Opioids II: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

druks, on the one hand, America's war against them has been a complete catastrophe, but on the other hand, it gave us this photo of Nancy Reagan sitting in mr. T's return, so it wasn't a total loss and by the way, I feel sorry for the fool who didn't think they were going to go after that specifically, specifically, we're going to talk about

opioids

and if you're thinking, wait, right? Let's do a show on this before, yes we did one two and a half years ago, but

tonight

we'll do an update for a couple key reasons: First, the epidemic continues in 2017, opioid overdoses killed more than 47,000 Americans and, secondly, since then.

Then, we've learned a lot more about many of the companies involved, if anything it's been surprising, for example, a criminal case involving an executive from beverage maker iNSYS on Earth. They rap a video they supposedly made to motivate their sales force to go out and sell a painkiller it contains. the highly addictive drug fentanyl, look, you like silence, all the beasts, yes Beast, but let's stop for a moment to unpack the line, if you're trying to play, I'll substitute you as a xylitol which is a reference to the key. ingredient in sugarless gum it's surprisingly almost impossibly boring it's really hard to find a rap that's more languid than that and I'll show you the splatter rules all around me Hank's got the mermaid Daryl Daryl Hannah you guys now if that's that's yeah it's more boring than the video of interest.

I think it's hard for you to make that case and that rap video was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of new information now coming out through numerous court cases so

tonight

. Let's put together some of these new revelations and look at what we've learned about how the first wave of the opioid crisis began, because it's a story of how big companies acted wildly irresponsibly, evaded any meaningful consequences, and, for the most part, They avoided public scrutiny. Let's start with drug distributors, these are the big three that companies responsible for getting drugs to pharmacies and hospitals must alert authorities if they notice suspicious orders of controlled substances, but to get an idea of ​​how badly they didn't do it . in Kermit West Virginia named of course because that's where you see Frog lives with this second secret family oh that's right he's in a couple with two salamanders named Francois and Gary and they are very very happy it was never you Miss Piggy To him, the amount of

opioids

sent to Kermit, a town of only 400 people, was completely ridiculous.

This undercover video from Kermit's main pharmacy shows dozens of people picking up prescriptions inside and at the drive-thru window. More than three million doses of hydrocodone were ordered by a Kermit pharmacist, James Wooley, in one year that's right, three million doses for a town of 400 people, that's about 7,500 pills for every resident of Kermit and, to be clear, we mean that every resident of the comets, not every resident of Kermit, Kermit kermin is a top I. He won't know that's his business, but those kinds of numbers clearly should have caught the attention of the distributors; in fact, the largest, McKesson alone sent five million doses of opioids to Kermit in just two years and that is just one example of McKesson's reckless behavior and the problem is that at no point will he be effectively deterred.

In 2008, the DEA alleged that McKesson had failed to control his controlled substances. McKesson agreed to pay a fine of thirteen million dollars, all without admitting wrongdoing, and also promised to do better by implementing a controlled substance monitoring program, but that program emphatically did not work, in fact, a DEA official later wrote that his Bad acts had continued and escalated to an egregious level "not seen before because of course they did it, you can't put McKesson in charge of monitoring." McKesson, if the bears in your zoo come out at night and start attacking the other animals, don't delegate one of the bears to keep an eye on the situation and I know what you're thinking, but John, I already brought him a little suit of sheriff. to wear it and I think he looked great with it and yes of course he would but at the end of the day bears are going to put up with it, it's in their nature and again before you say well I've spent quite a bit of money designing a custom dress - Sheriff badge made just for him, don't you think the bear will recognize the gravity of that symbol and feel compelled to grow up and change his bear ways somehow?

