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

druks on one hand America's war on them has been a complete catastrophe but on the other hand it did give us this photo of Nancy Reagan sitting on mr. T's lap so it wasn't a complete loss and by the way I pity the fool that didn't think they were gonna after that specifically specifically we're going to talk about opioids and if you're thinking hold on didn't you do a show on this before yeah we did one two and a half years ago but tonight we're gonna do an update for a couple of key reasons first the epidemic is very much ongoing in 2017 opioid overdoses killed more than 47,000 Americans and second since then we've learned a lot more about many of the companies involved if something's been amazing for instance a criminal case involving executive in the drunk maker iNSYS on earth they rap video allegedly made to motivate their sales force to go out and sell a painkiller containing the highly addictive drug fentanyl take a look [Music] you like silent all beasts yes Beast but but let's just stop for a moment there to unpack the line if you're trying to ball I'll substitute you like a xylitol that is a reference to the key ingredient in sugar-free gum it is astonishingly almost impossibly lame it is genuinely difficult to come up with a rap that is languor than that and I'll show you splash rules everything around me Hank's get the mermaid Daryl Daryl Hannah y'all now if that like is that like yes it is is it lamer than the interest video 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 pull a few of these new revelations together and look at what we've learned about how the first wave of the opioid crisis began because it's a story of how major companies acted wildly irresponsibly skirted any meaningful consequences and for the most part avoided public scrutiny let's start with drug distributors these are the big three that the companies responsible for getting drugs to pharmacies and hospitals they're supposed to alert authorities if they notice suspicious orders of controlled substances but for a sense of just how badly they failed to do that look at Kermit West Virginia named of course because it's where come at the Frog lives with this secret second family oh that's right he's in a throuple with two salamanders named Francois and Gary and they are very very happy it was it was never you Miss Piggy it was him the amount of opioids sent to Kermit a town of just 400 people was utterly ridiculous this undercover video of Kermit's main pharmacy shows scores 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 it's true three million doses to a town of 400 people that's around 7500 pills for every resident in Kermit and just to be clear we mean every resident in comets not every resident in Kermit Kermit kermin is a top I'll have you know not that that is any of your business but those sorts of figures clearly should have caught the attention of distributors in fact the largest one McKesson alone shipped five million doses of opioids to Kermit in just two years and that's just one example of mcKesson's reckless behavior and the problem is at no point will they effectively deterred in 2008 the DEA alleged that McKesson had failed to control its controlled substances McKesson agreed to pay a thirteen million dollar fine that's all without admitting wrongdoing and also promised to do better by implementing a controlled substances monitoring program but that program emphatically did not work in fact a DEA official later wrote their bad acts had continued and escalated to a level of egregious 'no seen before because of course they did you can't put McKesson in charge of monitoring McKesson if the Bears in your zoo get out at night and start mauling the other animals you don't deputize one of the Bears to monitor the situation and I know what you're thinking but John I've already brought him a little Sheriff's outfit to wear and I think he looked great in it and yes of course he would but at the end of the day bears are gonna bear it's just in their nature and again before you say well I've spent quite a bit of money designing a custom-made sheriff's badge just for him don't you think the bear will recognize the gravitas of that symbol and feel compelled to grow and change his bear ways in some way no I don't because bears respect nothing they they think the importance that we place on symbols and status makes us weak they value nothing but blood and strength and I know what you're gonna say now is there anything I can do the answer is of course not because while you were talking sheriff bear more due to death you're dead now goodbye why are we still talking about this the point is McKesson monitoring itself clearly did not work because in 2017 they wound up agreeing to another fine bigger this time a hundred and fifty million dollars this time which yes sounds like a lot until you realize that that is less than one 1000th of their revenue for one year and well well today McKesson says that they've improved their monitoring systems for realsies this time pinky promise and and they argue that they weren't the ones setting the demand for opioids at any point even the DEA agent in charge of their case thought that their settlement was absurd how do you settle how do you say it's okay just here write this check this time and close this place for a little bit sign this piece of paper how do you do that no put him in jail he's right put him in jail and obviously I'd watch an entire show that he's just that guy telling me where to put things McKesson executives put them in jail these carrots put them in soup this group of corgis put them in tiny boots they should be boots but that is the big problem here for companies involved in the opioid crisis finds just became the cost of doing business and throughout this crisis it has been difficult to find any real accountability for the people involved and there may be no more frustrating example of that than Purdue Pharma the manufacturer behind oxycontin the drug that arguably kick-started this crisis Purdue famously aggressively marketed oxycontin to doctors as a less addictive painkiller that could be used to treat common conditions like back aches and knee pain which was obviously untrue would be like using cocaine for a toothache which incidentally back in the 1800's people actually did what an idea that was my tooth