Massachusetts Attorney General Targets Oxycontin Maker Purdue, Says They Engineered Opioid Crisis (Page 2)
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The Massachusetts attorney general is targeting Purdue Pharma and eight members of the Sackler family who own the company, alleging in a lawsuit they are "personally responsible" for deceptively selling OxyContin.

The attorney general, Maura Healey, sat down with CBS This Morning. She alleges the Sackler family hired "hundreds of workers to carry out their wishes" – pushing doctors to get "more patients on opioids, at higher doses, for longer, than ever before" all while paying "themselves billions of dollars."

In her lawsuit, Healey names eight members of the family that own Purdue Pharma, alleging they "micromanaged" a "deceptive sales campaign." In the conclusion to the complaint, Healey said the Sackler family used the power at their disposal to engineer an opioid crisis. Almost 400,000 people died from opioid overdoses between 1999 and 2017, according to the CDC.

Full Story: CBS This Morning

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Re: cliff j (# 43)

Thank you Cliff. I always respect your feedback and knowledge.

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Re: ThunderHeart (# 42)

Sounds to me like your withdrawing.

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Re: ThunderHeart (# 42)

I agree with the vast majority of your post. It is the street users and abusers that has been the biggest spur to this so called "opioid crisis". They cannot prosecute the street drug addicts mainly because they have no assets and it is one thing to get a judgement but another thing to collect on it. I am still on the fence about Purdue, the manufacturer. If they intentionally pooh poohed the addictive quality of their medications and basically said there is no concern then they may have some culpability. I will wait for the FACTS. I do agree that most people are "free moral characters". You have a CHOICE about what to ingest into your system. If I make the CHOICE to take street drugs then I would expect no one to feel sorry for me. Anyone that is addicted to street drugs needs to talk to competent people and get off these things.You started them and, with effort, you can get off them.

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It was the scum drug addicts and abusers that caused this so called crisis. Not Purdue!! But its alot easier to go after companies than the individuals that are causing the problems!! DO YOUR HOMEWORK!!!!

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Re: Bella (# 38)

You are so welcome bella, kudos to you for speaking out for how addiction can happen to anyone... I used to think it was the street bum who does drugs to just feel high, I have taken classes for this very topic, to get knowledge about addiction. I found out it can happen to the best of people who have very good jobs, lawyers, doctors, the president's daughter, and myself. In 2005 I had to make the move to buprenorphine treatment for myself, at the time I don't know if I was just addicted or needed my medicine. I was probably just dependent. Either way I'm better now and thank God I never overdosed myself. I will admit I have been very close to it..once again my husband of 39 years came to my rescue..I'm very lucky he Stayed with me all these years. I'm sure any other person would have left me by now. I wish when someone speaks out of line about addiction that they would get the knowledge first.

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Re: nimshie29 (# 4)

Like the State doesn't? One of there strategies is to subject any company they sue to an elongated process that costs mega bucks. The State can much easier bring this type of civil litigation because they have “bottomless pockets” due to the fact that their money comes from the taxpayers.

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Re: Anon (# 3)

People like you throw the word “lie” around every time someone disagrees with you. A “lie” is an intentional misrepresentation of the FACTS. Maybe, the salespeople that you cast as liars were trained by the manufacturer and since they did not use opioids themselves may have bought into the company training and said what they were trained to say. The manufacturer is probably guilty. Maybe some of the salespeople are guilty. But to say that everyone just LIED is not correct. Maybe they thought what they were saying was the facts.

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Re: Charlene (# 35)

I just want to say thank you Charlene for your compassion. I just wanted to know what my nephew did to have this happen to this angry man. How is this guys problems have to do with my nephew. Singling him out like that was terrible. But to be honest this man is the only person in which I ever heard speak like this about our kids. You can come from a family of pristine parents and it has nothing to do with that. It’s their peers who one needs to be careful from. I am very adamant about this because I know the type of kid he was. Handsome from a good family. It doesn’t discriminate. All I know is if anyone has seen the suffering of a parent or relative go through this, this I know. The deepest abyss of pain and grief the human spirit can endure, is the death of your child. I pray a rosary every day for all addicted. Take care.

