went to pad police department budgets not fight addiction. I would venture a guess that in the past ten years the total dwarfs the Sackler settlement. Seems a bit hypocritical that the state AG's didn't advocate for these funds to be directed toward rehabilitation and services as well.
4
I do not know why we are talking deals. These people should be in prison like every other drug dealer. In fact, these people are worse than common drug dealers. They hid data that their drugs are addictive and told doctors they were safe, leading unsuspecting patients into a nightmare. A deal will leave them with billions of dollars and send the message that this heinous behavior and disregard for life has no real consequences. Others will see that the big money is worth the risk. Unacceptable. NO DEALS FOR ANYONE!
7
There are two sets of rules for people in the US. One set for the wealthy who can lie, cheat and steal their way to billions. One of the best examples of them can be viewed squatting in the White House right now. Then there are the rules for ordinary folks who must tow the line so that they can be mined as a resource by the wealthy. Don't copy that DVD or you can do hard time!
The citizens have figured this out but don't yet know what to do about it, which is why they gambled and voted for a con man. If things don't improve in this country soon there will be more disruptions to follow and they could well be even worse than having a grifter as president.
6
Did any of the cigarette company execs go to jail?
I don't think so. Cigarettes killed far more than opioids, tho over an extended period of time.
Don't count on the Sacklers ever doing jail time either. The rich evade the laws with money. The poor sit in jail. Welcome to American justice.
3
Oh, the inhumanity! An old family business of multi-billionaires makes just $5 or $6 billion more by addicting millions of Americans to narcotics and killing more than 100,000. And, those heartless bureaucrats expect the billionaires to pay more than 10 cents on the dollars in fines! They must all be socialists who don't understand the free enterprise system.
What are the odds that Trump will step in to protect them and their ill-gotten billions?
3
Wouldn’t it be just punishment to confiscate every last dollar of their fortune? I’d love to see the look on their faces standing in the unemployment benefits line!
3
No fan of the family but if you have billions of dollars you will have a lot of wire transfers. That is not a crime.
1
It's clear that the vastness of the Sackler attack on society, throughout the planet, is provably criminal, making their entire corporate structure a criminal enterprise engaged in all manner of illegal activities, including laundering the money they collected from the sale of drugs whose addictive properties were never fully disclosed to patients.
Our Justice Department and other justice departments in other nations should be actively joining to deny these criminals anywhere to hide their blood money, and seeking to criminally charge them as well.
As one comment indicated, we incarcerate thousands for selling marijuana, but let a giant drug cartel off with agreements to absolve themselves of crimes which have directly led to the death of thousands and the ruin of tens of thousands more.
It's becoming clearer every day, here in America, that the wealthy can buy their own level of justice.
7
Billions of dollars and counting - how much money does a family need ? their shameless greed and attempts to conceal both personal and siphon corporate wealth shows how little guilt the Sacklers feel about their role in the epidemic and deaths.
2
A thousand million dollars, part of the Sackler's earnings from selling pain relief pills.
There was a report on NPR about the pharmacies that sold the most Oxycontin pills. One pharmacy in Springfield Mass. sold the equivalent of 600, 000 pills yearly , per resident.
Where was law enforcement?
Chasing teenagers for smoking joints.
9
All big pharmaceutical companies that sell opioids she not be allowed to profit from the sale of narcan or other drugs that counter overdose.
1
The Sacklers are despicable human beings that they could knowingly do this, but every time I read something about Purdue and the Sacklers, and the other drug companies who have made and marketed similar drugs I ask myself "How is it that they were allowed to make such an addictive drug and market it as they did without the proper warnings, controls, etc. Where was the FDA in all of this and where is the FDA or whatever branch of the federal government taking its share of the responsibility in this?
4
It is time in my view for the New York AG office to have the courts freeze all Slacker families assets . This was done I believe when Bernie Madoff financial wrongdoings came to the attention of the SEC .
The Slackers are clearly not acting in good faith so until the state AG,s are able to determine their exact wealth they should have no access to their money.
7
Only in corrupt nations can you leverage your billions to exchange criminal charges for a bogus class action settlement. The Sacklers, if any walk free, prove that there is a different legal system for the ultra-wealthy.
6
I applaud the New York State Attorney General for tracking this down. Great work!
3
This is an example of Mass Thought, mass shaming, greedy States and current meme. Does no one stop to think of how many people actually need codeine or one of its form to avoid excruciating pain. My sister has terminal cancer and is currently miserable, moaning in bed, not having all of the tools of pain killers available to her. Doctors have more and more fear of appropriate pain killing. The Sacklers have a business that is providing painkillers that I hope I will be able to get should the time come that I desperately need them.
I wish that all of these thoughtless stone throwers could walk through the nursing homes and listen to the poor souls screaming for relief from horrible pain, some of them children.
10
no one is looking to punish a respectable business that conducts itself responsibly. if you (legally) make a highly addictive drug and you sell it to places where it can't possibly justify the numbers being sold, then you have a moral obligation to look into/reduce the numbers being sold there because the only logical conclusion you can drive is that your product is being missed. when instead you look to increase sales into those regions (which indicates loose controls and hence more distribution), you are now nothing more than a dealer... and criminal as well... whole the pain your relatives are going through is real, and is no doubt eased by these drugs (for which purpose no one is trying to stop), the death of those who have become addicted to these drugs, and for which the sacklers appear to be directly responsible for making available in mind boggling quantities, is an even greater horror show...
1
I don't think the idea is to ban all painkillers, ever. If you need them you should have access to them. But you don't need opiods for low key pain just because you think you need to feel no discomfort at all. Two worlds of pain.
All the best to your family.
Consider two notions as you form an opinion:
1. Traveling the road to addiction is not a matter of "choice." That road is a web that, over time, ensnares.
2. The unholy alliance of MDs and pharmaceutical companies plays a critical role in all of this. Any number of people take medication solely on a doctor's recommendation; no questions asked.
6
This is nothing but pure greed and indifference to any moral responsibility. Maybe they did not at first intend to do such harm, but they have certainly did not feel any real responsibility. There seems to be so much of this going on among many of the wealthy families and individuals in our country (and probably most others). I am at a loss to understand such greed, but I know it is harmful in so many ways.
7
I am struck and saddened to see the notion in so many comments that the people who took the OxyContin are to blame for their addiction. This is not consistent with our understanding of addiction as a disease and not helpful in getting people to seek treatment. And in fact, it is famously, exactly the tactic used by Richard Sackler early in the opioid epidemic to deflect blame. He wrote, “We have to hammer on abusers in every way possible.”
There is plenty of blame to go around here and the Sacklers certainly deserve a heaping share of it. It was well known in the industry that if you were recruited by Purdue, you would be dancing to the tune of the Sackler family. Pharmaceutical distributors were also aware that they were shipping vast quantities of opioids to certain regions and that the population in those regions could not possibly justify those quantities for legitimate use. And of course, there were unscrupulous physicians.
In a truly just world, I’d like to see the Sacklers lose every penny and have to admit to wrongdoing. They had years to correct course. They never did it. They were too busy, we now know, hiding their wealth. Compared to the loss of life, the loss of well being and the suffering they have inflicted on so many Americans, it seems a small price to pay.
14
So it is looking like pot should have been legalized long ago and studied for it benefits instead of how bad it might be.
10
Glad to hear - not in this article - that Connecticut (and perhaps a few other states) - will not settle, but will take the company/Sacklers to court. We've had years and years of settlements with bad-acting companies (usually banks), yet the criminal behavior continues unabated. What is really needed is serious jail time for the criminals running these companies.
22
Can we finally just call the moving of billion dollars around through multiple completely opaque shell companies by rich families (and corporations) what it is: tax evasion and money laundering?
37
@MTERRE
Actually, it's neither. Taxes are due when income is realized. Income is realized when it is earned, not when it is transferred. In addition, swiss banks are required to, and do, report to the IRS with regard to funds on deposit at Swiss banks if the account is held by a US person or entity. So this has nothing to do with tax evasion.
Money laundering is when one tries to take money illegally earned, and "wash it" to hide the original source of the income, so that the funds can then come into the banking system as legit. But that can't be the case here, because all the money the Sacklers earned from the profits of Purdue was earned legally. It is, and always has been, legal to sell these drugs.
2
This calls out for litigation funding, but probably on a scale that can’t be found in the market. So my proposal would be for the states and other public bodies involved to cut a deal with the victims of this massive fraud. An up front payment to each of them now, in return for their cooperation in litigation, as well as an assignment to the states of a material portion of their rights to receive damages in a successful suit. Then the states should pursue the Company and each Sackler family member for as long as it takes to extract the maximum amount of damages, without concern that the clock ticks away for the victims. There is no reason to settle this case, unless a settlement results in the disgorgement of virtually all of the Sackler wealth derived from OxyContin.
1
Wow, to these comments. First of all, it's sad to see how many people do not understand addiction. Secondly, once you understand what, how, and why addiction happens remember that physicians were given incentives to prescribe an addictive drug to relieve pain. I think anyone that was prescribed it and became addicted should be able to get treatment on the dealers dime, or the dealer should sit in prison for 30 years just like any crack dealer has had to.
11
@Jill-
Oh, it was a booming business that depended on habitual abusers; like cigarettes and booze. Tobacco addicts and “social drinkers”.
An aspect that nobody mentions, maybe because they haven’t notice it or aren’t aware: medical school is very expensive and the first years after certification are poorly remunerated.
Some newly-minted doctors and pharmacists might be carrying as much as $1-million in student loans. Debt service could cost $80K annually, not tax-deductible.
$700 per day just for that.
Selling thousands upon thousands of OxyContin pills might be just the ticket out of financial distress. So, should we add the unconscionable cost of obtaining a professional education to the roots of our Opioid catastrophe; that and the exorbitant cost of healthcare in the United States.
3
A little perspective: A billion dollars sounds like a lot of money, right? Well, it certainly is. Think of a billion dollars in these terms. You must have one thousand, (1,000) million dollar bills- that's if they existed- to equal one billion dollars. We all can imagine what and how much we could buy with a million dollars. It's really difficult for me to wrap my head around someone having 1,000 of those million dollar bills, once again, a thousand of them, much less the many billions of dollars that many suspect this family has absconded with. Their fortune is reported to be in the neighborhood of thirteen billion. Folks, that's 13,000 million dollar bills. That's a incredible fortune.
18
They should never be allowed to have money again. Anyone who was on the board, their top income should be $40,000 a year with any other income going to drug treatment centers and homeless shelters.
27
If Sackler were really smart they would build several opiate addictions treatment and mental health centers across the country or partner with established treatment facilities.
The cost of these facilities would be chump change to a multi-billion dollar corporations such as Purdue and it would be fully tax deductible.
Even the liquor industry now adds the caveat to all it's commercials and print ads, "Drink responsibly."
It's time for this company to reviatlize it's public image and take full responsibility for contributing to the opiate epidemic.
People need to start taking full responsibility for their own actions. If people would quite smoking, lose weight, stop drinking and drugging excessively, we could cut the cost of health care by 50%.
It's always someone else's fault. People should stop looking for a big pill every time they get a hang-nail.
I had hernia surgery years ago, and they gave me one extra strength tylenol that day before I was driven home. and then I used the ice pack the rest of the time.
The doctor wrote a prescription for Tyelnol with codeine, but I never used it.
I had another surgery just recently. I told them to just give me morphine and not dilauded, and if I needed something stronger I could always ask.
The take home message for everyone: If you can get buy with an aspirin, Ibuprofen or a Tylenol don't take the heavy duty pain killers. It's not worth the risk of addiction.
4
@Louis-
They’ve skipped town.
The only thing they will be building is palaces and yachts.
2
There was a time when medical research was paid for by the government and done in universities around the country. Reagan got rid of that and the pharma companies went charging in. The rest is history.
32
@CARL E
The US government still pays for a significant portion of drug research. Universities still do much of the work. Taxpayers however do not get to see any return on our investments like we did pre-Reagan.
8
Taking a step back. This company produced a magic pill that makes pain disappear. What an amazing world we live in where we can have that happen. The dark side is that some people use it to get high and that is addictive. That is a well known effect of taking narcotic medications. I personally am very grateful for the ability to eliminate my suffering if the need be and feel that overvilification of companies that make the medicines is looking forna scapegoat to another bigger problem-mental and societal health crisis.
13
The Sacklers knowingly and deliberately misrepresented the safety, and hid the dangers, of these pills. They didn’t “invent” opioids, either — opium-based drugs has been around for millennia — but what they did was perfect they way to misleadingly market these drugs to consumers, knowing that their hiding of the truth would hook millions of people and cause immense misery. All so they could be billionaires. That should make you sick.
1
They are not just responsible for making a pill to ease your suffering! They paid doctors to prescribe their magic pills when other, less addictive medications would have worked just fine. They paid doctors to prescribe their pills at the highest doses possible - SPECIFICALLY to get people addicted. So that they would make more money.
This is an outrageous breach of ethics for financial gain, and everyone on the chain should be held responsible with fines and jail time - from doctors, to lobbyists, pharmacy sales reps and the pharma owners themselves.
2
I have had two surgeries in the past 10 years, one for torn meniscus and one for a broken ankle. In both cases I was given a scrip for about 30 opiate pain killers, over my objections that I only wanted enough for the first day or so of recovery. Yes, those pills were a huge help for that first day at home. In both cases, however, I realized after just a day that I was crashing as the pills wore off and there was a huge temptation to keep taking them. It took some will power and self awareness to say no as this stuff is hugely addictive. I can certainly see why so many people fall into this trap. So, why was I prescribed a greater quantity of pills than I should have? Why was I not warned about the dangers? I’ll tell you why - big Pharma’s propaganda and drug pushing.
Don’t tell me this is not largely the fault of the drug companies. Don’t.
1
These type of lawsuits happen (and are settled) with regularity. There is much data manipulation and a well-organized scheme of physician “incentives.” This one happens to be receiving a lot of coverage because it’s far-reaching, and for a drug that affected many, many people over many years. Yet there is still a belief that most pharmaceutical companies are inherently good and that they have the public’s health and interests at heart. Why do we still believe this? Why aren’t we questioning more? And worse, why are we believing the targeted scare tactics, “astro-turf” organizations, bullying campaigns and guerilla PR tactics carefully crafted and disseminated by these companies. I’m hoping this is a turning point, but I’m not holding my breath.
13
I took oxycontin 10 mg (orally, a very important point) 2 to 3 times a day for almost a year due to an elbow injury. I tapered off to 50mg of tramadol a day for a few months. I had no issues stopping on my own volition. About a year later I had an elbow injury and took 50mg tramadol 2 to 3 times a day before tapering off to 1 a day after 9 months. I stopped on my own volition. After all was said and done I find alcohol to be way more addictive and emotionally/intellectually damaging. Where does personal choice and doctor's discretion come into play in all of this? I have personal experience with this and what the media portrays has me very confused.
20
@Ryan Genetics plays a part. Some people have a predisposition to addiction. You can thank your lucky stars you are OK. I have known many who are not.
32
@Linda
This is where personal responsibility comes into play. I know if I eat certain foods I will have severe intentional issues, pun intended, that may put me in the hospital thanks to an autoimmune disease. Some of these foods I really like. I weigh the desire to get tastebud pleasure with intestine liquefaction.
Getting properly diagnosed is a challenge but worth it. Everyone should have the chance to be evaluated for addictive tendencies before they are given any brain altering medication and that includes anti-depressants, anxiety meds, and ADHD meds.
Individual levels of pain tolerance, drug effects and susceptibility to addiction vary greatly. I’m generally a strong proponent of self-discipline but there are limits and none of us can say what we would do until we might find ourselves in the worst of these situations. Have some compassion.
1
I am still hard pressed to understand what exactly any of these companies did that was illegal, though undeniably, the Sacklers are leeches upon the world.
Can anyone seriously look me in the eye and say that no one knew the addictive potential of opioids? Patients? Doctors? The whole case seems to boil down to companies underplaying the potential for opioid abuse. To me, this does not even pass the laugh test in terms of attributing liability.
It is amazing how we shift blame to others, especially when they have deep pockets.
That causes of this problem are multifactorial to say the least. I rank at the top, the move by the Joint Committee on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations to push the "pain as the fifth vital sign" and drive physicians against their will towards the complete obliteration of pain at all costs. We can re-write history all we want in hindsight, but I was there. I remember this push to worry less about addictive potential and more about satisfying patients' unrealistic expectations or risk being accused of insufficient caring. This was not a drive by the drug companies and really JACHO's push was inspired by the American culture of coddling each other instead of acting with prudence. We see it again now with these lawsuits.
While pharmaceutical companies have played their part in this cacophony of chaos, I just don't see the hook that makes them legally culpable. It is a money grab, pure and simple.
21
You are misguided and need to read more background. The Sacklers were greedily trying to find a way to enrich themselves and proposed via drug sales reps to get physicians to prescribe their version of opioids, OxyContin, on a large scale manner where alternative drugs such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs would suffice. They knew full well that OxyContin was highly addictive despite their directives to sales reps to lie to physicians and tell them that OxyContin was safe. They also knew that when OxyContin was crushed it could be snorted thus making the drug as powerful as heroin. They also knew based on sales there was far more demand than what should have been based on normal use of these compounds (ie these drugs were finding their way into illicit use). All was well with the Sacklers as they enriched themselves on the addictions of Gentile youth and adults. The Sacklers are criminals and should not be able to pay their way out of this with fines. Long jail sentences are required for these heinous animals.
@Louis
The whole case seems to boil down to companies “misrepresenting” the potential for abuse “of a federally controlled substance that is felony to distribute due to its addictive narcotic properties”. To me, this does not even pass the laugh test in terms of attributing liability.
Yep. Agreed. Jail time and seize everything like you would with felony drug dealer.
When a single pharmacy takes delivery of millions of pills, the producers and distributors of said pills have an obligation to notice. In addition, the drug companies follow how many pills doctors doctors prescribe and to how many patients for sales purposes. That info should also be used intelligently.
One might consider the federal government a co conspirator by virtue of the holding secret the distributions of narcotics from the public. The numbers and distribution numbers would certainly would have provided the basis for public policies that would have prevented many deaths. We need to know where all this money went, to whom and by what means. We need full accounting with all the information to prevent future deaths.
5
One can blame the Sacklers and Purdue but how were they able to market these drugs? The doctors set the pain guidelines and then the pharmaceuticals companies were able to go through the door. The doctors then profited when they were able to write the prescriptions instead of looking out for patients. Will we ever see states suing the medical societies?
9
I still don't understand how Purdue Pharma is responsible for the heroin junkie injecting himself in the park 6 blocks from my house.
Purdue Pharma does not make heroin.
This user of heroin never had a prescription for heroin. Statistics show they most likely never had a prescription for any narcotic and most likely stole it from someone, a cancer patient perhaps, who did have a prescription.
Shouldn't the fault be placed on the heroin user and not on a company that doesn't even make heroin?
Seems like we are scapegoating the pharmaceutical industry as an easy target.
9
@Dave You're joking right? I personally went through an opioid addiction and it started from a legitimate prescription after a car accident. While others might not consider the fact that I never switched to heroin something to be proud of, I am. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case for my brother and other family members. If you follow the opioid epidemic you'd know that a majority of the people who were prescribed painkillers and later taken off or lost their insurance the only alternative they could turn to was heroin. If you've never suffered from an addiction you'll never understand the struggle to quit.
Then to make things harder is the cost of getting help. 10 years ago I finally recognized how bad my addiction had gotten and decided to get help. Ironically the cost of prescriptions for vicodin, percocet or oxy are cheap but to get off opioids plan on paying 600% more (now) for a suboxone prescription (10 years ago it was 2,000%) and that's not including the doctor's appointments, monthly drug tests, mandatory group meetings etc.