No, I don't think so, because bears don't respect anything, they think about the importance that we place in symbols and status makes us weak, they don't value anything more than blood and strength and I know what you're going to say Now, is there anything I can do? The answer is, of course, no, because as you were talking, the sheriff endures more because of death. We're already dead, goodbye, why are we still talking about this? The point is that McKesson's monitoring clearly didn't work because in 2017 they ended up agreeing to another larger fine, this time one hundred and fifty million dollars, which yes, sounds like a lot until you realize that that's less than a thousandth of their income for a year and well, today McKesson says they have really improved their monitoring systems, this time they pinky promise and argue that they were not the ones who established the demand for opioids.

At one point, even the DEA agent in charge of his case thought his deal was absurd. How is an agreement reached? How do you say it's okay? Just write this check this time and close this place for a moment. Sign this paper. As? If you do that, don't put him in jail, he's right, put him in jail and obviously I'd watch a whole show where he's just that guy telling me where to put things. McKesson executives put them in jail. They put these carrots in soup. This group of corgis. Put tiny boots on them, they should be boots, but that's the big problem here for companies involved in the opioid crisis.

It just became the cost of doing business and throughout this entire crisis it has been difficult to find real accountability for the people involved and there. There may be no more frustrating example of this than Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer behind oxycontin, the drug that arguably started this crisis. Purdue aggressively marketed oxycontin to doctors as a less addictive pain reliever that could be used to treat common conditions such as back and knee pain. Which obviously wasn't true, it would be like using cocaine for a toothache which, by the way, in the 19th century, people actually had an idea: I had a toothache this morning, but I took some medicine and now I'm really excited about it. 20 different business ideas.

I'm going to write a script Purdue Purdue is owned by members of the Sackler family; Together they are worth an estimated $13 billion, which has allowed them to proudly place their name on some truly impressive monuments to other people's talents. The Sackler name is on parts of the Met, the Louvre, the Natural History Museum, the National Gallery of London, the Royal College of Art and Institute, the prison, an Oxford library and exactly the crossing of the Royal Botanic Gardens, not bad for a family whose name sounds familiar. like a Hamburg villain who steals testicles no, the Sackler came in the middle of the night and now my penis is shaking.

Love without a sack puts their names on things, although until very recently they have been miraculously good at keeping their name out of the opioid crisis, but that is now changing with protests like This in New York City this

week

end Protesters flooded the Guggenheim Museum and threw fake prescriptions from the upper walkway angry that the museum accepts large donations from the Sackler family, who have been accused of engineering the opioid epidemic. Wow, I know this isn't the point. but think about the janitor at the Guggenheim who has to clean all that up Dennis didn't get millions from the pharmaceutical industry Dennis makes $15 an hour and maybe the occasional chance to masturbate in a Cezanne no, I'm not saying he's a good janitor.

I just said you should think about it. The reason for this change in public perception is the realization of how deeply some of the fools were involved because, unlike most of the second generation heirs of Family Fortunes, some were very practical. Sackler worked at Purdue during the crisis, serving as president from 1999 to 2003 and serving on the board along with seven other family members, and now, thanks to a series of lawsuits filed by several states, we're getting a glimpse of the depth of Sackler's involvement. Richards, Massachusetts alleges. that Richard Sackler at one point demanded to be sent into the field with sales reps on doctors' visits; in fact, his micromanagement was apparently so extreme that Purdue's vice president of sales and marketing wrote to the CEO about anything he could do to reduce Richard's direct contact.