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Re: Charlene (# 34)

I owe NO ONE, much less Bella, an apology. I. said that people should take responsibility for their own actions. Her nephew took illegal drugs and it killed him. I am tired of the codependent people who try and justify every adverse thing they do with an excuse. They have a “ disease”. Baloney. They made a bad choice. YOU are the one that has a nasty attitude. I have never been a drug addict and I am not addicted to anything. I have taken PRESCRIBED, legal pain medications. And I have survived many decades longer than a 20 year old. You think that everyone that does not agree with YOUR OPINION is nasty. I will NEVER say that creating excuses for another’s bad choices are correct. Accept responsibility for your own actions. NO ONE takes responsibility for CHOICES I make. Theiris no one that is creating a “codependency” with me or any choices I make. The difference between me and this other person is that I accept responsibility for any bad choices I make. She makes excuses for others who make bad choices. The pills I take are taken after many tests, step therapies, and consideration of what options I have. Her “nephew” had the choice to NOT take any illegal drugs but he took them anyway—and it killed him. My pills are taken as prescribed and are legally prescribed. Her nephew took illegal drugs that were not prescribed to him. There is nothing “not nice” about calling people out for being codependent with a street drug addict. That is my opinion but people like YOU say others are not entitled to their opinions. Only yours are valid. While you try to counsel others on how to write a post you send out an ascerbic post yourself. I do not care what others like YOU think about me or my opinion. I will never be afraid to call out a person that posts what I perceive as a codependent position (like making excuses for a street drug addict that kills themselves). Again, stop making excuses for those that made bad choices. Quit blaming others for their bad choices. No one should take any pleasure on the bad choices of another but he made the CHOICE and look where it got him. I am alive and he is not. All because he CHOSE to take an illegal substance. “Disease” my ass!

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Re: RosalieMBo (# 33)

Rosalie....wow, what a book you could write! I am so moved by your story. As a Catholic, you understand what JMJ means. They are my go to support team, and I'll bet yours too! God bless you and the angels protect you. I too have been smashed and bashed by life in every way. The physical, awful as that's been, can not compare to the emotional. Unlike you, I have abused myself in many of the typical ways. Haven't done what I should to care for my "temple" besides running until age 52, so theres nothing that comes my way that makes me a victim. Prayers to JMJ (not me, lol) for you.

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Re: Bella (# 31)

Hi, I'm very sorry that guy was so hateful to you, he just sounded like a very unhappy person who has built up a lot of hatred inside himself..so don't take it seriously anymore. And don't even bother to write him back. He will only be nasty again..I just wrote him, and I'm sure I will be getting a nasty note back to..just remember we don't know him, and he doesn't know your family or the ordeal you went through..I'm sorry he said such hateful things about him..

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Re: cliff j (# 32)

Cliff you have no right to speak to anyone like you said to bella, you are very hateful and have no knowledge about addiction!!..your on this page for a reason??, which leads me to believe you are on pain medication to..which only makes me believe you to take medication, so who is the addict here?..or codependency. People have Gene's for addiction and addiction can lead to anything..we all have taken pain pills here, . We all have a choice or need to take them..one person can get addicted and the next not.....and sometimes one can die just by taking one pill and the other not, I read it all the time..I read that one person died just from taking one oxycontin...or one fentanyl and the next person did fine... so brush up on your knowledge before you speak to anyone in this group and you own bella an apology..if you cannot be nice about what you have to say,..then don't say it at all...what do you get out of being hateful??. There is absolutely no reason unless you're just one unhappy person, go ahead read a lot of comments here, do you see any other hateful post...so anyways go ahead I'm sure I will get one now,. Be kind to others,..look what you just gained from being hateful? , no being liked a whole lot..

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Re: Bella (# 16)

Bella, I’ve been in AA for 37 years, and subscribe to a very old message which was "take nothing that alters your emotional mental or physical self so that you can develop the character you were meant to"... 45 years ago I couldn’t even get into the gym to strengthen because I was a skinny person with terrible posture. I started very late and it was difficult to even hold a 1 pound wrist weight without making noise as I did not want to take any pain meds (which as you said would only own me). Of course, with my personality I became a bodybuilder ... just because I had to do something more as I had more energy than most being ADD/ADHD, had lots of different bad sources to contend with, and lots of illnesses and surgeries. Was also going into detox’s with stitches in place to clean the crap out of me. Seven times.

Some things are out of my control. I checked into the hospital three times as the stent that I ("Ms fitness out of nowhere") needed, and subject to the only test I have feared, an angiogram. I started to become weaker but still working out. But after 9/11, and I was with the first classified victim Father Mychal Judge, coming up from the subway, and we found the maelstrom. He said, "let’s go!" I couldn’t say no, he was my spiritual adviser, and after pulling out over 60 people, I got hit with the remains of some poor spirit.

