If you understand who Richard "Dirty Dick" Sadler is, the story makes a lot more sense: Sackler joined Purdue Pharma in 1971, as assistant to the president.[8]

If you understand who Richard "Dirty Dick" Sadler is, the story makes a lot more sense: Sackler joined Purdue Pharma in 1971, as assistant to the president.[8] He became head of R&D and head of marketing before becoming president in 1999, and co-chairman in 2003.[8] Sackler was in charge of the research department that developed OxyContin. As president, he approved the targeted marketing schemes to promote sales of OxyContin to doctors, pharmacists, nurses, academics, and others. Shelby Sherman, an ex-Purdue sales rep, has called these marketing schemes "graft".[2] In 2015, Sackler was deposed by four lawyers in Louisville, Kentucky. The deposition concerned the development and marketing of OxyContin under the watch of him and his family, who were and are active board members of their private company, Purdue Pharma. The marketing and prescribing of OxyContin in Pike County, Kentucky, was of particular interest. Before the case could go to trial and thus before the deposition could become a matter of public record, Purdue settled for $24 million, admitting no liability, sealing the deposition, and requiring the Kentucky prosecutors to destroy, or return to Purdue, millions of pages of internal documents obtained from the company during discovery. The medical news website STAT then sued to unseal Richard Sackler's deposition. A state judge ruled in its favor. Purdue appealed, and, as of October 26, 2017, that appeal remains outstanding. The deposition cannot be made public unless the appeal is decided in favor of STAT again.[9] Sackler has donated to both Republican and Democratic politicians, though chiefly to Republicans.[3] His charitable foundation, the Richard and Beth Sackler Foundation, has donated to anti-Muslim organizations, as well as to organizations that have promoted the falsehood that millions of undocumented immigrants voted in the 2016 presidential election.[3] Sackler is a member of the board of advisors of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.[7] -------------------- Even when they were developing opioids, they knew that that long term care was ineffective and that the risks outweigh the benefits for long term care. This guy does not care. Politicians are on the take so they don't care. As long as companies can patent and profit off of prescription drugs, this problem will continue. It's that simple, yet no one in government has the guts to take these people on. For starters, someone get that damn transcript because I'm sure it has plenty of information to blow the lid off of this.