Purdue should pay they pushed the meds on the doctor's and lied/minimized the addictiveness all for greed & money. Because of their actions millions of people are suffering, dying and entire communities are being destroyed.
36
@Shanda
I am sorry that you are one of the less than 20% who became addicted Rx opioids. And it is an accomplishment to be proud of that you overcame that addiction.
I am, thankfully, one of the more than 80% who do not become addicted. I have been on small doses of Vicodin since 2006 to manage pain related to RA and another autoimmune disease.
Ideally, researchers need to gather people like us to find out why we have such a different reaction to the same category of medications. I am willing to bet that we are not all that different in our daily lives. You could easily be a sibling or a neighbor. We need to know what makes addiction and we need to know now.
2
Is this how they're spinning it on Fox? Blaming the victims? Why is it that in Fox World companies like the Sacklers have the right to lie about the addictive and damaging nature of their product, pump up sales by lying, and only hapless patients have the heavy responsibility of controlling their own synapses and preventing getting addicted? Have you ever wondered why Fox News never blames the Sacklers etc etc, never foists responsibility on the liars at Exxon, never blames arms manufacturer for selling weapons of war? It's propaganda, voiced by the very rich on their channel of choice to prevent responsibility for getting rich off of intentional harming us.
Protecting a billion in assets by billionaires is nothing new. Doing so in foreign jurisdictions while filing for bankruptcy protection in order to utilize US court system financial relief to keep that money personally is a massive windfall at the tax payers expense. It’s criminal. It is not a victimless crime. It’s pushing their punishment on us American taxpayers because they refuse to be held accountable.
Bankruptcy has morphed from a legal fresh start for those who take risks for the good of the country’s economy but become destitute to a windfall for those whose legal punishment solely consists of financial penalties...totally becoming toothless of its punitive intent for evil schemes like the Sacklers. Let alone bankruptcy becoming out of reach for those in real need of relief like with student loans, which generally cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.
It’s time for an equitable remedy by heavy handed court.
Seize all their assets and accounts and the companies they own, including shares and controlling power. Then, force all pharmaceuticals involved - and bind their investors - to price their drugs at no more than 10% above the cost of manufacture (no marketing or other such padded costs allowed) on any drug currently under manufacture by that company.
Singlehandedly, one judge could cut American healthcare costs in half, fix Medicare and Medicaid funding issues, and create access to healthcare for millions of Americans.
That is justice for all.
29
Is anyone besides me wondering why prison sentences aren’t part of this equation? Why people who are clearly criminals of this magnitude are allowed to merely pay fines and still hold onto their fortunes?
33
About 8 years ago, I was in a car accident that gave me neck whiplash and pain that while not terrible, would not go away. I went to my primary care doctor at Kaiser and she immediately wanted to write me a prescription for Oxycontin. No referral to a specialist, no x-rays, no physical therapy.... nothing. She wrote me the prescription without a single word of caution. She made it sound like it was extra, ultra strength Tylenol. I hadn't heard of Oxycontin at the time, but I looked it up and was surprised to learn how powerful of an opiate painkiller it was ... something I clearly didn't need given my relatively low pain levels. I know myself well enough to know I have a an addictive personality ... there's a good chance I would've gotten hooked had I filled that prescription. It was just dumb that I did my research that time .... I'm so grateful that I never filled that prescription.
33
About 8 years ago, I was in a car accident that gave me neck whiplash and pain that while not terrible, would not go away. I went to my primary care doctor at Kaiser and she immediately wrote me a prescription for Oxycontin. No referral to a specialist, no x-rays, no physical therapy.... nothing. She wrote me the prescription without a single word of caution. She made it sound like it was extra, ultra strength Tylenol. I hadn't heard of Oxycontin at the time, but I looked it up and was surprised to learn how powerful of an opiate painkiller it was ... something I clearly didn't need given my relatively low pain levels. I know myself well enough to know I've an addictive personality ... there's a good chance I would've gotten hooked had I filled that prescription. It was just dumb luck that I did my research that time .... I'm so grateful that I never filled that prescription.
4
Good for you. However that is your personal experience. My personal experience is that the medication assisted me through debilitating migraines. Medication can be used responsibly, carefully and rarely. So there’s always two coins to a story.
However, that being said, the Sackler family and the US pharmaceutical companies targeted people for use of these pain medications that didn’t need them in order to profit financially. That is criminal and unethical. I hope that the states are able to recover funds to assist in recovery programs for those who are struggling with opiate addiction.
5
An example of Disaster Capitalism, profit above all at the expense of society. The idea that pharmaceutical companies should profit off pain medication, and actively pursue more prescriptions for a pain-relieving drug, that they know to be addictive, is the same as a heroin pusher plying illegal drugs, maybe worse. Who are the innocent, and who are the exploited; who are grasping the opportunities presented for profit, by any means, knowing there could be some deaths as a result. But never mind that, it’s the profit above all that matters.
Disaster Capitalism is the new normal; ethics lost, moral values gone, corporate responsibility bankrupt, and humanity reduced to a line item on a ledger.
16
The company knowingly looked the other way as their profits soared and the deaths multiplied. "Oh, they only made the product, hid the truth about how addictive the drug was, and saw pharmacies that serviced areas with small populations order the drug in numbers that would service major cities." Other then that they nothing wrong. Now we are learning they hid their wealth do avoid paying more in settlements. This is how gangsters act. They are no different then a mafia clan but they are put under the "white collar crime" umbrella that only uses fines as punishment.
17
So you’re saying that white collar criminals should be incarcerated along side violent crime criminals? That’s not the answer. You fine them to the point of financial ruins! Prisons and jails are already using up enough resources throwing someone in jail doesn’t necessarily rehabilitate or change a person for the better.
@Dori
Risk vs. reward. If "white collar criminals" know they will never face jail time then the chance at becoming a billionaire will be too tempting. The "violence" of the Sacklers or the criminals of 2008 financial crash doesn't physically leave blood on their hands but the deaths caused, the lives ruined, and the pain and sorrow caused are more numerous and no less destructive then the common murderer or mugger. These people do their harm with calculators and spread sheets instead of guns and knives but the results are similar, so yes, stick them in jail.
My son at age 24 was prescribed 28 OxyContin by his dentist (!) when he had all his wisdom teeth pulled. We were both freaked out by that. He only took a few of them then we took the rest to a drug turnover program. This is exactly how so many unsuspecting people became addicted to these drugs and that family knew it.
21
Most likely they were Oxycodone, the main ingredient in OxyContin but it doesn't contain a "time release coating". I seriously doubt an Oral Surgeon would Rx OC for Wisdom Teeth Extraction as that's not what the drug is designed for. It's intended for people with "Chronic Pain" that is ongoing, not "acute pain" such as what your son was dealing with.
That being said, I'm glad you monitored your son as you did. Better safe than sorry. I've heard horror stories of kids getting hooked after Wisdom Teeth removal. It really has more to do with Genetics & Predisposition than any particular drug though to be honest. Some people are just more likely to become hooked than others--There are both Nature & Nurture factors involved.
1
“Records from one financial institution alone have shown approximately $1 billion in wire transfers between the Sacklers, entities they control, and different financial institutions, including those that have funneled funds into Swiss bank accounts”
I assume there is a right to privacy here, otherwise how many Swiss banks are involved and what are their names?
Thanks to the Department of Justice, Americans can no longer "funnel" anything into Swiss bank accounts, past the IRS, to hide their assets.
9
Modest proposal: the government could stop buying all of these opioids. Keep in mind that most pills are purchased by Medicaid and Medicare. The pill-consuming lifestyle is also facilitated by our welfare system, including SSDI and SSI, that eliminate the need for people to work. Read Dreamland by Sam Quinones, an LA Times reporter, if you want to understand how your tax dollars were used to create the mess that we're in.
4
The distinction between legal/illegal drugs in America is a sordid story.
America might try to regain its bearings by removing those awful drug advertisements on TV. The ones that read to us the warnings of "side effects" at a hundred miles an hour.
11
Yes, I agree with the other writers that have commented that the Sacklers who have been found to have pushed the drugs, who have siphoned off money so as not to be found, and any other questionable actions, should be sent to prison, not fined. Money obviously is nothing to these people and they totally don’t understand the gravity of their actions. Prison would be a Terrific place for them to see and learn first hand how many people are there because of them and their drug pushing.
15
If the board of directors of a large corporation decided to have someone killed, could any individual on that board be held criminally responsible? Legally, I don't think they could. And the reason is that, in this country today, corporations have more rights than any living individual, but none of their responsibilities.
The Sackler's were directly responsible for the death of thousands upon thousands of people. But, those deaths occurred as a result of corporate decisions.
Frankly, considering the way our legal system is constructed, I'm surprised the Sackler's could be held accountable for anything.
11
@Chicago Guy
How are the Sacklers directly responsible for the death of thousands upon thousands of people?
I live in Seattle Washington, I walk by heroin users multiple times a day.
The Sacklers did not sell them heroin. Data shows the vast majority of the addicts I walk past never had a prescription for an opioid, but instead stole the drugs. How is that the Sacklers' fault?
Being a heroin user is filled with conscious choices. The choice to use heroin, the decision to go buy some heroin illegally, then finding a heroin dealer, then finding a place to shoot up (admittedly not hard in a city where you can shoot up on the courthouse steps), then liquefying the heroin, putting it in a syringe, finding a vein, and finally injecting the drug.
Multiple choices, not one of which involved the Sackler Family.
So how are the Sacklers directly responsible for the death of thousands upon thousands of people?
I found the article boring. So what if an IG found financial records. I didn’t see the words illegal in any of them. Accusing billionaires of crimes is one thing, but finding a billion dollars of transactions by a billionaire should not be presumed to be illegal. The tax laws require accountants to make transactions to reduce taxes. They have a fiduciary responsibility. Decisions on the transferring of money to lower future taxes, and shield it legally is an accountants responsibility. Blame the loopholes on congress. If this article doesn’t see fit to ever use the word illegal, it’s readers are being played. Warren Buffet complains his tax rate is lower than his secretary’s, but he never offers to do a short form for himself, or Berkshire Hathaway. He uses accountants that take advantage of every loophole available. Why question the Sackler family, if what they chose to do is not being reported as illegal? Is attempting to hide money illegal if taxes are paid according to the law?
4
@Jay
The fact that the article doesn't use the specific word "illegal" is irrelevant. The Sackler's are being charged by the New York attorney general. So, the question of whether or not they did do something "illegal" is precisely what is going to be decided.
You're exonerating them before the trial has even begun.
14
@Jay
retired federal attorney F/70
Jay and non-attorneys, "illegal" is not a word that careful attorneys and most state AGs use.
I never know what to say this has been the norm throughout human history. Just the idea that we now express outrage tells us we are so much better.
It is time to study metaphysics. Understanding basic principles might point to freedom makes us better.
Isn't that what America's roiling is all about?
It isn't about politics it is about identity.
2
Sackler---the trendy term for a drug-dealing capo.........Watch for this to take root. See that guy on the corner? He's a sackler........
And may the IRS find all the Sacklers' money.
12
@ultimateliberal. Did anything the IG stated use the word illegal? Finding out rich people have lots of money, and make financial transactions is not indicative of a crime. Many people try to seek privacy of their assets. You are speculating a crime has been committed? In America, a person is presumed to be innocent. Why do you assume any of the transactions were not filed correctly to the IRS?
These people are just evil. They should be in jail.
16
@Mickey T. Doctors are the criminals. Nobody asked them to start pain clinics that wouldn’t accept insurance claims, required MRI’s, and cash payments of about a thousand bucks to get prescriptions. Then, dealers of the OXY and benzo’s, the drug stores, were taking credit cards of a single dealer to fill the prescriptions of hundreds of addicts that were prescribed the drugs. Congress has approved federal legislation to permit these “non violent” offenders to get out of federal prisons. Why are the Sackler’s different?
@Mickey T
Enough of those addicted to their painkillers ARE in jail, so it would serve justice if the Sacklers were.
BUT if their actions served a 'larger cause' that is unlikely.
The Eugenicists of the 20's and 30's live on in policies that go by other names. The poor, uneducated and 'valueless' are best kept docile and drugged. If their lives are shortened, even better.
Prescription painkillers are the ideal 'gateway drug'
Read 'A Brave New World' and see how that society is run. Our rulers have improved on that model - our SOMA is illegal. People pay to escape reality - committing a crime in doing so. They can be imprisoned for doing so - and are, at numbers not seen anywhere else in the world. They also make the sellers of these drugs rich - be they legal or illegal.
Many prominent families in the US got rich in the China Opium trade. Many of their descendants (starting with Yale grads that first staffed the OSS) working for various agencies found that illegal drugs were a good source of funds to run 'black' operations.
Be honest, we saw Heroin coming out of Laos during Vietnam via AIr America, Cocaine being used to fund the CONTRAS (remember the whole crack cocaine epidemic in LA and the supposed source of that cocaine?) and now....we're in Afghanistan and opium production has soared........
Clearly some have a vested interest in the drug trade. It shouldn't be that hard keep opium production as low as the Taliban did.
8
Funny how prescription painkillers became widely available from the 1990's on - as heroin production in Afghanistan was declining.
It seems that there is a relationship between prescription painkillers and heroin. Prescriptions were widely available for pain - and touted as non-addictive - at increasing volumes from 1990 on at a time when heroin was less available than it had been historically. The Taliban had been quite effective in cutting the size of the opium crop in Afghanistan.
After the US had been in Afghanistan for some time, opium production recovered. Some US soldiers complained that they were assigned to 'protecting' this crop. There were suggestion made that much of that crop made its way to Europe via air transport - Kosovo is often cited as a destinantion - for processing into heroin.
With ample supplies of heroin now available, we saw a crackdown on prescription painkillers. Pill mills that had operated freely were shut down. Those addicted to painkillers sought relief and turned to heroin.
One might suspect that prescription painkillers were widely used to sustain existing heroin addicts and create a new class of addict - one that was shifted over to heroin when their prescriptions were cut off........
But that's preposterous.
Nonetheless, it is difficult NOT to view these drugs as our society's version of Huxley's SOMA - used to keep a population docile (and as an excuse to imprison large numbers of users).
8
I do not know or care about the Sacklers. When this EPIDEMIC, as it is called, is litigated and people are compensated for whatever grievances they have suffered- maybe the chronic debilitating pain that hundreds of thousands of people are currently suffering will once again become acknowledged as a real epidemic that has been pushed from the conscience of the general populace. Not all people who were treated with opioids became addicted, overdosed, or took to criminal activity to get more pills. A lot of people were prescribed and took medication responsibly, and did not become the victims of their PAIN. And a lot of people currently dealing with pain that will be part of their lives until their deaths, are ignored or told to suffer-while everyone else figures out how much money there is to get, and who is going to get it.
8
Thanks, fellow sufferer!
So when are we going to get into investigating the Sacklers of the armament industry — the gun manufacturers? Their products cause as much death and mayhem as opioids, but the Republican Congress rammed through legislation immunizing the gun makers from product liability actions. Sweet, but disgustingly immoral.
13
Shocking to whom ?
Plutocratic Rot is flourishing in the USA--they insulate themselves morally and financially off the backs of the 'cash cow' consumers, pump dangerous toxins into the air and water, pressure health providers into over-prescribing addictive drugs, send their money offshore to avoid scrutiny and federal taxes, provide under-age girls to billionaires for fun and profit, and virtually guarantee their getaway by declaring their 'corporations are people' to finance the campaigns of dishonest, power-mad politicians.
'We The People' and our Rule Of Law don't stand a chance...without those like Letitia James.
14
A street dealer, 20 year prison sentence. Any member of the Sackler family...?
17
Why are we talking...bankruptcy exposure?
Does anyone in the NY Times audience know of any one who wires $1 billion--under the circumstances outlined here in the NYT story-- and isn't criminally indicted?
12
Well, if a poor devil tries to transfer a buck this way he would be in jail.
Oligarchs are not mere humans, they are superheroes.
This country is in the wrong path.
12
Prep walk the entire Shackler family in New York on the Friday of a holiday weekend. Let them spend three nights with some of their victims before the get a bail hearing.
11
The Sacklers - all of them who benefitted from the profits of opioids - need to be imprisoned. Simple as that.
16
As many of us have, I have been calling representatives and other government officials to voice my discontent over a variety of topics quite a bit the past 2 years. I just went to NYS AG Letitia James website and left of note of thanks and encouragement. This person and this office need to be held up as examples of what people can do in government.
17
PRISON. PRISON. PRISON. PRISON.
100,000 families destroyed.
If "Sackler" were a foreign country, we would be at war with them already.
18
I keep writing asking variations of the same question on every article about the Sacklers: How is it that these criminals are not in prison yet???
16
If I need pain meds for some reason I will go with extra strength ibuprofen or some type of nsaid. Just too risky.
5
Isn't this what RICO laws are for?
6
Isn't that Nan Goldin holding one of the banners?
(behind the word "Sackler")
2
we hunt down cartel leaders in south America and we jail them for life. the biggest drug cartels are in the United states pharma . they should go to jail for the death of hundreds of thousands of lives lost. not settle for millions of dollars. JAIL
9
This whole thing seems more than a little over blown. Yes the Sackler family is a bunch of slime, and yes they should be brought to account; but opioid addiction from prescription drugs is not possible without the complicity of MDs and pharmacies. Further, the number of opioid deaths from prescription drugs is only a small part of the total. The greatest share of the opioid crisis stems from Fentanyl and Fentanyl analogs which have nothing to do with the pharmaceutical companies or the Sackler's.
7
If a state or county attorney general were to target me for an unwarranted financial shakedown I would try to shield my assets as well.
This is a fundraiser, not justice.
And that's all this is.
A shakedown.
Yes, people are dying of opioid overdoses.
That is not new information.
And it isn't the fault of the developers and manufacturers of the drugs.
Absent from the newspapers - because they are con-conspirators in this shakedown - are the stories of tens of millions of people whose lives are materially better because opioids were available to them.
A small percentage of the total number of people who have been prescribed opiiods actually experience addiction problems.
Period.
This is just a shakedown and nothing more.
2
Drug pushers should be imprisoned, after their assets are siezed.
5
The greed is beyond comprehension. Round up the whole crew, cease all assets , and let them feel the PAIN of prison in America
4
Apparently greed is also an addiction. Only it’s pretty darn hard to consider the people afflicted by it as innocent.
8
@kglen
Certain addictions are licensed: alcohol, tobacco (now somewhat regulated), gambling, guns (far beyond any hunting, sporting, self-defense requirements), the acqui$ition of material goods, real estate, equities, pelf.
People with such afflictions are dulled, become less and less sensitive to the needs of their fellow humans. And yet, the fostering of licensed addictions tells in large part the story of how the US of A has grown and developed in recent times.
Once addicted, it's one long, hard way out of the near-bottomless pit. Can an entire country go cold-turkey?
2
Mortimer D.A. Sackler calls this cynical and hostile attempting to generate defamatory headlines. Well Mr. Sackler, yours in an insidious endeavor that has met up with Attorney General Letitia James who as a remarkable force of nature that knows what she is doing. As the the Public Advocate, she was destined for important actions.
Not a shred of ethical behavior have you or your family shown.
9
No fine the Sacklers willingly agree to is sufficient. The penalty has to be something they would NOT willingly accept - it's supposed to a punishment, not a traffic ticket.
Even after paying this proposed amount, that family will still be laughing all the way to the bank and be better off financially for having caused the deaths and suffering of millions than if they had not. Plus they will then have the bonus of knowing their legal worries are put behind them. I have no doubt they sleep just fine in their mansions and don't hear the screams of those they hooked on lethal drugs.