I also got hit extremely hard in 2015-2016 with a 46 pound weight loss in one month and only 19% of my heart’s pump functioning. Quite easy to see by anybody. I started to get burglarized, and my tenant’s son made certain that the lieutenant did not make any reports. He even walked in here and took the police out! This happened many times. Plus with no protection no help, no family, I decided to sell my dream home, for which they caused me more problems than anything in the world, but I hung in there.

I got a 60 day cash deal contract, and even though those rent controlled tenants bought and lived exclusively in a house in New Jersey for 3 1/2 years now, I was to deliver this place as vacant. And by law I’m not allowed to speak to them, and my lawyer and my realtor certainly did screw me and betrayed me, as greed is as an evil foe! They wanted $300,000 to give up the rights of the empty apartment fraudulently, and with a 104 fever and some kind of a comatose state yet, had to move - and in retrospect I should’ve waited until those papers were signed by them, now I stand to lose my home as my taxes increased by over 11k a year more than my income, and I have tried much to get it back down.

Am losing this battle. After three months of my pain management dr trying to get generic (the same) of what now has eaten up almost every muscle of mine - creating the pain I cannot control - got that together. But when asked for his help and questioned exactly what his job entailed, if not for finding a reason that caused the incredible pain that has returned with the vengeance of age, as well and stress beyond belief. I’ve done major surgeries under local shots, and to my Dr’s disbelief, couldn’t move. Then coming back home they took our gas meters so I can’t even cook, and I can’t pay my mortgage and my utilities and it’s been pretty tough time for me.

Anyways, 1 foot in front of the other, and at 5’6” 103 pounds is not easy to look at while I continue to disappear alone, isolated, and terrified. How many people realize that if they are lucky enough to reach an age above 55, that they might just reap the things they’ve ignored in their youth ... And now find themselves in pain, elderly, and I consider that condition is where people become throwaways. No one has to agree with me as it is my experience. What I have read and seen with my own eyes that gives me the opinion that no matter what I truly expect more than half the population will be in pain and has nowhere to go. And I can only tell you I have asked my cardiologist if he knows how to get me off that regimen of opiates with my heart and he doesn’t have a clue... just as my pain management doctor hasn’t got a clue as to the effects on my heart and lungs in detox off these drugs that I did not want in the first place.

The worst part is how hard I fight not to be in this position and I haven’t the strength any longer. And like questioning him, actually asking him to help me now that some things were not a problem, he dismissed me and gave me a prescription for two sheets of Suboxone a day. The last time I did that I took 6 x 8mg pills a day and was in full withdrawal. I really don’t think I’m going to make it past this one and I don’t really know with all the things that encircle me heavily that I cannot get out of alone. I have no idea but you’re write to the Government, City and state regarding many issues that I do not deserve, but nonetheless own.

You can’t even live in a box in the street anymore with your name on it in New York today, so what am I supposed to do! The last thing I had in mind. I'm dependent and now broke and in debt for the first time in my life at a time that I cannot meet the needs it takes to fight as I used to. I am sure I’m here for a reason and I must fight. Nowhere in my mind is the belief that it is in people, but in the medical field, who has created it... And not Purdue as the fall guy in all of this baloney that they are trying to stick on us and have us believe. It appears my doctor is worthless and try to cover up in his statement, not going to happen, but I want all of this and I know how much I hurt, but I will either grow or go as I never expected to live this long anyway. No one else in my family has and I’m just a bit more weaker and tired than I require. I never borrowed money and I had to borrow 350 K just to make it past one year (and that’s on paper), and I’m going to wind up in the street anyway, but there is no blaming Ethiopia even though I look like an Ethiopian right now wow that’s scary. And most help is for tenants, so I have been betrayed at a seriously painful level and I am very angry that my spirit is changed forever. And I will not allow a foreclosure as I was raised to pay your bills before you eat, but they have certainly put them way to high to meet. I was even dragged out of Delta’s airport because 19% of my heart has to regenerate if it is stressed too much and I wore a caduceus bracelet. And not once was I asked if I was OK and dragged off to Jamaica hospital.