hurt this morning but I took some medicine and now I'm really psyched about 20 different business ideas I'm gonna write a screenplay [Applause] Purdue Purdue is owned by members of the Sackler family collectively they're worth an estimated 13 billion dollars which has enabled them to proudly slap their name on some truly impressive monuments to other people's talent the Sackler name is on parts of the Met the Louvre the Museum of Natural History the National Gallery in London the Royal College of Art and Institute jail a library Oxford and exactly crossing at the Royal Botanic Gardens not bad for a family whose very name sounds like a Hamburglar like villain that steals testicles no the Sackler came in the middle of the night and now my penis is shivering the sackless love putting their names on things although until very recently they've been miraculously good at keeping their name off the opioid crisis but that is now changing with protests like this in New York City this weekend protesters flooded the Guggenheim Museum they dropped fake prescription slips from the upper walkway angry that the museum takes big donations from the Sackler family which has been accused of engineering the opioid epidemic Wow I know this isn't the point but just spare a thought there for the Guggenheim janitor who has to clean all that up Dennis didn't take millions from the pharmaceutical industry Dennis gets $15 an hour and maybe the occasional chance to masturbate on a Cezanne no I don't say it's a good janitor I just said you should think about it the reason for this change in public perception is a dawning realization of just how deeply some of the suckers were involved because unlike most second-generation heirs to a Family Fortunes some were very hands-on Richard Sackler worked at Purdue throughout the crisis serving as president from 1999 to 2003 and served on the board along with seven other family members and now thanks to a number of lawsuits filed by various states we're getting glimpses of the depth of Richards involvement Massachusetts alleges that Richard Sackler at one point demanded to be sent into the field with sales reps on visits to doctors in fact his micromanagement was apparently so extreme that Purdue's VP of Sales and Marketing wrote to the CEO anything you can do to reduce the direct contact of Richard into the organization is appreciated and going by some of his statements that micromanagement was in service of a pretty clear purpose according to newly filed court documents when oxycontin was first released Richard Sackler Purdue's former president and son of the company founder is quoted saying at a company event that the launch would be followed by a blizzard of prescriptions amazingly the full quote is actually worse he calls it a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition and then goes on to say the blizzard will be so deep dense and white and look as a tagline for frozen - that's pretty good but it's troubling when applied to addictive painkillers and Richard SACNAS glib tone continued even as Purdue began to see the consequences of the drugs that they were pushing at the dawn of the opioid epidemic when 59 deaths were reported in a single state Purdue's President wrote quote this is not too bad could have been far worse Wow that is both callous and also completely beside the point because the phrase it could have been worse can be applied to literally anything in fact one of the only things it cannot apply to is Richard sackler statement regarding those 59 deaths and I have to say I'm just not sure the full horror of that comment comes across it and when you just hear a guy read it out on TV and the problem is we have to use Clips like that because there are no clips of Richard Sackler he never does interviews even that photo is one of only a small handful we could find and think of how remarkable that is in and of itself he's an incredibly rich man and it's genuinely easier to find multiple image options of birds standing on Turtles or babies that look like one is short and that let's all agree those babies look a lot like one is short and this this invisibility feels deliberate and whether it is or not it has definitely been convenient for Richard Sackler because it it's honestly hard to tell the story of his time at Purdue without any video there is only so long that anyone will listen to someone at a desk reading from court documents trust me I know that I'm painfully aware of that so tonight we've actually done something unusual to help you get the emotional impact of Richard SACNAS actual words we've got an actor to play him so so let's let's try that last quote again Richard Sackler a news article about oxycontin addiction says it's caused 59 deaths in a single state how do you respond that's not too bad it could require worse that's right we've got Michael Keaton because when you're casting for a shadowy heir to a vast fortune who doesn't like to be in the limelight you go Batman a look that helps a little bit right here let's try another one as evidence mounted that oxy was causing widespread addiction sackler urged the company to publicly blame those who were addicted Michael King what did he actually write we have to hammer on the abusers in every way possible they are the culprits and the problem they are reckless criminals sackler genuinely wrote that and not only does that come off as malicious and cold-hearted it also doesn't even make any sense he's furious at the people who are part of the problem but the people he's angry at helps 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 it's you're just dangerous enough for suburban moms to masturbate to energy that got you where you are today show some respect to your base son now now for legal reasons I have to tell you the sack listen Purdue insist the family didn't cause the opioid crisis and vigorously deny the claims in the lawsuits that we've mentioned saying that Richard sackless comments have been taken out of context with quotes cherry-picked from among tens of millions of other emails and business documents but two things about that because first whenever they've added context it hasn't really helped much for instance their explanation for sackless saying the news of 59 deaths was not too bad was that he was merely commenting about the nature of recent press coverage which is not better in any meaningful way