The entrance into the organization is appreciated and, according to some of his statements, that the micromanagement was in service of a fairly clear purpose, according to court documents recently filed when oxycontin was first launched, Richard Sackler Purdue, former president, is cited and son of the founder of the company, saying in a company. In the event that the launch was followed by a recipe blizzard, surprisingly the full quote is actually worse: He calls it a recipe blizzard that will bury the competition and then goes on to say that the blizzard will be so thick and white that it will look like a slogan for frozen: That's pretty cool, but it's concerning when applied to addictive painkillers, and Richard SACNAS' glib tone continued even as Purdue began to see the consequences of the drugs they were promoting at the dawn of the opioid epidemic. , when 59 deaths were reported in a single state The president of Purdue wrote a quote: "This is not that bad, it could have been a lot worse." Wow, that's insensitive and completely off base because the phrase "it could have been worse" can be applied to literally anything, in fact it's one of the only things that can't apply to Richard Sackler's statement about those 59 deaths and I have to say I'm not sure the full horror of that comment comes across and when you hear a guy read it on TV and the problem is we have to use Clips like that because there are no Richard Sackler clips, he never does interviews, even that photo is one of the few we could find and we thought how remarkable he is in himself, he's an incredibly rich man and he's actually easier to find. multiple options of images of birds standing on turtles or babies that look short and we can all agree that those babies look a lot like a short one and this invisibility feels deliberate and whether it is or not it definitely It has been convenient for Richard Sackler. because honestly it's hard to tell the story of your time at Purdue without any video, there's only so much time anyone can listen to someone at a desk reading court documents, believe me, I know I'm painfully aware of that, so tonight In fact, I've done something unusual to help you get the emotional impact of Richard SACNAS' real words.

We have an actor to play him, so let's try that

last

quote again. Richard Sackler, a news article about oxycontin addiction says it has caused 59 deaths in one state alone, how do you respond? That's not so bad, it might require something worse. That's right, we have Michael Keaton because when you're looking for a dark heir to a vast fortune who doesn't like the spotlight, you become Batman. one look that helps a little here, let's try another one as evidence grew that oxy was causing widespread addiction. Sackler urged the company to publicly blame addicts. Michael King, what did he really write?

We have to punish abusers in every way. It is possible that they are to blame and the problem is reckless criminals. Sackler actually wrote that and not only does it seem malicious and ruthless, but it also doesn't make any sense, he's angry at the people who are part of the problem, but the people he's angry at help make him incredibly rich. You don't see Adam Levine releasing a song condemning horny middle-aged women because that would be hypocritical. Who do you think made you who you are? Adam, you're just dangerous enough for the suburbs. Let the moms masturbate to the energy that got them to where they are today, show some respect to their son base, now for legal reasons I have to tell you the firing, listen, Purdue insists the family did not cause the crisis of opioids and strongly denies the claims in the lawsuits we've mentioned that Richard Sackless's comments have been taken out of context with quotes culled from tens of millions of other emails and business documents, but two things about that because, first, , every time they add context, it doesn't really help much, for example their explanation of Sackless saying that the news of 59 deaths wasn't that badwas that I was simply commenting on the nature of the recent press coverage, which is not better in any meaningful way regarding that Blizzard line of recipes.

I have stated that the full context of this is that his comments were an allusion to his late arrival at that event due to the well-known blizzard of 1996, which again in no way exonerates him. Oh, guys, it's not like Richard was recklessly and callously anticipating the arrival of oxycontin. popularity while it was sunny it was snowing hello and it is that for a family that complains about lack of context it is thought that they tirelessly hide it because time and time again they have solved cases with the condition that the evidence be sealed and In fact, it is not available for public a few years ago, Purdue settled a lawsuit with Kentucky on the condition that the state attorney general destroy 17 million pages of documents. 17 million pages, that's a veritable blizzard of context that they didn't want anyone to see and you can write. to see why because just the flashes of information that we've seen recently resulted in that Guggenheim protest which in turn led to the museum deciding to stop receiving funding from the no-bags and the Guggenheim is not the only institution that is cutting ties : Sackler x and the National Portrait Gallery in London have mutually agreed to cancel a planned donation of 1.3 million dollars, it is true that the National Portrait Gallery also rescued the stackless and I know that, as punishment, they will keep 1.3 million of dollars doesn't sound so bad, but keep in mind that these people have infinite money and seem to enjoy it. nothing more than using it to buy social status, so not being able to put their name on things maybe is a real punishment for them, but I would say that's only half of it, the other half is having to put their name on the crisis of opioids they face.