It's much easier to get rich when you have no conscience and are willing to profit from the deaths of others. I'll never visit a museum which benefited from the Sacklers' blood money. May they receive their just reward in the next life, because in this life their money will shield them from everything.
"Behind every great fortune there is a crime." - Balzac
9
51 million pages said the lawyer, but none contained the truth.
5
It is very sad that we are counting on the Sacklers to pay for all the damage they have done. And even all their wealth (including that which is hidden) is not enough.
A compassionate health care system would take care of the victims.
And a justice system that did not have separate rules for the rich would probably send the sacklers to jail for a long time and take all their money.
Instead, they will still be left with billions and since there is no court record of the evidence against them, they will just say it was mostly fake news and the same people who gave Jeffrey Epstein the benefit of the doubt will do the same for them.
7
Love it! A billion (so far). They couldn't survive on anything less? Waiting for Trump to praise them as good people.
10
Go get them. But realize that if you do, it is but the tip of the iceberg, as the saying goes. Every person of means likely has avoided taxes in the US, and maybe even a sitting president, eh?
7
How did our current and previous administrations let them get away with all of this?
3
USA Capitalism must be better than this, otherwise
1
Hopefully the IRS will be looking into these large transfers and where they appear on the Sackler’s tax returns?
4
@Todd
Money is taxed when it is earned; that's why it's called an income tax. Transferring money from one account to another is not a taxable event.
1
@Todd
transfers are not taxable events
1
And these are real people not a corporation-people (see Citizens United) and can be jailed.
5
Felicity Huffman goes to jail for fraudulently trying to get her daughter into the college of her choice. The Sacklers push addictive drugs by hiding the science and data showing how addictive and dangerous they were, leading to thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in cost to society, and their punishment is to keep less of their ill-gotten blood billions. Yeah, seems about right.
10
And there are the tobacco industry still flourishing and the gun people. We are a self destructive nation, contemptible.
1
I spent years as a heroin addict when oxycontin was king. I do remember times when it was nothing to buy cheap oxycontin online through the regular internet, forget the dark web at the time. You just had to know where to look back then and it had gotten so bad that even the lowly street heroin dealer couldn't keep up.
That's really saying something when you almost feel bad for the bottom line of heroin dealers..
9
What needs to be stop is the cloaking of assets and hiding of wealth.
This needs to stop because it is destroying our communities, country and planet.
People need to pay their share.
Enough is enough.
We are all sick of it.
8
It is better to put people in jail, rather than just having financial penalties.
7
Well, what president said, "The business of America is business."?
To which I add, "The business of American business is greed."
7
Back around 20 years or so I was in the midst of a bad heroin addiction that took me well over 10 years to get over through methadone treatment. Around 8 years ago I finally walked out of the clinics opiate free. What a terrible ride.
Anyway there were periods when it was nothing to pick up the phone to buy oxycontin from people I knew for literally pennies on the dollar and have it mailed straight to my home from around the country. Even my regular heroin dealers were having a tough time keeping up with the flow of oxycontin cutting into their profits. Now that's saying something when I felt bad for lowly heroin dealers..
3
Is anyone really surprised? This has been going on for years. There are laws for some and completely other laws for those without means. This is beyond criminal. The entire family should be held accountable and not get away with it. This one family has destroyed at least one generation of Americans. Lock ‘em up.
1
It amazes me how anti-regulation-ists cannot see the frequent folly of their assumptions.
Of course, over-regulation may, especially for them, 'stifle' (profits); but under-regulation tends to kill, maim, depress, poison, addict.
Such outcomes impact on many, many more of us that they would on the few members of the Sackler family.
So, which is preferable? The answer, for some, is easy: look to profits!
Each case of regulation needs to be scrutinized, remote from lobbyists, Citizens United donors, the K-brothers. But is this degree of administrative objectivity ever likely to be achieved? Certainly not within the status quo in US of A.
Huge re-examinations are required. And, contrary to what is often claimed, without any foundation, it's not a question of 'creeping socialism' ... but a question of "freedom and justice for all".
(Only would be robber-barons, 2nd Amendment gun-freaks use the so-called argument 'creeping socialism'. And we see exactly where they're coming from.)
2
These unscrupulous people are reinforcing what we already know to be true about them!
Thank you for taking away any doubt.
Complements for the good work to those who are exposing them.
2
People got addicted because of prescription....they were told it would help.
The Sacklers should be going to jail if anyone ought to ever go to jail. Responsibility for deaths? Buying their way out of that?
And just today, discovering they've been hiding money? Are the people of this family taking any real responsibility? I'm horrified that people for so much less are put away for years, but these people are free. Money, money, money. Corruption on all sides of the law.
4
Freeze every dime they have. Only allow access to money they can prove was legitimately earned. This is what the police do every day if they pull you over with large sums of cash on you.
4
Believe it or not, there are affluent families who have values, are charitable, believe in helping others and support the better good.
In the age of Trump, however, the example that has been set is to do anything, lie, cheat and steal, to take whatever you can, regardless of the harm you cause.
This too will pass.
2
A lot of people became addicted to opioids because the Sacklers, their sales reps, and their lobbyists assured doctors. patients, and politicians that these opioids were not addictive, then they covered up the evidence that they were addictive.
The Sacklers lied
and people died.
Why aren't the Sacklers waiting it out in prison before a trial? They should be denied bail because they are a flight risk.
8
Out of the frying pan into the fire fits. From civil to criminal actions. Lets not allow ourselves to be diverted from the reality of the motivations behind the transfers. Diversion seems to be the only thing they have left to stand on. Any judge that isn't corrupted will of course recognize the chicanery here and be moved to sentence these rats to time in jail. Clawback should provide the Real Justice of putting things back to where they were before the back room maneuvers. What a tangled web they weave when they first practice to deceive. Opponents of this Justice will invent any desperate argument to cover their partners in dishonesty. This should be interesting and stay in the spotlight for the proceedings.
1
I'm just lucky I have an aversion to taking meds in general, so when in the past I have had surgery I usually didn't take the prescribed pain killers or only took one the first day. As for morphine, turns out I'm allergic to it and after a surgery for cervical fusion I pushed the button for morphine to go into my IV and ended up regurgitating red jello all over my neck bandages as I was in traction and couldn't move. Boy was the nurse unhappy with me! Some of us tolerate pain better than others for lots of reasons. I have a sister addicted to Oxycontin after two hip and two knee replacement surgeries. It has been years and she tries to get off of it but she is turning 81 and the pain is too great. The hospital checks on her regularly and only gives her 30 pills once a month. They actually do urine checks to make sure she is taking it and not giving it away or selling it! That is how big a problem it is!
6
Not to down play those affected by this, but money won't ease the pain of loss. I would also note there is some personal responsibility that needs to be addressed in such addictions as well. I am sure I will receive threats from the peace loving left on this, but there is a level of personal responsibility that needs to occur. Yes, it is nice for businesses to assist in support of programs against addiction, but individuals are the ones that seek out these self destroying habits, and honestly 9 out of 10 times there is something deeper that can be treated without a prescription. I speak from experience. So stop blaming others and start interacting with those around you and ask if anything is truly bothering them...oh and here is the hard part...stop, listen, and help. It may take time from your day, but who knows you may save a life.
They might as well have been manufacturing and selling.
1
Somehow I doubt there will be any similar rush to accountability for America's gun manufacturers. They have been pumping out millions of guns, far in excess of any rational need, more than one for every man, woman and child in the United States now, plus hundred of thousands more smuggled into Mexico, with little accountability and sloppy enforcement of what inadequate regulations exist. America's gun addiction is as much a scandal as its drug problem.
7
Extreme wealth however obtained IMO is obscene, pornographic. In the US we think the little guy should pay all kinds of taxes but the obscenely rich as few as possible preferably nothing. Deductions for real estate deals, private jets, clothing, charity (marketing)… limited taxation on super expensive things bought now that WJClinton got rid of the last iteration of the luxury tax and Mr. Obama did NOT even try to put it back, but gave many a gift to the banksters.
So far as addition -- not as well understood as one might hope. Some people become addicted to whatever the first time they use it. I am mostly addicted to sugar and chocolate and yes sometimes when I am desperate I will eat sugar. (not usually and never sweetened soda or any beverage.)
In some cases various types of oxycontin were used as party drugs. And for some people they were addicted while prescribed as painkillers. When the cost of OxyC went up and the supply went down, people turned to heroin and fentanyl with deadly results. Were all of them treating pain? I have no idea what withdrawal from OC, heroin, fentanyl is like. Most articles don't describe it, nor the duration.
The Purdues are bad people and there are many,many out there who do just as much that is bad even if legal. in the drug industry, Amazon, Walmart, CocaCola -- monopoly markets, health insurance companies, ruining people's lives.
At the very least we should tax fairly.(no charitable deduction to start.)
1
Blame continues to be placed on the Sackler family and Purdue Pharmaceuticals. This problem is far more complex and the public, including our government, seems to be closing their eyes to this. Those that prescribed the drugs when not medically appropriate are to blame as well. The pharmacies that knowingly dispensed the drugs to addicts or to those with fraudulent prescriptions are to blame as well. Narcotic analgesics do have a role in treatment of patients with various conditions, but they must be prescribed appropriately. Let’s stop placing all of the blame on the Sackler Family and recognize that there were many parts to this epidemic.
3
Name the family as accessories to every death caused by legally prescribed opioids. How many years would that sentence be?
8
I still think the only way to put the brakes on this kind of criminal behavior is when CEOs and business owners have the genuine risk of being led away in handcuffs. Fines, however large, have proven to not be effective.
20
A corporation is like a Mardi Gras mask. It enables people to engage in behaviors that they would not otherwise engage in without being held accountable. Lawyers call the corporation a "veil".
Economist Milton Friedman articulated the foundational doctrine that says a corporation has has no moral dimension. Its only responsibility according to Friedman is to create as much value for shareholders as possible. That relieves corporations like Purdue of any responsibility to society at large. And members of the Sackler family behind the mask are not the corporation and have no duty to society either.
So it seems to me that Purdue and the Sacklers behaved well within accepted norms of corporate behavior in the current age. To retroactively apply a moral standard to acts committed under a generally accepted system that legalizes psychopathic behavior seems a bit disingenuous.
5
@Charles Tiege "Milton Friedman articulated the foundational doctrine that says a corporation has has no moral dimension." This seems fairly Old School. The Harvard Business Journal has disputed this for years on the basis that the self-interst of shareholders is quasi-alligned with that of the public inasmuch as reducing long-term liability supports share values. The recent PG&E cases with the NorCal fires are cases in point.
5
@Charles Tiege
What nonsense. Just because some economist articulated a doctrine decades ago doesn't make him the final arbiter of corporate responsibility. Thankfully, our justice system has a different standard.
3
The medical establishment was totally complicit with Sackler in the "pain is the fifth vital sign" movement. Opiate treatment was brought into the mainstream, not only by Sackler, but by the medical establishment itself.
Accordingly, Sackler is not somehow the "sole party responsible" for these problems. Opiates cause degenerate, uncontrollable addiction in a large proportion of the population, something scientists and medical doctors, who are properly qualified to practice, have known for HUNDREDS of years. The notion that widespread prescription of opiates is a sensible medical practice was embraced by medicine itself. This crime should be a teachable example of medical malpractice at the national scale. The factors within medicine that agitated wider use of opiates, WITHOUT evidence of efficacy, should be permanently disowned and condemned. We're still waiting for that full measure of accountability. Specific conferences and presenters need to be named, censured and discredited formally (removal of licensure).
13
My husband had a tooth out. The oral surgeon suggested Tylenol Extra Strength and prescribed it. I went to the pharmacy to pick it up, and the Walgreen's pharmacist handed me a bottle of Oxycontin for $3.50. I said, but our prescription was for Tylenol, and she winked at me and pushed the Oxy across the desk at me. That was literally two weeks ago. Chain pharmacies are in on this dark business of pushing drugs, believe it.
18
Change pharmacies. They’re not ‘in’ on anything - that person needs to be reported to the NC pharmacy board.
6
Why do you need a prescription for a Tylenol?
3
Where is the liability of Doctors who over prescribed highly addictive medication for routine pain control?
15
I was prescribed Percocet after a dental procedure. I had no idea that the active ingredient in Percocet is the same as in Oxycontin and that it is highly addictive. Fortunately I did not become addicted ... but if I had, DB would be blaming me ... despite the fact that I was not told and had no reason to believe I was taking an addictive opiate. I am sure many many people became addicted this way ... to say nothing of those who were prescribed opiates for chronic intractable pain.
6
Parrallels exist between the irresponsible behavior of the Sacklers and the irresponsbile behavior of industry writ large. The former peddled opioids and the latter, unsustainable products. In a world of climate change, both lead to the death of others.
10
What I don't understand is why there is not a global settlement trust being negotiated with all the guilty pharma parties. J&J, Purdue...etc. This is a problem not unlike the Asbestos claims and should be addressed similarly. Opioids have their place in American pain management. But this amounted to a criminal enterprise, and the best resolution is a grand civil trust to manage future impacts.
9
@Juh CLU
retired federal attorney F/70
" . . .all the guilty parties" now includes one company with decades of evidence of criminal behavior: Purdue Pharma. And the owners of this one company.
For Heaven and the Future's Sake let's not lump all the good actors lawfully manufacturing and distributing essential prescription drugs, including opioids, into something from a novel, i.e., "guilty parties," as opposed to a statute. The latter require bad actors and bad acts be named individually and proofs provided.
My tramadol ER 100 mg every 8 hours is manufactured by LUPIN Ltd in India and lawfully dispensed by a Walgreen's near my home.
LUPIN and J&J and others that do not have the decades-long bad acts and criminal acts that Purdue and Sackler have. This is the relevant civil law since the DES cases in the 1970s. A casual throwaway idea like "a grand civil trust" is not accurate or helpful.
4
For decades the Federal DEA,and perhaps some state boards of pharmacy, have records of every shipment of controlled drugs from Purdue to wholesalers, and every shipment of controlled drugs from wholesales to retail pharmacies, hospitals etc. The state Boards f Pharmacy can inspect all records dealing with the dispensing of controlled substances to patients. These federal and state agencies have seriously dropped the ball on tracking suspicious illegal distribution and prescribing. They need to be held accountable. Maybe that all should be outsourced to a competent private sector provider. I am an old pharmacist and I wonder how this escaped federal and state oversight. Actually I don't wonder - these government employees are probably basically inept. Congress should investigate.
14
Outsourcing is not the answer there are as many incompetent or overworked people in the private sector as in government. The last thing we need is Congress investing this that leads to no where. Let the DEA investigate refer crimes to the DOJ and the DOJ do their job. A few pharma execs in prison orange might scare them into a new reality.
2
and you know they're inept.....you have specific information that shows they were deceived by big pharma and their legions of lawyers.
1
The problem with American Justice system is that if one is wealthy or connected or powerful or famous or ore is part of a corporation, one can buy one's way out of prison by paying a fine. This encourages anyone to participate because no one is going to catch you easily and even if get caught, so what, the way out is easy! Unless we learn to treat all criminals the same way, no matter who they are, and send them to prison for a sizable time period, this behavior will continue because for us, Americans, money is everything.
Just look at Felicity Huffman, gets a 14 days prison sentence for cheating a whole system knowing well they were cheating.
10
The Sackler family fortune is estimated at $13 billion. They have agreed to pay $3 billion. All the denials of liability aside, the concealed transfer of $1 billion shows consciousness of guilt or, giving them the benefit of the doubt, a consciousness of a reckoning to come.
If the Sacklers were left with $1 billion, that would be generous considering the harm that has been done.
The $12 billion recovered, after paying costs of litigation and administration will be reduced. It should be put to use to address solutions to the problems of pain, addiction and recovery.
10
@Bwana
Nothing in the article says the transfer was concealed; it's just that the AG learned of it now. In any event, most of these transfers were made years before any of the current lawsuits were filed.
2
@Bwana
Consciousness of guilt? What is this all about? Actually legally they probably have zero liability to pay anything.
1
Lock the Sacklers up, and make them really pay. They were getting off easy on the settlement even before they were found probably hiding money.
Then, out with the Epstein tapes and in jail with the rich and famous perverts.
It's past time for the wealthy to have to pay the piper.
33
@Carol
Let’s lock them up after they have a jury trial and are found guilty of some criminal act. In the meantime do we have to always have a mob mentality to go after anything that we don’t like or that is harmful to us? Where is the balance? I don’t like what they did any more than anybody else but I do think we should and trash our criminal justice system trying to get to the root cause of this problem.
2
I think the Sackler family is the most evil family in this country tens and thousands of children have died for their greed they don't honor God but money. So Mortimer Sackler send money to swiss accounts over 1 billion or more dollars to hide their wealth this family should be on the streets is not good enough. The family Sackler's in $20 billion over the OxyContin epidemic they try to hide from their high-priced lawyers but they cannot hide from our Lord, vengeance says he the Lord. I don't know where they worship but they don't worship God. For myself I lost two children Billy Johnson and Susan Johnson can the Sackler family bring back no their greed the left children behind my grandchildren nine in total.
If anybody seen Mortimer Sackler asked him have you seen my son and daughter there in a better place heaven I'm praying for the Sackler. That the Lord will be lenient on them for the lies they took and the tears from the families, taken away the love ones.
And take that billion dollars enjoy it now.
8
Mike, there’s is no evidence that believing in God makes you a more moral person.
3
The Sacklers are drug dealers who belong in jail, like any other cartel.
44
But when their drug trade is legal, it's our government that is also at fault.
1
I’ve had it with these rich entitled criminals like the Sackler clan and Lori Loughlin..
Prison time is what’s needed ..
10
By all means, go after every pharma owner and organization involved in exacerbating the opioid crisis.
However, little will be accomplished until lawsuits can, also, target — as individuals — the elected and appointed officials who pass/sign legislation, weaken rules/regulations, and pressure oversight agencies in order to favor corporations over the health and well-being of the public.
Maybe if elected and appointed politicians are held legally liable as individuals, they’ll think twice before selling out the public to the highest corporate bidders. A point in case, concerning the opioid crisis, is the deleterious “Marino bill” and other tactics used by drug companies to force the DEA to back off its oversight responsibilities. Then, we can go after cases involving fossil fuels, pesticides, mining, etc.
12
My guess is the Sacklers thought they were just following the rules of the game: Sell as much as you can, make as much money as you can. Nothing else matters. Reminds me of the oil company executives who purposely covered up research that showed how fossil fuels were destroying the climate every person on Earth depends on.
21
Serious prison time.
17
@LMH - Never happen, they can outspend the court system.
3
I think that the deaths are a horrible thing. The problem must be addressed.
I have used the pain killer twice. I dont know what I would have done with out it. One procdure was an open heart surgery that was followed by three months of painful recovery. I was very greatful to have it.
16
"suggesting that the family tried to shield wealth as it faced a raft of litigation over its role in the opioid crisis."
This is shocking! Unbelievable! Outrageous! Who'd've'thunkit?
Not.
9
@CatPerson
They have no proven personal legal liability.
Go, Letitia James!
14
Let THEM eat opioids. Many, many opioids.
Seriously.
10
Interesting - the comments on similar articles in the WSJ are exactly the opposite as the NYT. I do however think the majority of the WSJ posters are not millionaires but millionare wanna bes and froth at the mouth when ever anything comes between them and their imagined profits.
18
@Smith
They are smart enough to know there is a very hard to prove case of legal liability here.
