02x08 - The Real Drug Lords

[bunniefuu]

[Indistinct speaking]
Go, go, go.


declared a "w*r on drugs."

Every time we have a
w*r on something,

we always have more of what
we're going to w*r against.

And that inexhaustible
supply of illicit drugs has

left nearly a million
Americans dead.

It's just gonna go on.

It's just gonna
keep going on.

And the biggest drug
dealers aren't

standing on
street corners...

they're sitting in
board rooms.

These companies knew where
these products were going

and they knew it
was being abused.

Billions in profits off the
suffering of the addicted.

[g*nf*re]

Secret deals and
government cover-ups.

The government of
Afghanistan

was a government
of drug dealers.

The US turned a
blind eye to that reality.

It's an endless w*r with an
ever-rising body count.

We're losing people
left and right.

Can we get ahead
of this thing?

I don't know.

[Cheering]

For over 70 years,
our leaders have told us

one thing under the
bright lights...

The protection of the lives
and property of Americans

is the responsibility of
all public officials.

I care, we're trying.

We have it so well
under control.

Help is here and we will not
stop working for you.

But for decades, America's
shadow government and

its powerful friends have
spent trillions of dollars

on an agenda that serves
their interests, not ours.

You guys paid for all this.

So, when the sh*t
really hits the fan,

we're on our own.

This is not science fiction.

This is reality in America
right now.

The truth is, the rich and
powerful will do

whatever it takes to
save themselves...

While The Rest of Us Die.

[Helicopter chuff &
people shouting]

[Sirens]

The Kensington
neighbourhood

in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.

[Sirens]

Anybody want some snacks?

We got some snacks.

[Sirens & radio
communications]

It's notorious for being the
largest open-air

drug market on
the east coast.

Well, Philadelphia Police
say a bad batch of heroin is

to blame for six deadly
overdoses today.

Most of the overdoses
happened in the area of

Kensington Avenue
and Cambria Street.

Kensington has been at the
center of one addiction

epidemic after another
from heroin to crack cocaine

to the opioid era to the
return of heroin

we're living in now.

You need some water?

So, we have some chips.
We have some socks.

What do you need?

For years,
Rosalind Pichardo has been

a guardian angel to
drug users here.

What's up, sunshine?

Handing out socks,
Slim Jims, and Narcan,

a drug that reverses overdoses.

Do you need some Narcan in
case someone needs it?

Thank you, thank you for
carrying it, I appreciate you.

This is a Bible that...

I keep track of every
overdose that I reverse.

I've logged in here...



So, this was an OD
on a train.

I gave him 4 Narcans.

And he didn't make it, he died.

So, that was my first
person that I lost.

To most of us, Kensington
is what the front line

of America's w*r on drugs
looks like.

But in truth, this is where the
w*r should be fought.

[Classical]

An ostentatious world
inhabited by America's

most notorious drug
dealing family.

The Sackler family.

Scions of a
pharmaceutical dynasty.

Hundreds of thousands
of Americans

have become
addicted to the pills

made by their company,
Purdue Pharma.

Over 700,000 people
have suffered

opioid-related deaths.

But the Sacklers have gone to
great lengths to make sure that

when you hear
the family name...

you think of glitz,
glamour and high culture.

You may have toured one of
the major art museums

housing a Sackler
Family collection.

The Sackler name is kind of
emblazoned in gold letters

on museums
across the world.

There are Sackler
wings at the

Metropolitan Museum
of Art in New York.

The Guggenheim,
the Natural History Museum,

the Tate Modern in London,
the Louvre in Paris.

The family's wealth goes
back generations.

This is Arthur Sackler
patriarch,

one of the world's foremost
collectors of Chinese art,

and a marketing mastermind.

He spent his career
currying favors and

amassing power and wealth

and helping rewrite
the rules for Big Pharma.

Arthur Sackler was a pioneer

in the field of
pharmaceutical advertising.

Valium works promptly
to relieve

excessive anxiety
and apprehension.

Valium, for the response
you know, want and trust.

Along with his knack
for marketing,

Arthur understood what
medications would appeal

to an increasingly
stressed-out population.

Arthur thought that there was a
lot of money to be made in

prescribing an anti-anxiety
medication for women.

And that is how Valium
got its reputation as,

"mother's little helper".

Arthur's younger brothers
followed his lead.

In the 1950s, Mortimer and
Raymond Sackler bought a

pharmaceutical company that
would become Purdue Pharma

turning their family business
into an empire at a time when

mainstream America first
begins to warm to the

idea of mood-altering drugs.

[Phone ringing]

[High pitch, fast
garbled speaking]

Today, medical science
recognizes that some folks

aren't helped by
relaxing exercises.

In cases of difficult tension
and nervous apprehension...

doctors are now
prescribing medicine.

The Sacklers' breakthrough
is a time-release coating

for oral medications.

It's called the
Contin system

short for "continuous."

Purdue tests it on a
pill to treat asthma,

but the pill's a flop.

So, the Sacklers are eager
to find a new application

for their ground-breaking
technology.

So, the concept was,

what if we could use
this Contin system,

this time release form
of a drug,

and combine it
with morphine?