whatsoever as for that Blizzard of prescriptions line they've claimed the full context for that is that his remarks were an allusion to his delayed arrival at that event due to the well-known blizzard of 1996 which again in no way exonerate him oh hey guys it's not like Richard was recklessly and callously anticipating oxycontin's popularity while it was sunny out it was snowing hello and the thing is for a family that complaints about a lack of context they are thought tirelessly to withhold it because time and time again they've settled cases on the condition that evidence will be sealed and unavailable to the public in fact a few years back Purdue settled a lawsuit with Kentucky on the condition that the state AG destroyed 17 million pages of documents 17 million pages that's an actual Blizzard of context that they did not want anyone to see and you can kind of see why because just the glimpses of information that we've seen recently resulted in that Guggenheim protest which in turn led to the museum deciding to stop taking funding from the sackless and the Guggenheim is not the only institution that's cutting ties the Sackler xand London's National Portrait Gallery have mutually agreed to call off a planned 1.3 million dollar donation it's true the National Portrait Gallery bailed on the stackless too and I know that as punishments go getting to keep 1.3 million dollars doesn't sound all that bad but keep in mind that these people have infinite money and seem to enjoy nothing more than using it to purchase social status so not getting to put their name on things maybe a real punishment to them but I would argue that that only be half of it the other half is having to put their name on the opioid crisis that they fought so hard to distance themselves from and that public accounting is starting to become possible despite the fact the Richard Sackler has barely appeared in public and there's actually a tantalizing development here because a few weeks ago the transcript of a video deposition that Richard Sackler gave in that Kentucky case the case remember we're 17 million documents were destroyed least to ProPublica and stat news this is it right here this is the thing that Purdue really did not want anyone to see and there is some damning stuff in here the really effective thing would be to see the video of this deposition but Purdue is fighting for Rochas lis hard to keep it under seal which benefits them as you've seen tonight newscasters reading quotes will only get you so far but we have the deposition and you should know Michael Keaton is not the only actor we got to play Richard sacker in fact we got multiple actors to read parts of his deposition word-for-word and who better to convey the arrogance of an early exchange about SACNAS involvement in Purdue than someone responsible for playing one of the greatest drug dealers in there in the history of television on July 30th of 2014 were you a director of Purdue Pharma Inc mmm not that I'm aware this is an affidavit filed in the Southern District of West Virginia and does that appear to be your name that does and it's dated July 30 2014 it says declaration of dr. Richard S Sackler I am a director of Purdue Pharma Inc the General Partner of Purdue Pharma LP I've held this position since 1990 that's what it says them that's what it says Wow Richard Sackler came off like a real dick there right certainly more so than if I just read that to you and since we had Bryan Cranston we didn't stop there because this deposition also contains an excerpt of a speech that Sackler gave when oxycontin was launched bragging about how quickly Purdue got the FDA to approve it so we had him go full Walter why on that one too this didn't just happen it was a definitely coordinated planned event that took dozens of workers years of effort to succeed the most demanding new drug approval package for any analgesic product ever submitted didn't languish at the agency unlike the years that other filings linger at 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 that in my bones I look sure we could have stopped there those those two actors were already incredible but then we remembered this is HBO and if we want someone to read this out of 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 brace yourselves everyone because all are coming to make oxycotin a huge success it is almost and I've dedicated my life to it indeed I look the only problem here is all of these actors are pretty cool and Richard Sackler decidedly is not and so to embody the fact that he responded I don't know more than a hundred times during his deposition we asked Richard kind to read just a selection of them how much money has Purdue Frederick or Purdue farmer made off the sale of I suppose I don't know you know how much the sacral family is made off the sale of oxy time I don't know who's Lydia Johnson I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know how many produ entities are there I don't know pretty effective right look Richard Sackler might say hey that's not fair I didn't sound like that but we don't know if he sounded like that if we can't see the tape which is why he should absolutely allow it to be released but if he doesn't we can only imagine what was going on during his deposition for instance maybe he was sloppily eating a turkey sandwich during this actual exchange about oxycontin addiction have you 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 do you know or has Purdue made any effort to ascertain how many people who were started on oxycontin wound up becoming dependent and moving on to heroin at some point no why would he eat a sandwich during such a serious deposition I mean yes maybe he didn't but it would be so easy for Richard Sackler to prove that he didn't the point is until he does that we've uploaded a bunch of videos of four different Richard SACNAS reading extracts from his emails and deposition to sackler Gallery com which I'm sure they'll enjoy they love having their names we've all something to various state lawsuits at the site so you can read them yourself the point here is Richard sackless deposition should not be something that Purdue gets to bury like it's buried so many other things over the years so please go to the website and watch and use the clips as you see fit [Applause] context [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 6,415,645