Drawn and quartered by the press does not constitute legal jeopardy yet in this country . When the lynch mob gets elected everyone better watch out.
2
@Smith
WSJ readers are much better educated, and much more knowledgeable about legal, regulatory and financial matters.
2
Would anyone (Government or otherwise) be able to find out how much the Sacklers' family have hidden in bitcoins? Crooks know how to hide their loots and nothing can come closer to hiding in bitcoins.
4
Since OxyContin was overprescribed even for minor ailments (a doctor at an urgent care affiliated with a top Boston teaching hospital prescribed it to my husband for a sore throat. He did not fill it), teens swiped it from their parent’s medicine cabinets and shared it at parties. Teens brains are not developed. Many went on to heroin, fentanyl and died. I am astounded by some of the judgmental Comments here. If Purdue Pharma had not saturated the market, we would not be in this crisis. Read the book Dope Sick to get the facts.
13
Attorneys general should not rest until the Sackler family is penniless. And then start putting them in prison.
14
We need to start locking some of these folks up. This high level grift is killing Americans, and the Sacklers are profiting off death and grief. They deserve prison.
11
Live in prison! No less for these monsters!
4
If they can freeze Maduro's assets, they can freeze the Sacklers.
19
Lock them up.
10
For shame.
2
Nothing short of a long prison sentence should be satisfactory. People like this have been leeching their unearned and undeserved billions from the public teat for far too long. They need to be made an example of and thrown under the jail! LOCK THEM UP!
5
At what point will the press and the public start pointing the finger at the Department of health and Human Services (which tied hospital compensation to patient satisfaction scores) and to JCAHO, otherwise known as the Joint Commission, for insisting that doctors treat pain as the "fifth vital sign"?
Responsible physicians had known for years that they were being pressured to prescribe opioids prodigiously and inappropriately, yet governmental organizations and large health care organizations (ie corporate hospital entities) pressured physicians to provide these medications. In short, adherence to what the federal government had been telling physicians was best practice (particularly to compensate for having undertreated pain for too many years) led quite directly to the opioid crisis as we know it.
In short, the Sacklers are being blamed for something the federal government created.
10
I think this demonstrates what their priorities are, and what punishment should fit the crime: take their money away, all of it. They will suffer the tortures of the damned if they are impoverished, and rightly so. Talk to someone whose kids have become addicted, who have spent years trying to keep them from dying- everyone reading this knows someone, likely someone close to them, who are dealing with this problem, and suffering terribly because of it.
5
retired federal attorney F/70
A little light to go with the heat in these comments?
I wrote the Vaccine Injury Compensation Act while an attorney for the AMA early 1980s. To keep vaccines in this country and stop predatory plaintiffs lawyers.
Today, our policy priority must be to keep essential prescription medications, including opioids, accessible in this country. Regulators from the FDA to State AGs know who the bad actors are and collaborate to shut down criminal enterprises. Individual companies can be bad actors. Individuals within medicine can be bad actors. It is essential to separate the bad actors from the good, both companies and individuals.
After four auto wrecks going back to age 19, each fracturing different parts of my spine, I take tramadol ER 100 mg every 8 hours. LUPIN Ltd, India, manufactures my tramadol for lawful dispensing by a Walgreen's near my home. This regimen plus VIOXX replacement from London for severe osteoarthritis provides pain relief that is both safe and effective for me.
"For me" are the key words in this unending cycle of bad versus good actors and keeping access to essential Rx drugs for pain patients like me.
Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family are known bad actors going back decades. Take every dollar and jail those who commit crimes. But do not sweep away--or scare away--the good companies and good physicians taking care of me and millions of others like me.
Ready--AIM--Fire ? First, let us do no harm?
21
I wish the NYT would investigate this matter further. I feel I was woefully under medicated subsequent to a surgery. My pain was not managed. I don’t think I could contemplate another such surgery because of this.
As a result I’ve been investigating exit strategies should that become an eventual recourse. I’m not there yet, but I’d like the peace of mind of a game plan should it become necessary.
I wouldn’t mention this if pain was not an issue.
(The legality of the Sackler family’s actions is a separate topic of discussion.)
6
@itsmildeyes
retired federal attorney F/70
It is inexcusable for any physician who operates on a patient to not have both the patient and a post-op caregiver participate in a sitdown about what can be expected before, during and after a procedure. The physician who did my father's total knee replacements required my father and me, as his post-op caregiver, to join other patients in a meeting three weeks before his surgery date.
We learn from all of the Q&A, typically handled by a P.A. or NP who is glued to this one surgeon and all of his or her patients. That session must include post-op moving and meds.
Those who don't get this level of service and information need to find another surgeon.
For those suffering now, ask a primary care physician or NP for advice about a pain management specialist?
6
n.c. fl
Thanks.
I was given so few pain meds, I was forced to part them out distantly for fear of running out. When I asked my surgeon’s clinical nurse if I could not be allowed sufficient quantity to ameliorate pain before it peaked (which was advice given to me when administering pain meds to my husband, who subsequently died of cancer), she said ‘That’s the kind of thinking that got people addicted. We don’t think that way anymore.’
‘Fortunately, my husband died before he got addicted,’ I replied to her.
I don’t intend to live another year like this. On paper the surgery has been declared a success. Unfortunately, I don’t live on paper.
(Again, this is tangential to the theme of the article. However, the current vilification of necessary pharmaceutical pain management is troublesome in its extreme approach. And my whole life I very seldom took even an aspirin.)
7
Good on the NYS AG office. You go, team.
Other states? You guys lookin' into this?
7
If we need to write new laws, we'll write new laws now.
This family must be put away behind bars for life. Their money must be taken and used to treat addicted victims of their venom.
It would be interesting to meet them in person. I'd like to know their true thoughts. Did they believe they were doing good? Did they believe the rhetoric they sold to doctors?
I severely and sincerely doubt it. They were just blind praisers of the market system that didn't care about the outcome.
For that, the need prison for life. Until they die.
2
No need to go into the details, anyone who has a billion to hide should be thoroughly investigated for criminal misconduct. Any notion that vast fortunes are, as a rule, amassed honestly in this country is naive.
7
M O N E Y and greed for it, unabashed.
1
The definition of amorality.
5
Like they're gonna do jail time? I think not.
4
That kind of money can buy you a Presidential pardon.
5
They were selling opioids as addictive as heroin and hiding the money they were making, no different than a heroin dealer - and the repercussions should be the same.
6
@donnyjames
What do you think we used before...opium derivatives that were/are equally addictive?
1
The Sacklers should be stripped of their wealth and sentenced to live the rest of their life in Portsmouth, Ohio or Scott County, Indiana. I don't know how they can enjoy their blood money.
4
I'm sure a lot of these people who OD'd would have found other ways to off themselves if OxyContin didn't exist.
5
Nice work - crush these bags. They should do time for asset-stripping
4
The states need to claw back every dime from every Sackler family member until they are reduced to penury. Then throw every last one of them in prison for at least 20 years. Until that happens, we will continue to see greedy opportunists preying on society with impunity.
4
The drug companies did humanity a favor. It’s the Darwin Awards for fun and profit. I just cannot bring myself to give one moments care about the druggies who overdosed. I’ve known a few druggies in my life... they were lots of fun when they were high but completely useless otherwise.
Sorry... that’s just the way it is. Opioids were a trap for foolish party people. They lived their lives in the edge... sometimes they fell off. It’s nothing to cry about.
4
As protests against the Sackler family increase, one must consider why stop with the Sacklers? Such actions should be expanded to include all individuals and their foundations that are funded by money made by abusing the public. To do otherwise is hypocrisy.
A beginning list should include Alfred P Sloane Foundation (Sloane was decorated by Hitler and as CEO of GM, owned and operated the German Opal facility that produced Nazi tanks), Ford Foundataion (Henry, Sr, was decorated by Hitler. and published & distributed at no cost Protocols of the Elders of Zion), Doris Duke Foundation (Ms Duke's father invented the machine that rolled cigarettes, ahnd made more money in the tobacco business).
Better education of all foundations and full disclosure by those accepting gifts would be instructive.
3
They should have put the money in six 55 gallon barrels and buried them in the New Mexico desert.
I mean really, what’s the difference between the Sacklers and Walter White?
2
@Novicaine
What Walter sold was not reviewed and approved by the FDA; regulated by the DEA; and sold legally with a doctor's prescription. Do you need a picture?
2
Ever since I first read the Porter and Jick letter to the editor in the 1980 NEJM, I have followed, in disbelief, the evolution of opioid prescribing as a practicing orthopedic surgeon. Finally the chickens are coming home to roost. While the subject of opioid prescriptions is a complicated one, the pharmaceutical industry lies at the heart of the problem and should be punished accordingly.
5
Upon completion of a difficult & painful knee operation, I was prescribed opioids knowing they can be addictive. I asked about alternatives & was told this was the best Rx to control my severe pain. I took one pill then threw the rest out (per safe procedures). Subsequently bit the bullet (almost literally) & took aspirin for the duration of my recovery. Glad I did.
5
I was inna hospital awaiting knee surgery on a crowded weekend, and had to have a big discussion with a nurse about why I wouldn’t take triple the needed morphine dose.
Good for you.
2
This road will be long and strewn with many more dead bodies before anything approaching justice is meted out to the Sacklers [if in fact justice is even possible at this point]
4
Differences between the Sacklers and the Mexican cartels appear to be cosmetic.
14
Agree
2
Lock them up
8
Take all their money. This is ridiculous. They're drug dealers, the cops should treat them as they treat other dealers.
22
@Graham Hackett
What's that rule cops use to steal out stuff????
Civil Forfeiture! Take it all.
5
They need to be in jail and stripped of the money just like any criminal drug dealer.
16
Where’s the self responsibility of the people who chose to take the opioids and get addicted? Yes the Sacklers and Purdue are greedy marketers but we all have a choice in what we put in our bodies.
128
@DB
I was worked on by a doctor who kept scheduling me to come back I realize now inventing reasons to "check" on me. She was working to break down my will so that I would accept a prescription for Oxy. She eventually won out. I took it as prescribed. I got one refill. She called and spoke to me to ask how it was going and I told her. When that refill ran out (I have a permanent pain condition) I could not get a refill and she was not at the hospital and no one there was standing in for her. About 2 days later I found out she had got me addicted to the stuff. The next ten days of withdrawal were the worst I can recall ever going through. I have never had full body pain like that before. I won;t go into the rest of it.
Suffice it to say the vast majority of the people doctors got hooked on these drugs were lied to as I was. Whether or not the doctor knew they were lying has no bearing on the matter. It is clear to me in my case the act was intentional to break down my sobriety. I have no idea why other than hatred and bigotry.
177
@DB Clearly you have never experienced chronic pain. If you had, you would know how powerful it is to become free of that pain, and why not when oxycontin was promoted as non-addicting? The only thing they would know at first would be the exhilaration of being pain free. They would be unaware it was addicting until after the addiction was well established.
219
@DB
I agree that in general people should think carefully about what we consume.
But I think this crisis was created primarily by the industry lying about the drug effects to medical patients. One aspect of this crisis is a street-drug issue, but I think the majority of the addicts and deaths are from people who had medical issues (like surgeries) and were mislead to believe they were taking "safe" i.e. low-addiction drugs.
Again, most of the addicts in this crisis were people prescribed these drugs medically for health issues, not just people taking it as a pleasure drug, so the listened to their doctors and I don't think the patients can be blamed.
Maybe a bad metaphor, but -- imagine my grocer sells me plain white bread but was secretly filling it with highly addictive substances the whole time. I eat it thinking its safe, just some white bread, but then I become horribly addicted due to the secret chemicals. I don't see any fault on myself for becoming addicted for trusting my grocer and eating that white bread.
134
I hope Leticia James puts every single one of them over the age of 18 in prison. A billion dollars.
5
100,000 plus deaths, manslaughter in the second degree times 100,000 equals the rest of their lives in a tiny cell.
3
Well of course they did!
Are any of the Sacklers currently in jail? Have they turned in their passports? I suspect that they could flee the US for Israel or some other countries and redirect their wired money there.
2
Why aren’t they in jail?
4
Full responsibility for Purdue and Sacker family.
I don’t think we should stop until Purdue is shut down and bankrupt.
I don’t think we should stop until the Sackler family is bankrupt, wiped out financially and reduced to abject poverty.
Nothing less is justice.
We all know high school and collegiate athletes, whom suffered a sports injury - and consequently prescribed these opiates. And consequently addicted. And consequently died. All this through no fault of their own.
Similar stories for other injured Americans, injured veterans - and the list goes on.
Reduce the Sackler family to abject poverty.
Shut down the company.
3
This is a family who knowingly pimped opioids to make billions of dollars while knowing the devastating effect the drug had on its unfortunate victims. To me, his family is guilty of premeditated murder, yet they are being allowed to buy their way out of jail and without acknowledging guilt or blame. Money talks.
So the Sacklers get to keep a significant portion of their ill gained profits, and will turn their business peddling drugs over to the government so that future profits can help alleviate the opioid epidemic. Isn’t that making the government the new drug dealer? This is NOT justice. It is a solution of wealth and expediency for the family.
They need to be tried, convicted, jailed, and the money they earned from drug pushing needs to be forfeited, just like the US does with other drug cartels.
3
But, guys, they donated money to museums!!
2
And is anyone surprised by this?
2
Life, that is, not live.
These people are demonizing the masses and doctors for their sins. They must be absolved of their money. Take it all, and put them in prison till death do them part from this world.
These are the worst of the worst people.
Where were the lawyers and DOJ when the bankers destroyed millions of lives during the financial crisis. It can be argued that the Sacklers products did help millions, or would your like to have your next surgery while biting on a stick of wood: what did a tranche of toxic bonds designed to fail and sold around the world do for anyone other than a handful of Goldman Sachs employees and their chosen investors?? Their is a real stink emanating from this belated get tough on white collar crime episode.
1
We would all be badly mistaken if personal responsibility wasn't placed front and center in this epidemic. My estimate is that most addicts made fateful stupid choices without a prescription.
Pretty insane. Those people profited off of the destruction of hundreds of thousands of lives.
Only difference between the South American cartels and the Sacklers is that the cartels own up to the fact that what they’re doing is immoral. Oh, and the face tattoos...
So, remind me again why people hate Big Pharma.
1
These drugs kill more than rifles any type.
Jeez. At least Huffman will spend a little time in jail. The Sacklers killed people and they are still getting away with a payment. Truly the rich live by different rules.
2
May have? HA!!!! That's a good one.
The problem is, they knew this was coming. They have the wherewithall to know this was coming. What about their billions in wire transfers we don't know about.
I am afraid the Sacklers are just the tip of the iceberg of what one could describe as today's America further confirmed by the individual sitting in the WH the only difference being he was/is a charlatan that didn't sell products that took peoples lives.
2
yet
2
They should be tried in the Hague for crimes against humanity.
1
Look at that: second largest transfer -- 800+ M$ -- on the very year the world economy was in its worst downfall since 1929.
When people are suffering, the largest fortunes behave like common criminals: flee!
If there were any justice at all, the Sacklers would all be addicted to opioids.
Simply put: Blood money.
3
Prison. Pure and simple.
1
These people have no shame.
1
Yes, Huffmann 14 days for a $15K bribe. Crystal Mason in Texas got 5 years for trying to vote. Man, you're too far gone for anyone to reach. And this just in. Ivanka tells conference she inherited her moral compass from her father. You can't make this stuff up.
5
@Terence...Well, Ivanka is just being honest- she admitted she's morally bankrupt.
2
El Chapo is in jail and they took everything he owned. Explain why this situation is different.
2
Because it is not a crime to sell drugs approved by the FDA, regulated by the DEA, and prescribed by doctors.
3
Was it a surprise from a bunch of crooks?
1
Why not add up ALL profits, multiply by 10 and settle for that amount? Families have lost loved ones, people are addicted for life in many cases. Why not settle for whatever amount puts these criminals in the poor house?
I know why. Because they are rich. And white. Shame on America.
Unless someone from this despicable family goes to jail, this is a non-story.
4
All quoted data was found online:
"For the calendar year 2017, the CDC estimates 72,240 overdose deaths, including 49,038 involving opioids (provisional data).
For the calendar year 2017, the CDC estimates 60 percent of all opioid deaths involved fentanyl or another synthetic."
Alcohol wins!
"An estimated 88,0008 people (approximately 62,000 men and 26,000 women8) die from alcohol-related causes annually. "
Addiction has been with us for a long time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_den
4
In a society that cannot responsibly handle medication, this will accomplish nothing. We are a nation of traumatized and addicted people.
As someone treated for chronic pain, it hurts me to see the hoops we who suffer must go through with the pharmaceutical industry the newest scapegoat for American psychosis.
This is not about prescription drugs.
As the National Institutes of Health notes:
"Many current assumptions about opioid analgesics are ill-founded. Illicit fentanyl and heroin, not opioid prescribing, now fuel the current opioid overdose epidemic. National discussion has often neglected the potentially devastating effects of uncontrolled chronic pain. Opioid analgesic prescribing and related overdoses are in decline, at great cost to patients with pain who have benefited or may benefit from, but cannot access, opioid analgesic therapy."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28402482
But facts won't stop Prohibitionists.
Sure people abuse drugs. People abuse cars, too. Will we shut-down General Motors to stop drive-by shootings?
Oxycontin is the best painkiller I ever used. But people with serious mental and emotional problems abused it, so that's that. Going after the makers is de facto Prohibition. The 1920s proved that Prohibition solves nothing. As a wise man once noted:
"The Prohibitionist must always be a person of no moral character; for he cannot even conceive of the possibility of a man capable of resisting temptation."
I am livid!
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
3
@Rev. E. M. Camarena, PhD
Does that make it right, moral or responsible that the Sackler's paid MD's to over-prescribe, didn't take any actions once addictions became known, and to this moment are apparently interested in foreign markets to peddle their addictive junk in? I'm not for prohibition, but nor do I think the over-prescribing or OxyContin to so many pain sufferers should be excused.
Full disclosure: I'm addicted to water, food, and caffeine.
3
The issue you dismissed is that Oxycontin was pushed by Purdue as non-addictive. I suspect most people who are prescribed an extremely addictive substance over an extended period of time will become addicted.
2
@Smith: Right. They were stupid enough to claim that an opioid was non-addictive. So why the need for a prescription to get it?
https://emcphd.wordpress.com
1
I wish I could get upset about this but really, these are controlled substances that, yes, are addictive and can kill you; as can tobacco, alcohol, guns etc. The only reason people are tearing their hair out about opioids is because the victims are primarily white.
1
The Sackler family needs to be sacked and jailed along with all those who dispensed opioids knowing they're addictive and then dispensing pharmaceuticals to counter the addiction. This is worse than the tobacco industry dispensing nicotine. The DOJ and every state AG needs to be doing what New York Attorney General Letitia James is doing to hold the Sackler family et al accountable.
For those who blame the victims, please research the clinical trials on addiction. Would you blame those who smoke for their addiction? My brother lost his son to opioids while in rehab. He was also a devout Christian. It can happen to anyone:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00316277
2
The most powerful punishment in the end may be for society to so shun the Sackler's and their prodigy, that each experiences the rest of their life as a bird in a gilded cage.
Look at how long Quaaludes was on the market, hooking housewives and college kids. When they cold turkeyed they had seizures. As long as drugs will take people into another realm those people will take those drugs. I blame the pharmaceutical companies. Why do they have to advertise? I can't tell my doctor what to prescribe for me. Yet I see advertisements daily for all kinds of drugs. There are people who are more susceptible to addiction than others. The doctor's should be watched too. Also, the pharmacies. My pharmacy refused to fill a script for me. Very smart of him since I was allergic to that medicine. Blame goes all around.
