The Billionaire Drug Pushers

There are several lawsuits against drug kingpins in the news of late. One is against "El Chapo" Joaquín Guzmán Loera, and is filled with stories of prison escapes, border tunnels, IT guys turning states evidence and raping 13-year-old girls.

The others are far more insidious. Legal action is being taken against giant drug companies, like Purdue Pharma, the makers of OxyContin. This company is squarely behind the opioid epidemic. In 2007 Purdue and three executives pleaded guilty to a host of crimes that led directly to the addiction and deaths of thousands of Americans every year.

Recently more details have come out about why Purdue started the drug epidemic: it turns out the real villains in this story are the wealthy, self-entitled family of billionaires, the Sacklers, who serve on the board. They pushed the CEO and faceless corporate bean counters to push drugs to more and more victims.

The Sackler family, ever more greedy, demanded more aggressive sales tactics to hook more patients on OxyContin, while at the same time referring to their customers as "reckless criminals." Their other activities included:

• The spoils of OxyContin allowed the Sacklers, as board members, to vote to pay themselves more than $4 billion between 2007 and 2018. Figures for individual payments during those years are sprinkled throughout the lawsuit.
• Members of the family personally ordered Purdue to increase the sales force on a number of occasions.
• The family was directly involved in pushing for higher—and more dangerous—doses of OxyContin.
• For years, the McKinsey & Company consulting firm had worked with Purdue to come up with sales tactics. According to a redacted section, the consultants "had reported to Purdue on opportunities to increase prescriptions by convincing doctors that opioids provide 'freedom' and 'peace of mind' and give patients 'the best possible chance to live a full and active life.'"
• Board meetings for the US-based company were held in exotic and luxurious places, such as Bermuda and a castle in Ireland.
• Members of the Sackler family worked on a secret plan codenamed "Tango," which would have expanded Purdue's business into addiction-treatment drugs. [They wanted hook addicts coming and going.]
  
• Purdue employees actively tried to avoid the Sacklers because of their relentless and aggressive demands
• Richard Sackler allegedly sought revenge on an insurance company for dropping coverage of OxyContin amid the epidemic of abuse.
• The Sacklers allegedly knew about but did not report suspected cases of diversion and abuse by doctors.

A trial against another drug company, Insys, is in progress now. Insys resorted to more traditional drug pushing tactics: they hired a former stripper named Sunshine Lee to be the sales director. In addition to the old standard of bribing doctors to prescribe more opioids, they used more conventional drug pushing tactics. Sex:

In testimony Tuesday against the rest, former sales representative Holly Brown made the lap-dancing allegation against her former boss, Lee. Brown testified that in mid-2012 she, Lee, and other sale representatives took one Dr. Paul Madison to a club after a dinner event sponsored by Insys. Brown said that her superiors had told her to focus on Dr. Madison, who was known for prescribing a lot of opioids. She described his office as a “shady pill mill” in a “dingy strip mall in a not-so-nice area of town,” according to reports.

Brown recalled an encounter she witnessed that night between Lee and Madison, saying, “She was sitting on his lap, kind of bouncing around, and he had his hands all over her chest.’’

Lee, a former stripper, had no experience in the pharmaceutical industry before working at Insys, prosecutors noted. According to Bloomberg, court documents reveal that Insys whistle-blowers quoted Burlakoff as saying that “doctors really enjoyed spending time with [Lee]” and that she was “more of a closer.”

Brown echoed the idea, saying in her testimony that Lee played up her sexuality during sales pitches. She dressed in a “sexually suggestive manner’’ and “showed more cleavage than the average sales rep,’’ Brown said.

Prosecutors reported that Insys paid Madison at least $70,800 in “speaker fees.”

A border wall will do nothing to stop the biggest drug epidemic facing this nation: prescription drugs pushed by giant pharmaceutical companies and the rich fat cats behind them.

The Sacklers and Insys make the best argument yet for a 70% tax on billionaires. The country needs to be reimbursed for the death and destruction their unbridled greed wreaks upon the American people.