The Sackler Family and Their Role in the Opioid Crisis

Purdue Pharma was started by Arthur, Mortimer, and Raymond Sackler in the 1950s. Its most successful product was OxyContin. Purdue failed to perform the required trials and used misleading marketing practices to promote the drug. The Sackler family encouraged these false advertising campaigns in an attempt to drive up sales. These deceitful tactics caught up with the company and Purdue Pharma’s affiliate pled guilty to deliberately misbranding the drug in 2006. Purdue Pharma currently faces thousands of lawsuits, with Sackler family members personally named, for misleading marketing practices. States uncovering evidence of the Sackers attempting to hide their fortune via wire transfers and offshore accounts and institutions removing the family name from their doors threaten both the Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family’s money and influence.
The opioid crisis was inflamed by multiple sources, from which Purdue Pharma and other pharmaceutical companies benefited. The first is the Revolving Door, where government workers go to work for the companies they were once in charge of regulating. Existing loopholes allow former officials to immediately become lobbyists and perform consulting work. The Food and Drug Administration has close ties with lobbyists and pharmaceutical companies, which casts doubt and suspicion on its policies. Tightening and expanding current Revolving Door regulations would begin to stem this problem. Extending the cooling-off period to a minimum of five years would prevent former government workers from immediately influencing government policies. Furthermore, the laws need to be modified to include more specific language to eliminate loopholes. Banning former government employees from any counseling services or lobbying any government branch, agency, or office will make it much more difficult to circumvent the rules.
The second are “pill mills,” whereby physicians, clinics, or pharmacies prescribe prescription drugs inappropriately. There exists a web of regulation and reporting laws from federal and state governments, but pill mills still established themselves. Florida enacted laws that created stricter requirements for dispensing drugs, medical examinations, and follow-ups before and after prescribing opioids for chronic pain. These laws had positive results in stopping pill mills. Similar laws should be enacted nationally. Existing laws focusing on the pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors, and pharmacies should be expanded to improve reporting between those agencies and the DEA and the DEA and other government agencies.
The last one is the American drug addiction rehab system. It is fraught with stigma, lax insurance information, inconsistent treatments, and poorly utilized information. The system often fails to provide care for those who need it. Increasing the scope of treatments would boost its effectiveness. States need to require insurance companies to cover mental health treatment to the same extent and degree as physical health issues and use a uniform, standardized tool to decide the necessary level of care addiction patients need. Public report cards for treatment centers would improve their long-term level of care and ease patients in finding a treatment center that fits them.
Addressing these problems has already begun at the both federal and state level. As these causes are identified and attacked, it will become easier to pass the laws needed to repair the system that allowed the opioid crisis to occur.