1
Dirty doctors who wrote thousands of prescriptions with minimal or no examination must be put on the hook as well as pharmacy owners who filled 2-3-5-6....million tablets over the 6 yr ARGOS data also should be held accountable. The W.Va doctors and pharmacy had an obscene number prescribed per capita. Lastly, the FDA, that approved labeling for any pain without limits and sound warnings and precautions, allowing the promotion of false claims (non-addicting).
1
A hefty fine is not a suitable penalty for the crimes of the Sackler family.
4
America, where were your regulators when the Sacklers were legally killing thousands? The regulators deserve jail time too.
2
Drug dealers lose their homes, cars, cash and anything else the government can put their hands on.
Frank Lucas didn't get to keep his money, neither should they.
They are equally as bad as the heroin dealers on the streets.
2
The opioid crisis is a complex public health problem involving federal regulatory agencies such as the DEA, drug manufacturers, doctors, patients, and illicit drug dealers/users. Perhaps it's more palatable to scapegoat a single affluent jewish family instead of holding all equally accountable. I understand many are angry, but anger, blame, and greed inappropriately directed to a single family will not solve this problem.
The settlement that Purdue Pharma has put forth seems fair and generous. AGs like Letitia James clearly don't understand that continuing to push for more and more money is unhelpful as stalls the allocation of urgently needed financial resources to go where they should be going -- to addiction treatment centers and research, not to costly, vengeful, and politically-driven litigation.
I used to consider The New York Times an unbiased publication. I strongly recommend your team first collect all of the facts that are actually pertinent to the situation rather scandalizing superfluous information, then report those facts in a way that does not illustrate your personal opinions so clearly as your current reporting does.
2
Consequences are for the little people.
How about prison terms for these folks?
3
If corporations are people, then Purdue deserves the death penalty. Revoke their patents and business charter, shut them down. Instead they hide their money, and go on selling drugs abroad to unleash unthinkable suffering and anguish upon millions of people.
2
Why are these drug lords not going to jail? Different laws for the rich...yet again!
2
Great that we can successfully dig deep on one family but how come we can't with our president?
2
Money means nothing, time spent in prison means a lot.
4
This whole debacle encapsulates such a large part of why America is malfunctioning. Countless scores of people have been left to rot, leaving them mired in despair and misery and making them susceptible to addiction, anything to take the pain away, even if for a brief amount of time. And then you have the heartless and soulless companies and families more than happy to lie and push their pills on a desperate and ignored populace.
It's sickening.
1
I wonder if these apologists in the comments are bots or paid propaganda promoters. Because this is a classic case of the corporate greed that is the real threat to our country. Is there anything more evil than the complete disregard of human life for inconsequential profit? We need to unite and take down the these predatory and depraved criminals. The longer we allow them to get away with these blatant injustices, the more solidified their power becomes.
1
The private Sacklers are crooks in the pharmaceutical industry just as Donald Trump is a crook in real estate. They are trying to pull a fast one by negotiating hard on a low-ball financial settlement. It's good that state AG aren't so easily fooled. It may be impossible to find where they have hidden all of their money, but the transfers are in the billions and need to be exposed.
1
Why are these people not in jail? I mean, murder is murder.
2
The Sacklers help addict a nation, killing tens of thousands. They dividend themselves $4 billion and live happily ever after. A boy selling recreational marijuana is arrested and goes to jail at Riker’s Island, has his life devastated. Somewhere in the middle of the country, a father is injured at worked and is prescribed Oxycontin until he is certain to be addicted. He loses his job, his home, his children. The Sacklers sip wine from the crystal goblets, gaze at the art on their silk covered mansion walls. We wonder why there is anger in the nation.
1290
@Jane Dingman. No, CDC says (1) from 1999 to 2017, almost 218,000 people in the United States died from overdoses related to prescription opioids.
The CDC estimates (2) the total economic burden of prescription opioid misuse in the US is $78.5 billion a year, including the costs of health care, lost productivity, addiction treatment, and criminal justice involvement.
What percentage of their business was opioids? Prorate profits, then payments to Sacklers. Make them pay it ALL back. Then, we can talk about pain and suffering. AGs should pile on and make an example of the Sacklers.
88
@Jane Dingman - The wonder is why the anger is so misdirected and that the mansions of the bloodsucking Sacklers and others like them are not stormed.
78
@Jane Dingman Interesting. The Sacklers never wrote a single prescription. Not one. Yet not one doctor has lost a license over this, not one. Not one doctor has been sued for malpractice. Your outrage should be directed at the doctors not the Sacklers. This is not like tobacco where cigarettes were sold to unsuspecting consumers. Your anger is completely misplaced.
19
The sacklers, purdue, and other pharma companies were most definitely bad actor, but going after them is not going to give justice or stop the next opioid crisis. The problem is structural.
You have a majority of elected officials in congress who think business should police/regulate itself. They refuse to pass effective laws to prevent corporate bad actors from doing harm.
The laws that were passed were not effectively enforced by fda/dea.
Physicians were complicit as well, either out of greed or wilfully blind. Same with some pharmacies and distributors.
Until recently all blame was placed on patients (addicts, portrayed as immoral, deserved what they got).
Going after the sacklers and big pharma might feel good, but it will not change anything. It does not hold the other bad actors to account and it does not fix the structural problems which makes it far too easy to be a bad actor.
@Myles Dingle
All true. But I still think all the Purdue Pharma Sacklers should all be arrested for murder and held without bail until this is all sorted out.
3
The frustrating aspect of all this is that tens of thousands of deaths will be paid off with a small portion of the Sackler family wealth.
This is seen as white collar crime and the prospect of jail time is not even contemplated.
Jail time and complete forfeiture of their assets seem far more proportionate to the damage they have caused to the nation.
4
I would like to suggest the recent book by David T. Courtwright: The Age of Addiction (How Bad Habits Became Big Business.) The Sacklers are not alone. Quoting from the book's blurb: "...how sophisticated global businesses have targeted the human brain's reward centers, driving us to addictions ranging from oxycodone to Big Macs to 'Assassins's Creed' to Snapchat--with alarming social consequences."
Welcome to "limbic capitalism." The themes of justice and revenge that run through so many of the comments here are understandable, but focusing on the Sacklers is too narrow. We're being habituated to death. Literally.
7
How the courts seize their assets and NOT send them to jail. They should live out their days as real working Americans. No helicopters, no estates, no staff. Their actions have cost us enough.
5
This additional information suggests several things:
1) More such transfers of wealth have likely been made with other financial institutions. People with this kind of wealth are not going to put all their eggs in one basket, especially after the Financial Crisis.
2) Transferring money to an offshore trust, then to a Swiss bank account, and then back to one's account(s) in the U.S. is likely done to avoid paying taxes. Let's see.
3) The magnitude of the transfers are such that it is very difficult to argue that the funds were earned passively from being a Purdue owner/investor. These funds are inextricably linked to MDAS' decision making at the company.
2
All right, another great New York Attorney General! You go, girl!! Love reading about her..
3
They need to be arrested without parole until all information about their remaining finances is detailed and reviewed so they are not allowed to hide their assets.
4
If you studied the Sackler Oxy marketing plan (excellent article on the family and the company in the New Yorker a couple of years back), and learned how systematically one of the brothers (Richard I think, but not sure) set out to pay other MD's to endorse Oxy, to present papers at conferences about Oxy's benefits, to fund grants and endowed professorships, etc. you might feel as I do that the family should be completely stripped of its wealth and Richard Sackler should likely be in jail for murder and extortion.
8
Surprise, surprise. And go Letitia James!
3
Purdue Pharma, the Sackler family and all the board members should be subject to the same death penalty they gave hundreds of others!
Isn't that what the Supreme Court meant when they deemed corporation to be people? That the corporate people would be subject to the same rights and laws as any of us?
4
It is for people like the Sacklers that Trump gave tax cuts that will create the largest ever deficits. It is for people like this that our health will be destroyed, but there will be no money to fix it. It is for people like this that our air, land, and water will be polluted to the point of uselessness. It was for people like this that our country was driven into the greatest recession since the depression.
The time has come for governments that no longer serve selfish, irresponsible monsters like this.
2
Indeed there is considerable evidence that Purdue and other big pharma were focused mainly upon profits. BUT, they were not alone and to castigate only Purdue and modestly other pharma companies, while giving prescribing healthcare doctors (all of whom took courses in chemistry and pharmacy that provided them with the ability to see that oxycontin had great potential to be addictive because of molecular structure), pharmacies that did not report sales as required by ACA, drug distributors who also did not report as ACA required, and state medicaid programs that should be monitoring state funded programs, is beyond stupid.
ALL MUST BE HELD RESPONSIBLE PROPORTIONALLY TO THEIR INVOLVEMENT. That is fair and equitable.
2
They are guilty of committing 400,000+ murders for profit.
You can break down who paid what when later, I am just shocked yet somehow not surprised that the entire family and all of its employees at Purdue Pharma are not yet charged with these murders.
2
Hmm different sort of crime but reminds me of Jeffery Epstein. He was able to do well socially by making donations to scientists and universities. The Sacklers are also known for their donations. Except what they have done has killed people and ruined families. We are lulled into accepting relatively small (to them) gifts from them. They should be in jail not making donations to the Met in order to make themselves look virtuous.
2
11 years ago, as result of a motorcycle accident and two days in the hospital, I was given a script for 40 oxycodone pills. No, not oxyCONTIN, the mega dose, continuous version. I didn't ask for a refill and wasn't told if I could get one. I took them as directed, with a few exceptions. I didn't take them incessantly and knowing I'd wake up in pain anyway, I didn't take them before going to bed. In the morning, I could not lower my legs or get out of bed, that is, until I took a pill and waited about 45 minutes. Then I could get up and about the house. I went back to work within a week, because I could. And one day at work, even thought I was not in serious pain any more, I took a pill around noontime. About a half hour later, I sat back in my chair and took a deep breath and exhaled, and I was astonished that I felt I was floating and this sensation lingered more than I cared for. And that was the last one I took.
You see, when you're in serious pain, the stuff really works to kill the pain. And when you're not, you start to get high off the stuff and that's when you should stop taking it.
Use as directed.
5
That's great but Oxycontin was marketed as non-addictive, many (perhaps a majority) were taking as prescribed and ultimately became addicted. The number of pills that were prescribed is staggering (in the billions).
2
@Smith
Bull. All opioids are potentially addictive. Every doctor knows this.
Rich people doing unethical things to hoard money? No way!?
1
I am just so naive. I used to believe in the concept of SHAME. One would think that members of this family, while lounging in their multi-million dollar mansions, would have at least a tinge of embarrassment and yes, shame, that their family name is now inextricably linked to the vulgarest and most criminal kind of corporate excess.
2
“Records from one financial institution alone have shown approximately $1 billion in wire transfers between the Sacklers ... and different financial institutions, including ...”
The more we learn the worse it looks. We already know how the Sacklers rammed their opiates down America's throat, even though they secretly knew how addictive they were. Well, surprise of surprises. Now they're trying to hide their money overseas, in order to avoid taking responsibility for their actions. Who knows what the cost to America of those actions was and continues to be. In human lives. In the cascading influence over generations of broken human lives. And broken communities. The monetary losses alone must be in the hundreds of billions of dollars if not more.
4
We need to change that old saying to "nobody with under a million dollars is above the law", because that is how this nation works in real life.
2
The NY attorney general seems to have been on the right track.
9
Yes. This is what the Trump family can look forward by the same office concerning the sham Trump foundation and NY state tax evasion.
19
I would've done the same.
I'm wondering how many street opiod dealers are in jail with enormous sentences and why there aren't any Purdue Pharma executives or owners in jail with them? I'll bet that no one of those street dealers caused as many deaths nor ruined as many lives as the Sackler's and their executives. We should take all their assets, and throw them all in jail.
22
@RAB It's head-scratching, isn't it? Why no criminal charges? Purdue's own research showed the drug to be addictive in as little as 11 days of daily use. But when sales dipped, they encouraged doctors to prescribe for between 14 and 30 days - a guarantee of addiction. If that's not mens rea, I don't know what is.
6
I am not as bright as the esteemed comment writers below.
All I known I would not wish any of Sackler’s grand children the ugly, painful and lonely death my grandson experienced due to opioids. I do hope Justice will be done to that family.
But in todays society I doubt it.
14
I happen to glance at one of the Sacklers at a sidewalk table on the Upper West Side clinking wineglasses with noneother than Shelly Silver. A riotous ring of laughter chimed their clinking as I overheard a snippet of conversation "To Capri!!!!"
3
The purpose of legal punishment for criminality is deterrence. The current case reveals that our judicial system is completely broken when it comes to corporate misdeeds. In effect, we have a system of laws that make it all but impossible to discipline corporate behavior because they are too big to deter.
Take the tobacco industry which sold a "legal" product that if used as the industry recommended, would kill or disable its users, and they knew that well before the Surgeon General released his famous report. Now we have the Sacklers and Johnson who are suspected of serious misconduct, yet not one of those responsible, as was true of the tobacco executives, will serve prison time. Gee, I wonder if the academic economists at George Mason will explain why deterrence has failed so obviously.
5
Among the candidates aspiring to become the 46th President of the United States, Senator Elizabeth Warren has the strongest combination of knowledge, skills, experience, and concern to hold the Sacklers and other super wealthy who shamelessly enrich themselves by exploiting the poor and the sick.
8
See, really rich people know not to make too much money. They were going for just a little more and then they would have quit . . . right ?
2
Felicity Huffman just got minor jail time for attempting to bribe and cheat her kid's way into college.
How much more serious is it that an entire family whose "members of the family have been accused of encouraging aggressive sales tactics" of OxyContin, created a system which resulted in numerous overdose deaths, many addicted persons who started by getting medicated for pain, and who knows how many criminal acts by addicts trying to get additional opioids by whatever means necessary?
Any resolution of this opioid mess needs to include appreciable jail time for any Sackler who benefitted.
3
whoever of Purdue pharma is involved should be pursued civilly and criminally to the max with all federal resources. the perverse profits made on our national calamity demand it.
1
They are the most successful drug dealers of the century. There are laws on the books that countless thousands have been made to bow to, they should endure the same. They should do time.
6
Medical ethics Nonmaleficence ( do no harm)
In medical ethics the physician's guiding maxim is " do no harm" Thus the medical obligation is not to inflict harm.
Let us place blame where blame is due on the multitude of physicians who are taught the ramifications of improper prescribing & those who chose not to prescribe opiates safely!
Safe opioid prescribing is not omitted in medical school.
The Washinton Post posted the states, cities, counties & drug stores & the number of prescriptions. Why did they not post the most prescribing doctors? This information is also available!
Anyone with the license to prescribe controlled drugs & did not follow approprate guudelines should be held accountable for our current crisis!
3
This did not pass the moderator's test for civility earlier in the week but I think it is apropos again.
The Sacklers need meaningful consequences since they will not accept responsibility for their actions, are engaging in ongoing criminal activity, and will continue to aggressively market their opioids overseas. They need to lose a child to an opioid overdose or be stricken with a longstanding and severe chronic pain condition without access to the very opioids they produce. Their unconscionable acts have created so much heartbreak and anguish. Monetary "punishments" will have no effect and their great wealth guarantees they will never spend a day in prison. Psychic and physical pain may not be a total deterrent, but it might give them pause
5
I worked in a major university medical center from the mid-90s. I distinctly remember pharmaceutical reps having ready access to “grand rounds” and multi-disciplinary team meetings. They brought free lunches, literature, “research presentations”, etc. and were totally imbedded into the milieu. I am a social worker with a background in addictions treatment and I remember arguing with a psychiatrist when we were being “taught” that persons without a history of addiction would not be at risk of getting addicted if these drugs were being used to treat legitimate pain. In fact, the pressure was on prescribers to provide these drugs liberally because “pain is the fifth vital sign,” and they had an obligation to relieve pain. It never made sense to me, and still doesn’t. It does show how much control pharmaceutical companies have in our medical system.
12
@Katie
What were the physicians supposed to do?
Leap of logic- The Hippocratic Oath and the fifth vital sign to the drug companies!
2
@Katie
Pain is important, even as important as you say it was. The disconnect is the irrational way of treating it that was applied. A bazooka to kill a mosquito. A lot of folks let themselves be stupid on this matter.
I find it perfectly understandable that the Sackler family is going to extremes to hide and squirrel away their wealth from the prying eyes of the courts. Richest and neediest are essentially synonymous, are they not.
3
@Glen
? instead of .
Were income taxes properly paid? Heaven knows that Connecticut and even the federal government could use some revenue.
6
Corporate greed is a problem.
The biggest contributor to the above, and the current problem, is lack of responsibility. Individual as well as corporate. The American public that I see in my practice has no tolerance for anything untoward, and has unreasonable expectations for most things. Surgery? Why should I have pain? This was driven in large part by the government 20 years ago dictating that pain be considered a vital sign, and they told us that we were under treating.
The American public needs to give up the idea that all adversity is bad and needs to be treated. That would go a long way in many aspects of American society.
7
Some serious jail time might make people think twice
1
@Dutch
Everyone that became addicted started on the drug because they wanted it. The companies obviously pushed the drug, but people took it, and kept taking it. It is not as easy as one thinks to get addicted.
The American culture of immediate gratification is to blame on both sides of this issue.
The rich can afford tax attorneys and tax experts and financial advisers. The system is set up to take advantage of tax code loopholes that are disturbing but legal. But this is legal drug kingpins laundering their money.
7
While I'm sure the state will win some type of case against them, the bigger questions are this - why shouldn't they go to jail for what they've done and how can we prevent them from doing the same thing in a country with less regulations like India
11
One thing everybody's forgetting is the patient who uses the drug for pain, gets clear of the condition and is not addicted. I took oxy for chronic pain when i broke my foot-exquisite pain like you wouldn't believe. Once the condition was addressed, I quit taking it. You don't hear that often.
9
@r.goad I had the same experience when I broke 4 bones in my ankle. I was nauseous every day for about 2 months while taking OxyContyn and when I tapered off it, I never wanted it again. There are currently studies being done to find out why some become addicted and others don’t. I feel fortunate to have no desire to ever take it again.
1
I did too when I broke broke my leg but that’s not really the point. Millions of people did get addicted and died.
1
I suppose hiding wealth from the courts is in character for someone who would be willing to make money this way. Getting caught is probably something they never expected.
8
And the family name is on multiple institutions
The Sacklers and other opioid Pharmers illustrate that you can buy the government you want, especially the Marino/Blackburn stealth bill, but you might just get what you deserve in the end, being hounded for the rest of your miserable existence by hostile prosecutors and Attorneys General looking for a big settlement.
The automakers should have learned this lesson in 2008, when their decades long fight against fuel economy standards left them with a losing hand, a lineup of gas guzzlers when consumers suddenly wanted better mileage.
Now the fossil fuel industry is divided over the deregulation they bought and paid for, fair and square, belatedly realizing that capturing methane was actually profitable. Faced with so much natural gas that they actually flare off in the Permian enough to power multiple countries, they are also concerned about the brand image of natural gas as a climate changer.
The banks paid handsomely for Federal deregulation in the 1990s that contributed to the banking collapse of the Great Recession and a $700 billion bailout.
But an interesting thing is happening. The industry leaders are starting to prefer predictable regulations that have a social and economic benefit based on real science, while the industry laggards prefer to simply wipe out regulations, leading to years of litigation and uncertainty.
Laggards think short term because they have no long term. Unfortunately Trump and the GOP have aligned with the aggrieved laggards.
