It’s difficult for me to imagine that this post will make it to anyone whose life has not been affected by the absolute garbage that is OxyContin. Whether it’s second or third degree, we love or know someone who knows or loves someone who hurt his or her back at work or was injured in a car accident, whatever something that caused them to reach out to a health care provider in hopes for some easing of the pain.
Health care provider…man, isn’t that rich? When you think of the despicable people that many of these people encountered in their search for just the normal level of comfort that a person should be able to hope to live with, and you try to wrap your mind around the fact that they had once sought and achieved postgraduate education in healing….
Think about that: Every person you’ve ever known who got strung out on Oxy, every time you’ve heard a father or mother lament about how the drug had stolen his or her child, every young person who died too young and every older person who would be just the last person you’d ever think could develop a drug problem, and every stat you read about the opioid epidemic….every bit of that was brought on people who had once been educated to heal.
The average lifespan of Americans began to decline in 2015, and that is largely attributed to this epidemic. Let that sit in for a minute.
But let this sink in too: Purdue Pharma, the make and distributor of OxyContin has been found guilty in federal court and will now cease to exist. The company filed for bankruptcy last year, and the disgustingly (yes, here it fits) rich Sackler family, who owned and operated Purdue, lost a civil suit and was ordered to pay $225 million.
Is all of this enough to make up for the millions of Americans and American families–and those from other countries too–whose lives have been destroyed by this garbage? Certainly not. New York Attorney General Letitia General says, “Today’s deal doesn’t account for the hundreds of thousands of deaths or millions of addictions caused by Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family.”
The good news is that Purdue and the Sacklers may be finished in federal court, but several states attorneys general had vowed to go even harder at seeking justice.
Per the agreements of this deal, Purdue will eventually cease to exist as a for-profit company and become a “public benefit company” with the profits going to opioid treatment companies in states and communities.
Even if it wasn’t enough, even if the Sacklers will all grow old and die in no less comfort than they would have had without these decisions and punishments, and even if someone else comes along to fill the void, it’s good to know that these people committed atrocious wrongs, murdering and conspiring for something as common as money, and that someone is seeking to hold them accountable for it.
In closing, if you want to get an idea of how unscrupulously these people and their agents acted, watch the Netflix documentary series The Pharmacist. It’ll give you an idea of how little value they placed on the lives of the people they addicted and killed in their drive to make more money.
Below is a link to the New York Daily News article that led me to create my post.
Until soon, my friends, much love and many prayers that your children are healthy and safe.
Paulelmo's Blog 
This just seems like too little too late, but I’m glad that there was finally a ruling and hopefully big changes in the way that prescription meds are “marketed” for profit.
When you think about the deaths and the destroyed families, it has to be too little too late. Still, even with further litigation, they were a multibillion dollar corporation that will no longer be allowed to accumulate wealth for profit. They may somehow circumvent that, but I gotta have hope this decision serves the public well.
Agreed!
There is so much about US medicine that I will never be able to understand how it was ever allowed to be that way.
Americans have been given this notion that we can be and do anything we want. Combine that with the Free Market Economy and the importance placed on amassing wealth, and you get a perfect prescription for situations like this. I’m not against the market economy, but lines need to be drawn when it comes to millions of people addicted and dying.