They fought so hard to distance themselves and that public accounting is starting to be possible even though Richard Sackler has barely appeared in public and there is actually a tantalizing development here because a few

week

s ago the transcript of a video deposition that Richard Sackler gave in that Kentucky case the case remember we are 17 million documents were destroyed less for ProPublica and statistical news this is all here this is what Purdue really didn't want anyone to see and there are some damning things here the really effective thing would be to see the video of this statement, but Purdue is fighting for Rochas.

It's hard to keep it sealed, which benefits them, as you've seen tonight, news anchors reading quotes will only take you so far, but we have the statement and you should know, Michael. Keaton isn't the only actor we got to play Richard Sacker; in fact, we got several actors to read parts of his statement verbatim, and who better to convey the arrogance of an initial exchange about SACNAS' involvement at Purdue than someone responsible for interpreting it. one of the biggest drug dealers in television history on July 30, 2014, were you a director of Purdue Pharma Inc? Um, not that I know this is an affidavit filed in the Southern District of West Virginia and it appears to be his name that does it and it is dated July 30, 2014 says statement from dr.

Richard S Sackler I am a director of Purdue Pharma Inc, general partner of Purdue Pharma LP. I've held this position since 1990, that's what they say, that's what they say. Wow, Richard Sackler came off like a real idiot, certainly more than If I read that to you and since we had Bryan Cranston we didn't stop there because this statement also contains an excerpt from a speech Sackler gave when oxycontin was launched bragging about how quickly Purdue got the FDA to approve it, so we had him, Walter, why didn't this just happen on that one too? It was a definitely coordinated planned event that required dozens of workers and years of effort to ensure that the most demanding new drug approval package for any painkiller product ever filed did not languish at the agency, unlike the years in which other filings persist.

Before the FDA, this product was approved in 11 months 14 days. Our previous best approval time for other products was measured in years, not months. I felt like deep down I look sure that we could have stopped there those two actors were already amazing, but then we remember that this is HBO and if we want anyone to read this in another email that Richard Sackler wrote this one characterizing his devotion to oxycontin , we have access to the cost of another iconic drug drama, so get ready everyone. because everyone is making oxycotin a huge hit, it almost is and I've dedicated my life to it, in fact I think the only problem here is that all these actors are great and Richard Sackler decidedly isn't, so embodies the fact that he answered I don't know more than a hundred times during his testimony we asked Richard to read just a selection of them how much money has Purdue Frederick or Purdue Farmer made from the sale of I guess I don't know, you know how.

How much does the sacred family earn from the sale of oxygen time I don't know who Lydia Johnson is I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know how many producing entities there are I don't know I'm pretty effective Correct look Richard Sackler might say Hey, that's not fair . I didn't sound like that, but we don't know if it sounded like that if we can't see the tape, so I should absolutely allow it to be released. but if he doesn't, we can only imagine what was going on during his deposition, for example, maybe he was carelessly eating a turkey sandwich during this real exchange about oxycontin addiction, has he made any effort? or as we sit here today, do you know how many patients who took oxycontin in Kentucky became dependent or addicted.

No Do you believe that an appropriate number of patients or an excessive number of patients who took oxycontin in Kentucky became addicted or dependent? No Does Purdue know or have made any effort to determine how many people? who started taking oxycontin ended up becoming dependent and switching to heroin at some point no, why would he eat a sandwich during such a serious deposition? I mean, yeah, maybe he didn't, but it would be very easy for Richard Sackler to prove that The point is, until he does, we upload a bunch of videos of four different Richard SACNAS reading excerpts from their emails and statements to Sackler Gallery com, which I'm sure you'll enjoy, they love having their names.

We have something about various state lawsuits on the site so you can read them for yourself. The point here is that Richard's unsack deposition shouldn't be something Purdue can bury like it has buried so many other things over the years, so go to the website and look. and use the clips as the context sees fit