21
Clearly the opioid crisis involves many guilty participants, from users to pharmacies to doctors to distributors and manufacturers. Anyone who made a profit on this, if it can be shown he or she knew what was happening, needs to be compelled to to disgorge all profits up to the point of paying back every dime earned from it. And then be indicted for criminal activity for manslaughter or at least contributory negligence.
7
Some of you guys seem to forget the people with major pain issues like cancer that truly need to treat their pain, and nothing treats severe pain like opioids. And many of them can't get them without going through the expensive scam that is Pain Management. Drug test every month, doctors visit every month, all paid for by the patient and the insurance companies, for unnecessary testing and the accompanying deductibles. To do nothing but write a prescription.
5
@BorisRoberts
That is actually the correct monitoring procedure. If you feel like it is pointless your providers are not doing it properly. You should be aware of and understand what is going on at each visit so that you also know the monitoring is going well.
4
At $3 billion, this would already be the fourth largest civil settlement in history. The drive for even more cash and personal punishment for the Sacklers says a lot about the mindless fury of populism (or maybe anti semitism) at play in the US today. It’s really nothing of which to be proud. Tish James needs to recognize a win when it falls into her lap and move on to something more challenging, like indicting a certain real estate guy.
2
Ethics and scale. Do you think 3 billion is really appropriate when they have probably made at least ten times that, once you examine the profits received and money moved around?
3
@Mike - the mindless fury of populism? We are discussing the opioid crisis. The CDC indicates over 70,000 people died as a result of drug overdose in 2017 and opioids were the primary cause. Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family, among others, were allegedly complicit in creating and profiting from this suffering. That’s hardly mindless fury.
2
@Mike
It's not 3 billion
And what about the doctors, who blindly prescribed these drugs over and over and over again ? Are they not responsible at all ?
4
They should have wired the money to a bank in the Dominican Republic and then bought gold and stored it in safe deposit boxes there. The wire could be traced but then they could explain that they withdrew the cash...see these bank records...and gambled the money away at casinos, and they don't remember which ones.
2
I took a few oxycontin prescribed after surgery. Seemed to work ok for me. What's the problem?
3
@Don
Long term pain sufferers. BTW it was standard practice at the behest of Purdue Pharma until very recently to prescribe 90 days worth of the drug not just a few for the two or three days after a surgery.
5
I smoked a few cigarettes. What’s the big deal.
Drug Addiction Dealing by corporate gangs headed by the likes of the Sacklers is criminal, more criminal even perhaps than my street dealer cutting my heroine with carfentanil.
14 days .... and then what?
A better sentence would have had her volunteering at an inner city school for kids that will possibly never see the light of day on a college campus and a big fat fine that gets donated to the same.
5
I think you’re in the wrong article, but your point is well taken.
2
How about discussing the real problem? ethical and humane pain management. Pain is invisible therefore gathers little empathy. If you were to look at me for example you would see a 52 year old who people usually guess is 40 and very healthy. you would not see my rare pain causing neurological disease. I ahve a super high pain threshhold and rarely use opiates.....but I have and i will again. That being said the Sacklers are just an expression of the illness afflicting our country...GREED!
10
Jail time and los of wealth are a good start, but still not justice if you think of the sheer number of the dead.
3
The Sacklers have shown themselves to be dirt bags and they are not going to be acting sympathetically to those whom their actions have harmed. They will continue to act like the dirt bags they are and will (and have) threatened for the plaintiffs to take what they're offered or the Sacklers will tie them up in the courts for many years to come. Total dirt bags who will never miss a meal no matter how much of their ill-gotten they 'give' away.
4
This has been drug dealing on a corporate-industrial scale. Why isn’t anyone going to jail?
5
This is an unpopular view — but unless these people were spreading false information about these drugs, isn’t it the doctors’ fault for prescribing them?
Yes, they wined and doctors, but the doctors needed to use good medical judgment.
2
The clinical trials and evidence withheld about addiction came from Purdue, not the doctors.
9
@JWinder
Doctors are some of the most highly educated, respected, and trusted Americans, and have known opiates are addictive since the 1800's.
How are they not responsible?
Not defending the Sacklers. But, this article make Swiss accounts seem like some secret thing.
Every Swiss bank reports to the IRS under the FATCA rules. And, the Sacklers report the existence of the account because of the FBAR rules.
5
It's no surprise we have been reading about settlements already. They know this is not going to go well for them so they attempt to settle as soon as possible. They should not be let off the hook.
473
@InMN
Raise the settlement from $12 billion to $20 billion.
19
@Ralph Petrillo
No. Ultimately money/ fines are NOT justice. Members of the family need to be indicted.
30
@Ralph Petrillo
Which part of "settlement" do you not understand?
1
A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.
4
Premise: the Sacklers are not mass murderers who should be treated accordingly by the law.
Agree or disagree?
I vote first: Disagree. Yes, they are. Just read the Mass. attorney general's civil complaint, covered in the Times when it came out.
4
@Bill
You don’t seem to understand that what is written in a complaint as an allegation, not fact. The facts only come to light after a trial has taken place.
2
Gimme me a break, these drugs were highly regulated and the DEA tracked manufacturing. These attorneys who are trying to make a name for themselves should be going after the distributors and the doctors who wrote the prescriptions.
They’re acting as if the drug companies made the drugs and dumped them on the streets. That’s not the case folks; the addicts also needed to take responsibilities for themselves and get into treatment, they choose not to.
I would also suggest they go after soda companies who make and distribute sugar laced drinks.
3
Do the users get any of the blame?
It’s so much more efficient to just blame the company selling a legal drug that was misused by patients and doctors to tragic ends.
2
So what do you think - they’ll get 14 day jail sentence? That seems to be the going rate for wealthy people.
5
people's finances are their own business and governments shouldn't be looking into wire transfers.
2
So white collar crime doesn’t exist in your world view? Do you also believe corporate finance should remain private, since corporations are people?
Why would anyone TRUST these people?
Lock them up!
2
Is anyone actually surprised at this? Get real.
1
Felicity Huffman gets 15 days in jail for spending money to get her kid into college and these people who murdered thousands of people and took the money and ran get off with bankruptcy!
There is no justice in the USA anymore.
5
As much as I like Felicity Huffman, my sense is her sentence was very light. White collar type of sentence. Had she been from the inner city? And Black?
The Sacklers seem to have taken their ethical lead from the Borgias.
6
Is anyone surprised? The family probably have already hidden other assets. Meanwhile, thousands have died and many more will die due to their reckless marketing of opiates. Disgusting!
6
What charming people these drug pushers are.
8
RICO them.
Tell anyone with a straight face how their conduct doesn't meet RICO charge requirements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act
5
@Neal Miller
Easy. There’s no predicate crime. These are civil charges.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
2
@GMooG
Insult aside.
Wire fraud, money laundering, bribery, fraud, certainly seem possible.
There appears sufficient knowledge of diversion to make them at least aware of drug trafficking and subject to the Continuing Criminal Enterprise Statute.
We lock up drug pushers with prison time why are the Slacker's not charged Probably who they are the friends they have money talks. Lock them up
7
I had to pay for an EpiPen. The Sacklers are degenerates. And worth prison time. But I doubt that it will happen. The rich, after all, get richer.
6
for shame. Book 'em
6
These people need to be in jail. No settlements, no pleas, just jail and loss of assets. But they’re rich and white so they get a pass. America is the best country in the world if you’re white and rich.
10
May the Sacklers’ blood money bring them nothing but pain and misfortune.
3
Don't settle, let them feel the pain. What a MISERABLE family!
6
Thank you AGAIN for Letitia James for the extraordinary work she has been doing! Bravo to the New York AG!
11
May I suggest that Season 4 of Narcos tell the Sackler story.
8
But these entrepreneurs are "makers" of the great american economy. I am shocked they would try to lie and cheat. Right Christian Republican voters? (yeah, pun intended)
7
When do the Sacklers begin their life prison sentences for murder?
Oops that's right they are too rich to be put in jail.
4
The Sacklers should be given a choice. They can give up every last cent they have (and try to work honestly for a living) or go to jail. And their name should be taken off every building they endowed with their blood money.
4
Why should they be given a choice? Because they can pay their way out?? Send them all to jail, use their wealth to compensate families and educate youth. They have devastated thousand and thousand of lives. They have stolen lives away from their families. No choice. They knew what they were doing. Greed knows no bounds.
1
A Medieval English Quatrain reads very true of the Sacklers greed and disregard for human life:
The lock locks up both man and woman
who steals the goose from the common,
But lets the greater felon loose
who steals the common from the goose.
I wrote my Attorney General Josh Stein (D-North Carolina) four or five weeks ago referencing early NY Times exposure of the disgraced Sackler family seeking to buy influence through art museums and other eleemosynary institutions (sounds like Epstein?) and requesting his taking on the Sacklers which he is doing directly. Roger Sharpe, writing from Asheville, NC.
6
@R. Sharpe
The quatrain should read:
The law locks up both man and woman
who steals the goose from the common,
But lets the greater felon loose who steals the common from the goose.
1
It seems only right that each of the Sackler family members who profited from their lies should serve one day in prison for each of the OD's ... and that they should live in tents with no running water or AC...
9
One day for each OD? Are you joking? What defendants found guilty for murder or manslaughter get one day in prison? Is that what a life is worth?
With all the bankruptcies Donald Trump has initiated, I'll bet he pulled the same trick many times and should summarily be in prison.
4
Where was the DEA this whole time?
10
@Anne
The Sacklers are hardly responsible for an industrywide problem. They are one of many players in the pharmaceutical industries’ campaign to sell opiates. They are blamed far more than larger companies because they have a human face. It’s a human weakness to do that but it doesn’t make them any more guilty or less guilty than everybody else. Indeed, the larger companies in the industry bear a much bigger share of the burden. Additionally, the question was raised of why so many Americans are addicted to opiates. The answer is hardly that many of them became addicted after surgery and then went out on the street to find heroin. (I’m sorry, but this is fatuous. Your average cancer or orthopedic surgery patient wouldn’t know where to find heroin.) We have an epidemic because we have millions of people living hopeless, desperate lives, people left behind, without jobs and without any hope of ever having a good one — left behind by an oligarchy the cares little for the victims of its greed. Let’s tell the truth. We have an opioid epidemic because millions are trying to dull the pain from their sense of uselessness, emptiness, and hopelessness. That has nothing to do with pharmaceutical companies and everything to do with a society that has systematically failed to stop a rapacious elite from turning tens of millions of Americans into nothing more than serfs. We are all paying the price for their rapaciousness.
11
Socialism is already here. This is exactly what the Bolsheviks did during the Russian revolution. Families and companies with money were accused of crimes against the people and their money was taken by the state. The same thing happened in socialist California when they went after and bankrupted the power company. They just go after anyone who has money and find an excuse to take it using pubic opinion against the wealthy to justify it in the eyes of the proletariat.
They will be going after Walmart because they made people fat.
2
Excellent idea.
1
The NY Attorney General should not make any deal with the Sacklers or Purdue Pharma and should not settle for a turning less than the entire revenue made form the sale of the addictive OxyContin poison that has killed about 800,000 people. Every single cent related to OxyContin revenue, it’s investments, plus step fines should be recovered from every single one of the Sackler family and relatives.
The AG, should prosecute Teva Pharma, maker of “generic opioids.”
6
Bravo, Ms. James.
5
Couldn't abide their Sackler-than-thou posture!
The protesters say "Shame on Sackler. 200 dead each day." Are all the deaths linked to Purdue? Do the protesters know that for sure? Most overdose deaths now are coming from addicts improperly using heroin laced with Chinese fentanyl, not from legitimate patients improperly using legally-prescribed medication. Why the hysteria to persecute Purdue? They didn't make those addicts kill themselves.
1
No, they didn’t make those addicts kill themselves, but they did make those addicts into addicts. They are merchants of death. Just because they are not writing the prescriptions or selling in the street corner, they are still culpable and complicit.
4
@tdhadley67
You need a basic education in prescription pain pill addiction...
Once the addict can no longer get a legal script and cannot afford the street price of the drug is when they turn to heroin for 10 or 20$/a fix. The fentanyl just something the dealers slip in to give their stuff extra kick, and strengthen the addiction to keep the addict coming back.
Usually the buyer doesn't know it's laced but just one time and then it's too late. Now they have to hav , their body physically craves it
Dope sick is a real thing with addicts spending all day everyday trying to keep from getting sick.
There's no high, joy or party... there's only 'sick' and not sick
1
These drug-pushers and dealers need to, DESERVE TO, serve time and get hosed financially.
$3 Billion fine? Chump change to these kind of families. Est. new worth is $13 Billion.
Step 1 - Jail time. At least 5 years for the top players. No Epstein deal where they get to go home at night and the weekends. This family actively encouraged and was financially invested in the abuse of their product.
Step 2 - Take $10 Billion - which can be used to create an truly effective national effort to combat and treat the thousands of addicts and lives that have been ruined.
They'll still be left with $3 Billion, which is STILL more money than any reasonable family or person can spend in their lifetimes by far.
When I struggle to make the payments for my child's pre-school and see these kinds of stories it makes me so upset that we live in a country that allows this behavior.
Time to do something about it.
3
These people are not worthy of scrubbing the floors and cleaning the bathrooms in the rehab centers where the people lucky enough to have not been killed by them are working to put their lives back together.
4
No prison time, no justice.
6
While Trump wails about the "bad guys" from Mexico coming in to turn us all into drug addicts we have our very own homegrown pushers in the Sackler family and every doctor, pharmacist and insurance executive that made fortunes flooding the country with these highly addictive drugs.
8
The Sacklers are just practicing low road free enterprise. Anything goes as long as the public loses...
3
“Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?”—Harry Lime, in “The Third Man”
3
Their wealth should be seized with prison time in the bargain.
5
I lost a loved one to oxycontin; and here is my revenge fantasy:
The Sacklers should be imprisoned and fed a steady dose until they are thoroughly addicted. Then the drug should be stopped, cold turkey. No treatment: just sitting in the cell, feeling the withdrawal.
9
@Ellen
Sounds like the punishment from an evangelical Christian perspective and the Old Testament.
1
No surprises here. An appropriate punishment: giving up every nickel and every asset and become reduced to living homeless and bereft on the streets with many of those whose lives they have destroyed. They should be allowed to have nothing material left--nothing.
5
So, will the sacklers be able to deduct the money they are fined on their corporate or personal income taxes? Someone please enlighten me.
4
For many months I needed to rely on OxyContin to survive and without it I was a mess. Today there are millions of people that are in the same shape I was in. Like me they follow the prescribed dosage and not OD. THe people that are dying are addicts and need treatment for their addictions. Saying that I hope the Sackler family finds a way to hide all their wealth and then drive Purdue Pharma into bankruptcy giving all of these plaintiffs pennies on the dollar
1
@Sinagua
"I imagine a lot of health insurance premium payments went to the Sacklers."
Great point. I bet, based on my medical office practice for addition and psychotherapy, that many of the prescriptions for Oxycontin were paid for by commercial insurance, which we all pay for indirectly, and by Medicaid and Medicare, which we all pay for directly. Some were paid by cash, which we paid for indirectly.
If you don't understand this, learn more. I am a physician in medical practice with addiction patients, and almost all of them are on public insurance, which we all pay for.
5
Profit opportunity for the first family! Look for a blanket pardon at the end of this presidential administration, Mark Rich style.
2
Who are the real drug pushers in the country? They don't stand on the street corner but are located in your nearest Big Pharma.
Sieze their funds immediately.
5
Part of the Sackler family opioid addiction wealth was laundered in the British National Museum, which prominently thanks Raymond and Beverly Sackler for their money.
1
Obstruction of justice.
1
If we ever want to tamp down the growing social unrest in this country, we must go after the bad guys.
Justice must be served.
Obviously, the Sacklers were involved in some kind of conspiracy, one where they knowingly profited by addicting --- and killing --- their unwitting fellow Americans to Opioids.
The Sacklers should be brought up on charges of treason, profiteering off the ailments of veterans --- that is in effect war profiteering --- conspiracy to defraud the healthcare system, and finally manslaughter or perhaps even murder for all the deaths they ended up causing.
What matters is not whether the Sacklers are found guilty, what matters is that they face a jury of their peers. Thank you.
507
@deano Please. Not a jury of his peers. How about a jury of the little people?
23
@deano I doubt the Sacklers were involved in some kind of conspiracy. I'm sure they were aware that promoting a drug that would create an addiction would be profitable (and it was). But I'm not sure this rises to the level of 'conspiracy'. They saw an opportunity and they took it. And everyone looked the other way. Until they couldn't.
8
@deano i like middle ages punishment customs, as also the russian revolution - but that blanket elimination means the funds are left with the complicit financial institutions. as likely happened with lots of jewish assets confiscated by nazis and their collaborators.
3
Thank you, Ms. James. Throw the book at them. Personally, I think they should end up in jail, but living the rest of their lives in penury will probably be a huge punishment for people of their ilk.
3
Warren needs to jump on this as a real life example of corporate greed having a devastating impact on middle class Americans.
4
Behind every great fortune is a great crime(s).
4
Nothing, nothing, nothing but life in prison will suffice against these people. Any less means nothing to them. Any less will leave them untouched. Any less will prove that wealth immunizes gangsters. Any less will demonstrate the corruption of our legal system. Any less will demonstrate favoritism towards the rich while street-level dealers rot in prison.
I would frankly prefer that each Sackler hoarding these profits be repeatedly and forcibly injected with their own poison, so that each family member must witness the gradual deterioration of their own family into addiction, enslavement, ruin, depravity, sickness, despair, homelessness and death.
2
Jail time for Felicity Huffman as a "deterrent to others" for her $15K crime. The Sacklers take billions and kill thousands, but no prison time for any of them. Justice is unfair even at the stratospheric levels of the super-wealthy.
4
Drain all their bank accounts, foreclose on houses, liquidate them. And then prison awaits. What's the accepted prison term for high level drug kingpins? 20-40 years?
Next up against the wall, those who approved the drug and permitted unlimited script mills, the doctors who took kickbacks and wrote scripts causing public endangerment.
2
Until criminals like the Sacklers are shown in handcuffs on their way to a real prison, get rich schemes such as theirs will not be taken seriously in the ultra wealthy world and just continue with money moved off shore here and there. They have no doubt already moved much of their money to safe places and for them the payout to municipalities are just slaps on the wrist. I'm glad they are caught but now let's see them pay a really proportionate price for the lives they have ruined.
2
Why aren't the being prosecuted like the mafia? How this is any different? It's a criminal conspiracy.
7
"may have tried" to shield money? The family is paying 3 billion dollars to walk way with more than twice that. They are buying their way out of prison when documents prove they and Purdue Pharma pushed Oxycontin even after they knew how addictive it was. They did it like pushes push heroine
3
@C
it's not 3 billion. read the article
Meanwhile, some people die because they can't afford insulin.
9
Sue them and fine them until they have to live in a van down by the river. Then impound the van and fine them for vagrancy. It still would not be justice for all the deaths and pain they have caused through their greed.
5
A family fortune made on the ruin of the sick, the dying, and those now dead.
5
I do not like my money going to the Sacklers to addict citizens. Another reason for nationalized healthcare and pharmacy.
It has been reported that more pills were made than required to meet the demand, a lot more pills. An egregious example of greed. This article states there is evidence that Sackler board members encouraged aggressive sales.
That invalidates attempts to shift blame to the prescribing physicians, although it makes physicians and Sacklers partners in the crime. So was tainted money going to physician practices? That also needs to be adjudicated. I imagine a lot of health insurance premium payments went to the Sacklers.
5
They should charge them et al (the other drug dealers) for more than they made from those drugs. But "you" may say: but they don't have that much $$$. Well, they have expensive homes, don't they!?