Rating: 4.9196453 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: -qCKR6wy94U

Length: 21min 20sec (1280 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 14 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/jimmyboy111]

I am happy Oliver used actors to make the Sackler name known far and wide .. the more attention this story gets the more heat will burn their collective asses at Purdue Pharma

.. Over 20 million pills in Kermit West Virginia population 360 people .. that is a straight up resale and drug peddling operation .. multiple people should be going to prison especially the directors of the board "the blizzard of prescriptions will be so deep dense and white" parasitic vultures living off human misery

[u/sudevsen]

Bryan knocked it out of the park with that clip.

[u/ithinkther41am]

Can we take a moment to appreciate the fact that John Oliver and/or his production hired Michael Keaton to eat a turkey sandwich on national television?

[u/jeajello]

Richard Kind is fucking hilarious the ‘I don’t knows’ had me dying. Bryan Cranston was the best Sackler tho I’d choose him to re-enact his deposition.

[u/BoogsterSU2]

Quick! Before Richard Nutsackler sees this!

👉 SacklerGallery.com 👈

​

In that website, you can read:

• the 2015 deposition of Richard Sackler
• the Massachusetts Attorney General's lawsuit, and
• the New York Attorney General's lawsuit against Purdue Pharma and members of the Sackler family.

​

But wait! You can also watch various actors playing as Richard Nutsackler reading the deposition out loud in a series of videos:

• Bryan Cranston
• Michael Keaton
• Richard Kind
• Michael K. Williams

[u/kingguy459]

I DON'T KNOW

[u/Zithero]

That "Measured in years, not months" is disturbing and more so because: fuck that's real. Mission accomplished Jon.

[u/dotajoe]

Perdue Chicken must just be like “fuuuuuuuck”.

[u/onesillyaustralian]

Mirror please good people of reddit