The humiliation grows, and if that’s why am here, then I'd better do whatever it takes to make that known as everyone who is lucky enough as I said to get here in a healthy manner in which I did everything I could possibly do to be just that, but it didn’t work that way for me. Be cautious in wording things as you never know it might be the last thing somebody is holding onto called Hope, and that is not sometimes very easy to hold onto. But to be a slave to a drug which getting off of would kill me and no one would give a darn. It is quite sad, so I better make certain to make enough noise in all the right places, as I don’t blame all the people that take drugs, for the ones who decide in the street and wind up over dosing.

There is so much more to life than texting and keeping one’s head in their phone or computer. There are people, people who are still alive, to share more than just LOL and the blame doesn’t fall on Purdue for a personal choice of any individual. I’m sorry that I jumped negative stuff on people’s spirits here, as that wasn’t my intention, but there are things that occur that are not planned yet they are!

And I want no pity but if you want to fight, you can join me as I am going to start making more noise and accusations with films and CDs to prove that they cause what will continue putting their children through college. Before I stopped to support my parents, I did it you’re in middle school and at the commencement ceremony they said, "Our world is not to be fast and practical, but, To Dream and Explore!" It certainly is not going to be easy, Imagine that!

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Re: Bella (# 31)

I have no addiction. Just because YOU say something does not make it true. People should accept their issues and deal with them. Actually it is YOU who are codependent with these dope fiends that is the problem. If you would have tried to help this doper he might still be here. Instead you make all kinds of excuses for him and guess what? He abuses and misuses things that were not meant for him. They did not know? Then why are they taking s*** that was not meant for them. Because they are lowlife dope fiends that’s why! To hell with the dealers. A person can CHOOSE to say yes or no and your nephew chose to say yes. SMART people walk away. Stupid dope fiends give these morons a job by saying yes when they could have said no.

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Re: cliff j (# 30)

You went right over my question and that was HOW IS MY NEPHEW RELATED TO YOUR ADDICTION? your ignorant. Your what’s wrong with society. You have a hatred and a stigma on kids who are addicted. He didn’t kill himself. It was ACCIDENTAL like your birth. I am CATHOLIC and was counseled by my priest who knows more about death dying and suffering than you will ever know. Except I truly hope you suffer for the disturbing statements you have said about a deceased child. I don’t know how old you are, as for me I am not addicted to anything like you are. Millions of kids have overdosed because of a bad pill or batch. THEY NEVER KNEW this. They experimented. Yet I see you not commented on the DEALERS but blame the addicted kids for your addiction ya that makes sense. My last statement to you because you’re not worth anymore than I already gave...is one day you will see. Maybe you’re suffering now that’s why your here.

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Re: Bella (# 28)

You know he is in Heaven? Well, it is not up to me and it surely NOT up to YOU. I will worry about me and you take care of YOU. ANYONE that OD's from street drugs is not too bright, it doesn't matter what they were studying. He will probably be given another chance to right his conduct when there is the resurrection. (If everyone goes immediately to Heaven then why is there even a resurrection?) He had some mental infirmity somewhere to get involved in street drugs and then he kills himself. How easy is it to blame a disease? This way NO ONE has to take responsibility for their own actions. YOU need help before YOU end up killing yourself.

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Re: Cliff J (# 27)

I’d like to know how my nephew had anything to do with your desperation to want a doctor prescription? He never went to a doctor for drugs. He did a pill from college that btw someone is being prosecuted in as we speak. HOW IS THIS THAT HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH YOU??? These kids suffer. There is no help even if they want to be clean! It’s the system. Don’t EVER speak about addiction again in the manner that you have. Addiction is a disease, not a moral failing! It's a brain disease, chronic, progressive, deadly and potentially deadly. You don’t read, prob can’t get out etc...and I thank MEDSCHAT for allowing me to call you out. Talk about stupid.

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Re: Cliff J (# 27)

He was in a coma first from pneumonia a year earlier. For 5 days my family prayed. When he awoke the first words he said were "thank you Jesus." We were stunned. After the coma he didn’t know how to use a washing machine and his thought process and decisions were compromised by this complication. He almost died while in the coma. No drugs before this. I know he is in Heaven as for yourself I’m not so sure. You’re a nasty person and I truly hope you sU??er. How DARE you call my nephew not too bright! He was studying Engineering. You are a pos.

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Re: Bella (# 26)

Funny, I don’t have an addiction and I am still here. For a college educated person he did not sound too bright. OD on street drugs. Real intelligent.

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Re: cliff j (# 25)

He lived with me. He was in college. You're the one that’s blaming kids for your own addiction.

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