How are they going to get by on a billion$?
4
Great wealth is often the result of great transgressions and the Sackler family, like more than a few fellow billionaires, appear to have accomplished both.
7
Seems like money laundering to me. I would ask how these people sleep at night but then I remembered they were a pharmaceutical company. They use sleep aids.
7
@Andrew Walters
It has nothing to do with money laundering
The Sacklers need to be sacked.
6
The vile GOP and "moderates" still try to tell us that America doesn't have money for a (there-is-no-)"far"-left system of government that actually provides the basics that developed countries do. The offshore wealth hoards say otherwise.
Blockade briefcases and wirings that are off to the Caymans, Panama, and the Swiss banks. Seize their money. Yes, it's an act of war. So is letting them steal our taxes to impoverish us.
14
The Sacklers’ attempting to hide money is an invitation for the Justice Dept to go after everything - houses, cars, art, everything. Take the invitation and break them like they have broken so many families. Confiscate every cent and then hold them liable for any income tax still owing. Make them get jobs to pay off their tax debts.
Then start the criminal proceedings.
33
Are the Sackler family corrupt? Undoubtedly. That being said, there's a huge lack of accountability in drug and addict culture in our society where it is impressed upon people that becoming a drug addict is not their fault and that it is a disease. I realize it's an unpopular view to blame the buyer and not the dealer, but at some point, people need to make the conscious choice to not rationalize drug use. It's up to the individual.
3
@William Byron Can it not be both? The medical evidence is clear that some humans have a neurochemical predisposition to become rapidly habituated to narcotics. In some cases, the road to addiction is a result of enjoying getting high and seeking to keep it going. Others got addicted because the necessary pain relief from medically prescribed drugs led to these chemicals highjacking their nervous system. It can be a disease and also an issue of self-responsibility, in some cases within the same person and in others, somewhat out of the control of a person in difficult straits. The Sackler crowd knew well what they were doing. And why: it worked to make them fabulously wealthy. It's actually a pretty classic American success story.
3
Unfortunately there are unsuspecting patients who got hooked to relieve everyday pain. Even I was sent home with a 30 day supply of Vicodin following a routine operation. My pain subsided, but I can see where everyday people continue on with the prescription and graduate to oxycontin, etc.
Combine this with doctors over prescribing pain killers, a take no prisoners sales force, and an industry or family overrun with greed, and you have the opioid issue we have today. It's far too simple to say the individual is at fault when he or she is doing battle with an army of legalized drug pushers.
2
I would suggest that this company and family do a change of attitude and lok for ways to get people better and off of drugs. There are enough of us that do need the pain killers but do not need to use any more than necessary so as not to get hooked unnecessarily. But at this period of this earth history, we have many people who have deleloped a super unhealthy desire for drugs and money with very little care for the true needs of people and clients. I hope that the AGs will get to the true bottom of this and obtain to money that are needed for the consumers to get better and the residual affects.
83
@David
I would not look for a change in attitude. With the profits they will retain under the agreement, and their lack of jail time, the Sacklers will be too busy drinking champagne on their private jet while on their way to Monaco for the weekend. Why would they focus on anything else?
10
@David sure - if they did think they did something wrong. maybe 100 years from now someone in the descendants 'might'.
3
@David
What is perverse is that the Sacklers and Purdue won a patent for a formulation of buprenorphine, a medication to help those with opioid dependence. Gaining wealth creating the problem, becoming even wealthier "solving" it. Monsters.
5
This story purports to be about more than it is. People with the kind of money they have routinely transfer amounts of this sort all the time, often to pay taxes.
@No
Often to avoid paying taxes? Yes, I agree
1
Isn’t it ironic that every one of those victims would have been jailed for possession of a narcotic if they had lived, but the Sackler drug dealers will probably never see the inside of a cell? Shame on them and shame on us for letting them get away with murder.
12
The truly are criminals of the first order and yet - not a single criminal charge. Just the usual joke of a justice system that the US has.
3
Everyone's jumping up and down about the Sacklers and others, but nobody is asking what it is about life in our modern society that make addiction so much better than living in the greatest country in the world. What have we done to our country that makes addiction so much of a better deal for so many people?
316
@Edmund Cramp Well, for one: acute pain. For another: chronic pain. Third: like cigarettes, Oxycontin and other opioids are intensely addictive.
Here's a fourth: The Massachusetts attorney general's complaint documented (and the Times reported) that when physicians started seeing evidence that their patients were becoming addicted, the Sacklers directed their sales people to tell physicians that what they were seeing was "pseudoaddiction," and that the treatment for it was a higher dose. I'm not making this up.
Nor am I making up the fact that the Sacklers ordered their salespeople to make as many as 180,000 sales calls pushing Oxy -- IN A MONTH.
These are facts. Now, shouldn't you be jumping up and down about the Sacklers and others, who lied to physicians in order to use them to dupe unsuspecting patients by the hundreds of thousands into becoming addicted?
177
Very true!
If it was not this, it would be some other substance.
Going after supply never works in addiction control. It’s like going after mosquitos with a hammer. Reducing DEMAND is the only thing that works.
12
@Northpamet: Holding large corporations who dump opioids into the system is a start. Putting the owners of those corporations (the Sacklers) in prison wouldn't hurt either. Supply is as much of the equation as is Demand.
77
Unless there's jail time, they'll be back at the same thing tomorrow. It gets tiring finding large corporations again and again engaged in illicit or fraudulent activity, which, when found, these corporations get slapped with fines that look huge in the eyes of the average consumer, but are a drop in the bucket to these companies. Company leaders pay the fine, put on a little PR campaign and go back to the same ol' thing.
What happens next? Those fines are passed along to the consumers who then pay higher costs for treatment (padded so the execs can give themselves and their stockholders a little raise and claim it's essential due to the so-called inherent risks of the field--namely, the risk of being sued).
Jail time, not merely fines, is what is necessarily to deter wealthy, corporate heads from shamelessly and intentionally putting people's lives at risk for the sake of profit; and in the case of Purdue Pharma, developing and profiting from the addiction treatment drug whilst denying that OxyContin was addictive AND creating a victim blaming strategy to detract from the reality that it was normal people receiving treatment for injuries and NOT junkies who were becoming addicted.
10
Friend of mine went to hospital with terrible injection reaction. Huge pain. The ER said “lidocaine patch will help.” It didn’t. “Tylenol should work.” It did not. They were afraid to prescribe and apply something that actually worked. We are truly a lost country with no ideas how to be smart.
7
@Machiavelli
No it is just that the republicans have managed to remove any ideas that do not involve a calculation of how much money is to be made or possibly lost from our educational system.
Who is responsible for the opiod deaths?
The company that understated the addictive risk of the drug, getting FDA approval?
The FDA for approving a very addictive drug without adequate safeguards?
The doctors who prescribed the drug without clear medical indication?
The patients who demanded the drug from their doctors?
The addicts who bought illegal opiods because they were not satisfied with their doctors' prescriptions, and died of overdoses?
The responsibility is broadly shared.
In the post-Civil War period there were a large number of morphine addicts, mostly sufferers from war wounds. Morphine was freely available, made by reputable pharmceutical companies. Addicts functioned well. Overdoses were infrequent because doses were controlled, and not contaminated with fentanyl or anything similar.
6
This case opens an issue I wonder about--people suing companies whose products they abuse.
That`s not to say that all litigation involves cases of substance abuse, but it`s problematic where substance abuse is concerned.
1
exactly why i have been petitioning for the "trust funds" to be frozen in the City of London for the last two year as "blood money."
9
Of course they tried to shield their wealth! What kind of moral compass do you think they follow? But the money is nothing compared to the lives lost and destroyed. It's further proof of how shameless the Sacklers are, but when they get to the Pearly Gates of Heaven, it isn't going to be the money that keeps them from getting in.
It would be strange justice to see them go to jail over money, not destroying lives, but... jail is jail. Let's see what kind of justice awaits them here in America, land of the Privileged Wealthy. Odds are they pay a fine and walk away from this wealthier than anyone could ever become in 100 lifetimes of honest work. The attorney general found a billion. Think that's all of it?
53
Isn’t this what the RICO statutes are for? This family of criminals deliberately and knowingly foisted dangerously addictive drugs onto an unsuspecting medical community, lying to the FDA about the harm potential in the process.
I agree: no settlements until the family disgorges their ill-gotten wealth.
If Felicity Huffman can get 14 days, and Martha Stewart 1 year, this grifter family deserves at least 10-20 years collectively.
Lock them up!
98
Collectively? How about each?
3
@Max Right on!
1
The government invented the "fifth vital sign" in the 1990s or even earlier to encourage more use of narcotics in pain relief. Many doctors protested that this would result in more abuse but were drowned out by the do-gooders who saw this as a way to have the patient take control of his or her illness. Government agencies instituted evaluation of the liberal use of these medicines as a proxy for quality of care to monitor hospital and practitioner performance. Is it any wonder use (and abuse) increased? Does the government bear some responsibility? Do the misguided individuals who lobbied for the liberal use of narcotics bear any responsibility?
This reminds me of blaming the car manufacturer for all the automotive injuries and deaths on the roads.
6
"This reminds me of blaming the car manufacturer for all the automotive injuries and deaths on the roads." @bf You can enjoy taking your car out for a spin without experiencing withdrawal if you don't get behind the wheel for a few days. You can't casually take oxycontin out for a spin without going into a spin by and by. The car has no inherent power to control you; can't say the same for the Sacklers' wares. The analogy doesn't hold.
@sixmile
totally wrong. tens of thousands of people take these drugs without becoming addicted
@GMooG obviously there are legit uses for OxyContin that do not lead to addiction. The problem is the controls were loosened making access and abuse far more prevalent. Car makers have a responsibility to make their product safe. If you want to use the automobile analogy then the Ford Pinto with its exploding gas tank is the closer fit.
Why am I not surprised? Did anyone who has their eyes and ears open not at least expect that the Sacklers had taken many steps to hide the ill-gotten gains, including the old favorite, Swiss bank accounts.
What is missing from this and many other stories about the low-ball settlement currently under discussion is how big the cut of the attorneys who represent the plaintiffs will be. My understanding is that these lead attorneys are not public employees working for State AGs or counties, but private attorneys who work for a cut of the take. If that is indeed the case, their acceptance of this low-ball settlement is no surprise: it's a fast, quick and comparably easy payday, while going to trial would mean a lot more work and possibly waiting for 1-2 years to cash in. @NYTimes: Could you please look into this? Thanks!
29
@ Pete in downtown. You hit the nail on the head. This will be the biggest, easiest money these lawyers will ever see in their careers. The last interest they have is their client - the public.
1
I have long believed that it is a criminal offense to move money into trusts, offshore, etc. if it is done in contemplation of a law suit. Perhaps someone else can expound on this.
21
I don't think many of us realize how lucky we are to NOT have that kind of wealth and risk becoming those kind of people.
16
@Wally The wealth didn't create those kind of people. Those kind of people created that kind of wealth.
2
@Wally A very wise man once said: "Mo' money, mo' problems."
1
@Wally I hope that's a satirical comment because money has no inherent power.
Cassius:
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."
1
Besides all the justified comments here, there is another class of victims not generally recognized. That is those who have actual acute or chronic pain and legitimately need to use oxycodone. (This is the short-acting opiate that is the major ingredient of oxycodone. OxyContin supposedly releases oxycodone in small doses over a period of time.) Because of the misuse of OxyContin and its bad public relations, many physicians have become opiate phobic and have stopped prescribing it for patients who really need pain relief. It is difficult for a physician to determine who is in actual pain and who is faking it. In spite of the use of "poppy juice" and its derivatives for pain relief over thousands of years, no one has ever found a better replacement for opiates and their synthetic derivatives.
36
@JerryV The people needing this medication are ALREADY facing discrimination and obstacles from frightened doctors.
6
Pharm was making slow tummy release into crumbly quick release..... criminals
1
I'm certainly not making any excuses for the Slackers, but I think blaming them and Purdue Pharma for the drug epidemic is missing the target.
Clearly opiates were overprescribed, and there's no doubt that Purdue Pharma encouraged that, but there's a deeper problem in this country with so many people needing/wanting drugs. Opiates from Purdue Pharma were the drug of choice for many addicts, but look at the enormous appetite for other numbing drugs such as fentanyl and, yes, marijuana.
I value a clear, sharp mind, so I take no mind-altering drugs. I spend time on some anonymous online chat groups frequented by 20-somethings, and the number of people using pot or stronger drugs is overwhelming. Every night I see many posts from people who plan to spend their weekend high. Some use it in heavy amounts on the weekends, but many others use it daily.
I realize I'm old fashioned, but I can't help thinking that there's something wrong with a society that has such freedom, prosperity and low unemployment, and yet people are so unhappy that they have to numb themselves every day. Other regular postings threatening suicide or reporting deep depression or crippling anxiety reinforce my impression that this is the most unhappy generation.
11
@Phil: Many if the opioids were prescribed after surgery. Purdue pushed the idea that opioids were safe and non-addictive until it became very obvious they were neither. Some people who were prescribed opioids became addicted, and when their doctor cut them off, they moved on to heroin. The Sacklers are indeed guilty. They knew what they were doing and they didn't care.
78
@Anne: You're missing my point about the appetite for mind-numbing recreational drugs. Yes, some people started their addiction with post-surgical overprescribing, but that doesn't explain the enormous number of people that seem to need mind altering drugs on a daily basis.
It's also worth noting that while over prescribing is a problem, management of post surgical pain or the pain from other injuries or illnesses is important. If you or a loved one has ever been in excruciating pain, you'll be glad drugs like oxycodone are available.
5
@Phil: Yes, people tend to like to numb their minds. But that should not let the Sacklers off for being drug pushers.
1
People knew that narcotics were addictive when Oxycontin came out. How many of these ODs occurred from using the drug as directed by a physician? i was told in retort that there was an epidemic of narcotics after the American Civil War, but back then was a lot of naivete . Example: It was given to infants to keep them quiet.
3
@Mark Browning People are just as naive today as they were 150 years ago. You're in Houston, one of the largest petrochemical producers in the world and in a hurricane zone. 150 years from now people will look at you and think you're crazy for living anywhere near a place like that.
2
Didn’t doctors have to write prescriptions for these drugs? Aren’t they somewhat culpable? Just wondering.
3
@Paul: They were given research that stated opioids were non-addictive and safe. Doctors now know better.
14
@Anne Come on everyone. How long does it take any halfway intelligent person to realize opioids are addictive? Lots of people bear the responsibility. Addictive pain killer drugs have been around for a long time, and it has been common knowledge among most lucid adults. And, yes, this includes the many “poor victims” who decided to use them.
Just go to different physicians and pharmacies, cross state lines or buy them off the street.
The Sacklers should be stripped of every penny they ever made from Purdue.
Then that money needs to be divided proportionately to the states hit hardest by opioid addiction.
There is no daylight between Pablo Escobar, El Chapo Guzman and The Sacklers.
The only difference is the Sacklers will not do prison time.
We can put them in the poor house as a nation, its the least we should do for the victims.
76
Comparing the Sackler family to international drug dealers is preposterous. Unless, that is, you want to compare the entire American pharmaceutical industry to international drug dealers, and then you might have a point. Otherwise you’re looking for an easy target when it is so much bigger than the one you’ve chosen.
2
@folderoy
It is true that morally there is no daylight between the Sacklers and Panlo Escabar, El Chapo etc.
As for jail for the Sacklers? There are enough prosecutors out there who know the families and friends of the hundreds of thousands of those who died due to Sackler greed, gross indifference, and outright fatal lying about their lethal drugs.
There’s room in the jails for them. Enough prosecutors will not compromise or rest until the steel barred doors clank shut on guilty Sacklers.
2
@ADN
"Unless, that is, you want to compare the entire American pharmaceutical industry to international drug dealers,..."
Okay, let's go with that.
3
I do not relish having to say this, but sometimes justice demands of us difficult things.
I think each Sackler family member should get 14 days in jail plus very serious community service time.
Before I get the hate responses, trust me, I no more enjoy having to come to this conclusion than any of the rest of you.
But Justice herself demands this, I fear.
6
@pjc
Are you kidding? 14 days in jail?... Hope you are being sarcastic here. These people are WAY more dangerous criminals than regular thieves or burglars as they erode the trust of the regular Americans in the system and makes the society cynical. And then we throw in jail someone who decidide to steal 100$ or less because 'why not?!"... These evil and arrogant high fliers deserve to be stripped from their wealth (good luck with that now!) and thrown in jail. They conspired to create the drug abuse epidemy and then to benefit from additionally selling drugs to treat it.
1
You are joking, right? Such serious verbiage and then you say only 14 days? Surely you are being sarcastic. But I can’t tell how sarcastic. Do you mean they deserve punishment or no?
1
@pjc
Only 14 days??How about 14 years. 3 billion in fines is only petty cash for these people. The profits they made from these opioids far exceeds the fines being levied. These fines are just a cost of doing business. If you really want to deter the wealthy from crimes like this you have to throw them in jail.
Shield their wealth? Wow. Who would have thought that kind of thing went on.
Now, were I King for the day, I'd take every cent, bit of property, etc., they own, give them each a comfy 'family-size' house, find them nice, back-breaking minimum wage jobs, and let them enjoy life like the rest of us mere mortals.
And perhaps, were I in the mood, I'd put them on mandatory dosages of Oxy daily so they can enjoy the pleasures of being addicted.
Well, addicted to something other than money.
18
The Sacklers and their company are certainly liable in this case, but opiates are heavily restricted drugs, and physicians are supposed to be cautious prescribers. A good proportion of the blame has be put at the feet of the doctors who wrote the prescriptions in the first place, and kept issuing refills. I was taught at medical school in the 1980s that opiates are addictive, and none of the OxyContin propaganda convinced me otherwise. Anyone with a medical education should have been able to see that the marketing was bad news, yet doctors fell for it. Are we only human? Yes. Do we bear a responsibility for every prescription we write? Absolutely.
652
Yes! Exactly! Any doctor who is swayed by a sales call (or a free dinner) is not a proper doctor.
47
@PeteH -- For now, 100% of the responsibility goes to the Sacklers. Throw this criminal family in jail and throw away the keys. Oh, take away their billions of Dollars of ill-gotten gains.
29
@PeteH I keep hearing this argument. Sure, doctors who falsely prescribed these are culpable too. But why would that lead anyone to conclude the Sacklers should keep even a dime of their ill-gotten gains or avoid prison time? Just because you had accomplices doesn’t mean you didn’t commit the crime.
98
I can't help wondering how republicans feel about this situation. Of course it's horrifying what has happened and the number of people who've become and remain addicted or died. This tragedy is felt by all, whether democrat or republican, but if hardline republicans had the system operating in the manner in which is their fondest desire, that is to keep government out of business, Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers would be untouchable.
12
Kudos to AG James! SHE ROCKS!
The Sacklers most definitely have been stashing away their ill-gotten gains, just like Trump and his acolytes do. There are probably a limited number of pathways to do so, so why not also check Epstein's, Madoff's, Ross' and Trump's accounts while you're at it.
You'll find the cleanest notes ever after THEIR money laundering. Nail them to the wall for what they've done to this country, one and all!
54
This. Underline Trump. Subpoenas issued, complied with, records obtained. Trump? Immune.
7
Two things. First of all, why our regulations allow for these kinds of transfers to offshore accounts without oversight is appalling. Good luck getting anything changed on that front, as both Republicans and Democrats cover the monied interests, interests.
