Archives for November 2023

Richard’s argument about OxyContin mirrored the libertarian position of a firearms manufacturer who insists that he bears no responsibility for gun deaths. Guns don’t kill people; people kill people. It is a peculiar hallmark of the American economy that you can produce a dangerous product and effectively off-load any legal liability for whatever destruction that product may cause by pointing to the individual responsibility of the consumer. “Abusers aren’t victims,” Richard said. “They are the victimizers.”

Patrick Radden Keefe in Empire of Pain

At the turn of the nineteenth century, an apothecary’s assistant in Prussia had conducted a series of experiments in which he managed to isolate the chemical alkaloids in opium and synthesize the drug. He named this new substance morphine, after Morpheus, from Greek mythology—the god of dreams.

Patrick Radden Keefe in Empire of Pain

But the original House of Sackler was built on Valium, and it seems significant, and revealing, that for the rest of his life Arthur would downplay his association with the drug, emphasizing his achievements in other areas and deliberately obscuring (or leaving out altogether) the fact that his first fortune was made in medical advertising.

Patrick Radden Keefe in Empire of Pain

“The doctor is feted and courted by drug companies with the ardor of a spring love affair,” one commentator observed. “The industry covets his soul and his prescription pad because he is in a unique economic position; he tells the consumer what to buy.”

Patrick Radden Keefe in Empire of Pain

In fact, more Americans had lost their lives from opioid overdoses than had died in all of the wars the country had fought since World War II.

Patrick Radden Keefe in Empire of Pain