Secondly, it seems that all these states are more worried about getting a buck, than obtaining justice for all those who have had to suffer under these vile people. Those worried about the monetary compensation only, are as complicit as the Sacklers. Until these predators are put in jail and the key thrown away, justice will not have been served.
10
@Walter Ingram
Because the rich have the power to make the rules. Just look at Trump and his deregulations and actions helping the super-rich (of course, because "they create jobs" ;-)
5
Put all of the Sackler compliment in this heinous crime into jail and take their ill-gotten gains. All of those gains.
13
Funny how the FDA did nothing. Some folks there should do hard time as well.
18
Let’s hear a Trump rally crowd in Kentucky or West Virginia or Ohio chant “lock them up” the next time Trump mentions opioids. Perhaps he doesn’t rant about big money in big pharma.
26
Sounds like the IRS has been shortchanged too.
29
So how much of the money is going to go to the people who were really hurt? Probably not much! But if you have a degree from Harvard and are representing the sacklers you are going to be able to make a ton of money and look people in the eye and say that everyone deserves a defense. And lawyers wonder why we like them so much
3
To quote one of the great sages of the 20th century,
"Surprise, Surprise", G. Pyle
Just the first page of a sordid chapter.
7
Trusts. Such an ironic word, isn’t it?
12
Is anyone surprised by this?
1
The Sacklers
Greed
Dishonesty
Oxycontin
Sadly, there's nothing in this story that surprises me
4
The Sacklers are the worst form of human being, raking in billions off of people’s suffering, without a single bit of remorse. They knew the damage they were causing, they promoted that damage, pushed that devastation onto vulnerable people, all for the almighty dollar. These are despicable people, and they’re not alone, there are many others out there enriching themselves off of others suffering. They are no better than the drug dealers in the streets, no better than the drug cartels that supply the drugs to those dealers.
36
Small fine, big prison term, Trump pardon..........
"We won't get fooled again."
VOTE, VOTE, VOTE in 2020 and every year you can.
17
And Felicity Huffman is going to jail for 14 days. When Felicity bribed, no one died. Can the same be said of the Sacklers and Purdue?
18
Why are none of these articles showing the pictures of the Sackler family as the main picture or showing them at all? The picture of Mortimer Sackler is buried.
Do a search in the NY Times, almost every pic is of a Purdue Pharma building, prescription pill bottles, or a NY District Attorney. This is abstracting the crime and removing the Sackler as guilty party.
Ask 100 people to identify the Sacklers in a line up and I guarantee 0 out of 100 would be able to pick any of them.
Please NY Times, expose the criminals!
178
@M.
I’m glad that they are now mostly called Sackler instead of Purdue Pharmaceuticals. I always felt they were trying to mask the Sackler name from the Purdue businesses.
2
There were doubtless many additional transfers in the 2008-and-later timeframe that will never be tracked. Purdue plead guilty to a felony in 2008 for downplaying the addictiveness of Oxycontin. They knew there were problems (but of course also enormous profits) going back to the early 2000s if not earlier. This may force them to sweeten the deal some but they are already offering something like $12 billion so I'm not sure how much of a gamechanger this will be.
6
Some investigations will take place, remorse expressed to the general public thru the media, but in the end both the business and family will come out ahead. That’s how money, influence and power work in a Capitalist State. Don’t worry about either one, their income will not suffer. Unlike innocent individuals.
6
My bank doesn't let me transfer $2,500 on any single day.
Even if it is my own, hard earned money, I have to allay suspicions and defend my motives before I get to see any of it.
How did these people manage to transfer $1B (of mostly other people money) out of the country without arising suspicion?
That is the elite making America great again.
272
@Bhaskar
I’m sure you’re mistaken. You can take out all your money at any time. You are confusing this with your daily cash withdrawal/ATM limit.
5
@GMooG
That's what I thought.
I just googled this which checks out with my experience:
(banks dot org)
The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) collects and uses financial transaction information in search of people laundering money, financing terrorism, or committing other financial crimes.
FinCEN Reporting Requirements:
The milestones used by banks are $2,000 and $10,000. Anything under $2,000 is typically considered safe and private. If the withdrawal is over $2000 but under $10,000, then it is up to the bank employee’s discretion as to whether or not someone is acting “suspicious”.
6
@Bhaskar
No, you are still mistaken. FINCEN rules address only what transactions have to be reported to the government. Those rules don't affect what you can withdraw.
2
Are these people going to jail? If proceeding to achieve that justice are not in process they need to be. Greed; there needs to be severe consequences.
16
A few more years of plutocratic control, and we won't even be ABLE to track these kinds of financial dealings. Thank you to the government employees tracking this down. The Sackler family is despicable.
120
@Susan H -- More than despicable. They are criminal drug lords that need to be in prison for the rest of their lives. And all the ill-gotten gains need to be clawed back including all the off-shores transfers.
12
The faith of Americans - even white Americans - in the "Criminal Justice System" is in rags and tatters.
If these drug pushers in suits and ties don't get serious, serious punishments for their offenses, you might as well take a torch to the Constitution.
35
This Pharma company knew exactly what they were doing and could care less. When will money stop buying the criminial rich and criminal wealthy a right to get out of jail free. They should pay...serving their time and not in Allenwood Prison.
13
Another straw on the camel's back. One day it will break and it will be ugly. I suggest to the 0.1% that perhaps they should give up the Sachlers, I mean sure they don't really care about the plebs either but dealing drugs, overdose death, it's all so crass and commonly criminal. And the camel gets to plod a while longer.
8
Here we go again. And again we will be told that pharma needs high profit margins to develop new miracle drugs. $13 billion lay in the Sackler family pockets. What happened to the pretend R&D?
Bring back Teddy Roosevelt
48
Did the AG organize all these comments against the Sacklers? Seriously. People are acting like they were drug lords selling an illegal product. If the government or AG really gave an ounce of concern for the victims they would have worked to remove OC from the shelves years ago. The money they're going after will never benefit any of the victims. Addicts will not be encouraged to seek help or be offered a free inpatient hospital stay. As far as I know the personal finances of this family are legally separate from Purdue so I don't understand why these transfers are relevant right now.
5
By definition, of course they’re drug lords, for pete’s sake. What is it that you think Purdue Pharm SELLS?
Then we get to other minor technical details, like yeah, it turns out it IS illegal knowingly to sell a dangerous product, and it IS illegal knowingly to encourage abuse of legal drugs.
And for crying out loud, the Sacklers OWN Purdue, and made specific claims about how much loot they have, and made them in court. If they lied about their net worth to a judge, that is perjury. If they deliberately tried to hid money and evade financial regulations, those are felonies.
Good grief.
7
@Billbo You're joking, right? The Sackler wealth has no relation to...the Sackler family business, that they're all involved with? And let's stop pretending they're not drug lords; they simply don't use guns, but their violence is still there--just in pill form.
3
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we
are. They are different.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
270
@Alfred E Newman...who would have thought that Fitzgerald would be describing trump.
17
@Alfred E Newman
I am reminded of a conversation I once had with a "Skeneateles Blue Blood" at an upscale bar in Skaneateles, NY. I had heard about the Blue Bloods--people with boat houses far larger than my residence--and I was fascinated to hear him talk about "the proletariat" with an air of casual superiority. I finally asked, "You've never worked a day in your life, have you?" He seemed insulted and gave me a scornful look. Yes, they are very different.
42
@Alfred E Newman Surprisingly, there ARE the very rich who contribute very quietly but substantially in support of immigration, medical policy, housing, education, climate control, etc. Simply characterizing the 'very rich' as somehow "other" is simply missing the point. And leaves you looking a little small minded.
5
Money .... a lucrative method of escape from punishment for the rich. We have a lot of that now.
84
Under Federal law, the Sackleers could go to prison for transferring assets before they go bankrupt. Several years ago, a slumlord was convicted of that crime after she transferred assets to a friend before declaring bankruptcy. She had a long list of non-payment of taxes and building code violations as she accrued slum housing.
59
@bnc
VERY common, especially in NYC. I'm sure Kushner and Trump are experts at that, incorporating every condo and every building separately, taking profits, sending them abroad or laundering and declaring individual bankruptcies.
Trump and Kushner would call this "business as usual".
25
@bnc
Pretty sure you have to actually declare bankruptcy for the transfer to be fraud. They have threatened it often in the course of these negotiations, but they hadn't done it yet.
Sometimes, things that are evil aren't illegal.
@bnc
Not exactly. To be a crime, the transfers would have to have been made for the purpose of delaying or defrauding creditors. Hard to make that argument here, when most of the transfers were made many years ago, before most of these lawsuits were filed, and when the Sacklers were very solvent (they may still be solvent).
2
We need a government intervention to freeze all assets. These are crimes beyond illegal drug trafficking with the direct and indirect impacts on millions of Americans over the last few decades. Justice must prevail.
40
Undoubtedly there are attorneys who would just like to settle this matter and collect their fees.
We need to email our state AG’s and request that they pursue the money trail to the end of the earth, if necessary.
The Sacklers who worked for the company should be looking at criminal charges.
This is so sickening, and people are losing every last bit of faith in the system.
23
Great work done here tracing these wire transfers. The transfers suggest the Sackler family is unrepentant. They had already put profits ahead of human life.
90
Let’s see - just received notice that Felicity Hoffman will serve two weeks in the slammer along with the revelation that the Sackler family is shielding its blood money with wire transfers of money with too many zeros for this schlub to conceptualize, The attorneys general were right to not accept the “mild” terms of the Purdue bankruptcy. Well, one person was hurt by Hoffman’s dishonesty - that is the young person who was deprived of university admission in favor of her daughter admitted through thievery of the system.
The commensurate jail time for the Sackers is prison time without parole to account for all those who lost their lives because of the lying and greed of the Sacklers. It’s called premeditated murder.
38
Why aren't they and many others being prosecuted for murder, or at least manslaughter?
27
@Daniel...because nothing has been proven in a court of law.
@Daniel
Answer: money
@Mae T Bois I think you have it backwards. First prosecution, then charges are proved (or not) in court.
Two questions:
1. How does a pharmaceutical company make billions in profits off of people being sick and having pain? Perhaps they should have charged less for their addictive drugs?
2. How come if you deal drugs on the street corner, you get arrested and do hard time for being a felon, but if you are a rich Pharma executive or owner, you just pay a fine or hide your money?
Capitalism at it's worst!
244
@doc Well they make money since the doctors prescribe the medication.
That's the only reason, your doctors betrayed you by not being vigilant.
4
Did anyone really think the greed driven vile individuals who ran this "junkie operation" were going to come "clean". Life imprisonment and seizure of all assets is a good start. Also rounded up are the enablers of this scam of hiding money and assets. The banks, hedge funds, law firm, real estate and tax consultants. One gutter of filth that serves the 1%. But not with Trump and Barr running the show.
14
This speaks volumes to the feasibility of Warren’s ptopopsed “wealth tax.”
36
And so the Sacklers can take Purdue into bankruptcy, despite their venality and desiccation.
Yet, college graduates saddled with debt and working for the gig economy cannot.
105
Take all of the $13B. Yet another argument for a 100% inheritance tax. No vast fortune is built honestly.
88
@APS
Maybe you haven't noticed how corrupt republicans can be with the public purse. DEMs aint no slouches either.
1
@APS...No vast fortune is built honestly? Do you know Warren Buffett? Do you know Bill Gates?
3
@Mae T Bois. Ummm...yeah, and the same applies there too. Neither one can claim they acted entirely ethically as they rose to the top. It’s a matter of public record.
5
Richard Sackler, MD, took the Hippocratic Oath when graduated from NYU in 1971. That Oath didn't end when he turned his attention to business -- and he broke it.
He should be sentenced to working full-time for the rest of his working life in an addiction clinic taking care of the patients he hurt.
272
@Eben The Hippocratic Oath has gone by the wayside. The Oath now is making money. There are a few doctors who have taken their original oath to heart, but they're far and in between. And they're losing money. Many are retiring. They can't continue ethically OR financially with the health care system as it is today.
6
@Eben
That's appropriate community service.
3
@Eben
The Capitalistic Oath overrides the Hippocratic Oath in the United States.
4
Glad to know that these wire transfers can be tracked. I salute the attorneys and others who are trying to keep track of it all.
I know these rich criminals make it complicated and difficult (33 financial institutions and investment advisers!) and I hope they get nailed to the wall on this.
These are the people I would like to deport!
575
@sfdphd: In Saudi Arabia they locked them up in a hotel until they signed over the assets. I used to think that was a barbaric violation of human rights.
7
@sfdphd
Deport them? What country would agree to take them?
4
This is beyond disgusting.
91
Hopefully this allows courts to pierce the corporate veil via inadequate capitalization of Purdue by the Sacklers.
37
The feckless FDA are culpable enablers. Clean house.
70
It looks like criminal activity by the Sackler family.
If true, they all should be prosecuted, and their entire family fortune seized and distributed to clean up after them.
Prosecutors should move quickly before the Sacklers can hide more of their money, then flee the country to somewhere without extradition agreements with the United States.
152
I don't blame them. If they hadn't siphoned off so much money, after all the lawsuits were settled, they may have only had a billion or two left. No one can live on that.
258
The only ones that go to jail are users. Not even Rush L. went to prison. I know the govt. means well but now see how many OD. Users went to oxy because it was hillbilly heroin. The heroin is pure poison now at least since the late 80’d -early 90’s now it’s just another scapegoat the newest whipping boy is fentanyl. Opiates work for many people in many ways it just has to be controlled better. Smokable heroin regulated for strength is the only answer. 3-4 cigarettes per day. Once they prove themselves to not divert. Up to a week worth of smokes per week or two. Drug test with mouth swabs.
9
The best way not to have a problem is to never start. Do yourself a very large favor and never begin!
2
@Jeffrey Lyle Clingenpeel
fentanyl is the latest whipping boy and rightfully so - to anyone who does not use opiates, just touching fentanyl can make one overdose. i understand for chronic severe pain sufferers its a literal lifesaver but for most its incredibly dangerous (especially EMTs and law enforcement).
4
Send these people to prison. Felicity Huffman gets a prison term for cheating to get her kid into college. These people lied about the dangers of the addictiveness of OxyContin. Literally hundreds of thousands of people have died. Why no jail time for reckless endangerment. Why no prison time for lying? Is it because it's easier to set an example of a rich famous actress than hold rich capitalists accountable. Hundred of thousand lives lost. I have difficulty wrapping my head around that. Think about all the families suffering. This screams out for justice.
1038
@Linda Sadly our criminal justice system makes no provision for the magnitude of damages inflicted while committing a crime. If it did, massive numbers of people connected to the subprime mortgage scam would be in prison today with no hope of ever enjoying freedom again.
76
@Linda Hold your outrage, first check their backgrounds and friends.
3
@Dan
What about the doctors who prescribed these medications repeatedly knowing fully well about the addictive nature of the medicine. why aren't they being questioned and being held responsible. I think it is the traditional legal tactic to go after deep pockets and forget the fairness of the approach. Sad but so true and the judges/juries fail to question that it seems.
4
time to kill the settlement and file criminal charges against the family, as well as the company. having shown no remorse for the 200K-plus people who've died from overdoses of oxycontin, the justice system should show no mercy to the sacklers, who ought to be stripped of all assets before being sent to jail.
132
Seize the funds. And then add them to the amounts that may be paid out to opioid victims. Criminals should not be able to shield the income from their criminal behavior. Part of the point of punishment for crimes is to deter others; and that is impossible if the perpetrators become so wealthy from their crimes that they just have to wait until the negative publicity blows over to enjoy their wealth, achieved through the destruction of other peoples' lives. How are the Sacklers different from the Medellin Cartel?
350
@Hugh
" How are the Sacklers different from the Medellin Cartel?"
Well, to begin with, they're white people. And they don't use guns to get their way, they use lawyers and money.
23
@Hugh
I agree that our government should FREEZE then SEIZE ALL their bank accounts to keep them from hiding their money.
When is enough ever enough for these GREEDY folks?
10
@LD
I expect there are billions outside of this country that probably can’t be seized..
2
They must be prosecuted, and the entire family fortune confiscated to compensate the families of dead victims and the suffering of those still alive but destroyed by their greed.
99
As soon as I read the Sacklers plan to wind down Purdue through bankruptcy, I knew they'd start funnelling cash into their personal coffers. Shameful.
167
@ck An analysis of the tax reduction benefits they might accrue in a settlement is worth investigating, too.
21
Why are the Sackler allowed to sell any pain pills in the future,why can’t this go to trial, with the Sacklers hearing first hand testimony from the dead victims families of the havoc and life long pain they have caused.
45
We need a capital exit tax.
16
So those who got others addicted to opioids show their own addiction to money. I hope that their suffering is somehow commensurate as well.
42
Why is this completely unsurprising? Our system, and apparently our current society, thinks it’s ok to cheat, lie, avoid personal responsibility, harm others, and steal with impunity, all in the name of unfettered capitalism, otherwise known by the common term, greed. If somebody gets away with it, we cheer, we wink, and increasingly, we vote for them. I am totally, thoroughly, and completely disgusted.
710
Join the club of decent folks. Millions of us.
53
@Tami Garrow
Let’s put the blame where it belongs — on unethical, greedy people, not on ‘capitalism’. Let’s not conflate capitalism with greed. Greed does not have allegiance to any particular economic system.
19
@Tami Garrow
But only if you are rich and white.
3
If no one goes to jail, the whole thing is a farce.
687
@otto
Nobody went to jail after the Bankers broke the economy
Sorry if I don't think anybody is going to jail
63
@otto:
Yes, and I take "the whole thing" to refer to the US Criminal Justice System. The Sacklers are another tip of another iceberg of gross injustices.
14
@otto-Or, if not, at least take most everything they own, a la Bernie Madoff, who also ruined untold numbers of lives.
7
Oh come on. Did they think that prosecutors wouldn't notice?
So not only are the Sacklers greedy and cruel, they're stupid too.
71
@Cousy I am sure they knew that their activities would be noticed. However, they know that they will get away with it and come out on top, or else loose less than what they would if they hadn't made the moves that they did. I am sure everything has been planned out... they are 20 moves ahead with plenty of contingency plans in place.
11
@Cousy They are many things. But stupid, they are not. Their actions reflect the enormous insulation of the rich from the consequences of their bad behavior. In many cases, they are not truly aware, no matter how apparent to outsiders, of how they regard other people as objects.
F. Scott Fitzgerald famously got it right in "The Great Gatsby" when he wrote about a married couple of two wealthy and entitled characters who enjoyed similar immunity for there reactions. The narrator speaking about them says about the husband:
" I couldn't forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
18
There is an entire industry of US and foreign lawyers, accountants, financial managers that assist the elite in funneling funds offshore ... To a significant extent this cohort has remained unexamined by the US government and financial enforcement agencies. According to a book published in 2012, Treasure Islands: Uncovering the Damage of Offshore Banking and Tax Havens, "For every dollar of aid we send to developing countries, ten dollars leave again by the backdoor ... The offshore system sits much closer to home than the pristine tropical islands of the popular imagination. In fact, it all starts on a tiny island called Manhattan ..."
185
Exactly. It’s in plain sight!
One look at the NYC skyline with its new super tall skyscrapers and appartements owned by Delaware companies and paid for in cash tells you where the money is “hidden”. These are the new ‘Swiss bank accounts’ poured in concrete and the account number is the zip code.
8
@William M. Palmer, Esq.
I don't have the expertise, but I wish that those who do can figure out a way to stop the exit of money from this country to off-shore havens or tax it to the point that it's no longer worth it. One of my moral fantasies is to live in a world where it's impossible to fleece a country and then abandon it along with your dirty profits.
6
@William M. Palmer, Esq. see "secrect world " by jake bernstein.
2