A terminally ill patient
could just take one pill and

the pain relief would last
long enough to get them

all the way
through the night.

So, this was the
birth of what came

to be known as MS Contin.

But the morphine in MS
Contin is an opioid chemical

derived from a poppy plant.

Its pods contain a milky fluid
that for centuries provided the

raw material for one of the
most demoralizing and

dissipating vices
in the world.

The same as heroin.

And it didn't take long
for the Sacklers'

new wonder drug to
land on the streets.

MS Contin, you know
even as early

as the late 80s
and into the 90s,

it was a very prized
drug for heroin addicts.

And what drug addicts
figured out,

is that if you just kind of
sucked off the time release

coating on the exterior,
or alternatively,

if you crushed it up
and snorted it,

you get the full payload of
the drug all at once.

In the early 90s,

as the pill designed
for terminal cancer patients

becomes the street
drug of choice,

the Sacklers' company
earns millions.

But Purdue Pharma
has a problem

not that their creation
is being abused

but that the patent on the
drug is about to expire.

They start to search around
for some other drug that

might replace MS Contin
as a steady, reliable

stream of revenue
for the family.

This is where the
next generation

of Sacklers takes over.

Mortimer's daughter,
Kathe,

and Raymond's son,
Richard,

use the company's
time-release tech on

an opioid called Oxycodone.

Oxycodone was not
invented by the Sacklers.

It had been invented in
the 1920s, actually.

But by combining it with
their Contin system,

the Sacklers create
OxyContin and,

like their uncle Arthur
did with Valium,

they get creative in how and
when it can be prescribed.

They would market it
as a cure for

any problem you
might be having.

For toothaches,
for menstrual pain,

for back pain,
for headaches.

It's only, you know, I think
a matter of a couple years

before it generates


And then it goes on to
generate 30 billion in sales,

over the course of its life.

A 12-hour time-released,
non-addictive painkiller

except it's not.

OxyContin does not
actually last 12 hours.

It might only last 8 hours,
or for many people,

only 6 or even 5 hours.

So, if you took the
drug as directed,

you were going to experience
withdrawal and pain and

craving, and then you were
gonna experience relief

when you took your
drug again, right?

And that experience is what
gets people hooked.

OxyContin is
highly addictive,

and the company later
admits to knowing it.

But they still lobby the
Federal Drug Administration

to label it as safe.

One of the Sacklers' great
talents is that they are very

skilled in the dark arts of
regulatory capture.

Regulatory capture basically
means when business interests

lobby the government to make
regulations and rulings

that help create,
essentially, a monopoly.

And one of the things that
Purdue managed to do,

was to get the FDA to include
this kind of astonishing claim

that, because OxyContin
was a time release pill,

that time release mechanisms
were believed to reduce the

abuse liability
of a medication.

Addicts don't want a
slow time release hit,

they want it all at once.

Some patients may be afraid
of taking opioids because

they're perceived as too
strong, or addictive.

But that is far
from actual fact.

Less than 1% of patients
taking opioids

actually become addicted.

Now, this was nonsense.

The company knew
how easy it was to

circumvent the
time release shell.

This particular claim of
lower abuse liability

had never been
allowed before and

has never
been allowed since

for an opioid medication.

The Sacklers were quick to
reward the man who helped

get their drug labelled
as non-addictive.

The actual person at the FDA
who approved the OxyContin

application, is a guy
named Curtis Wright.

And Curtis Wright ended up
leaving the FDA

after OxyContin
was approved.

And then, came to
work at Purdue,

where he reportedly earned
a salary of more than

$400,000 a year.

Crucial to the scheme's
success doctors

the very people we trust
with our health.

Many were incentivized by
the Sacklers' marketing team

to prescribe more and
more pills to patients.

They would host
fancy getaways...

for the weekend.

They would actually
pay doctors directly,

getting them on the
Purdue payroll,

by inviting them to participate
in what they called the

Purdue Speakers Bureau.

The system where you ask one of
the doctors to give maybe a


beginning, and at the end,

you hand them a check
for $500 or $1000.

And doctors weren't
the only ones

getting money
from the Sacklers.

Purdue and the Sacklers,
personally,

would donate repeatedly to
politicians over the years.

It all cleared the way for
the tragedy to come.

As OxyContin sales start
to take off in 1999,

in 2000 and 2001,
we start to get reports,

particularly in rural areas,
that abuse of this drug

is becoming widespread.

The crime rate spikes,

overdose deaths
start to pile up.

These are the latest pharmacy
robbers, on the run tonight,

suspected of holding up


mostly mom and pop pharmacies,
for OxyContin.

And it really starts to
fray the social fabric.

These people who are
doing these robberies

are severe addicts.

They don't want
to hurt anybody.

All they just want is
their next fix.

[Sirens]

As opioid deaths
continued to rise,

the reality of the worst
drug addiction epidemic in

America's history became
impossible for anyone to deny

except the Sacklers.

In a recently released 2015
deposition tape the family had

tried to bury for years,
Richard Sackler appears

unrepentant about the
company's business practices.

Do you believe Purdue's
marketing was overly aggressive?

No.

Do you believe Purdue's
marketing was appropriate?

I believe so.

Purdue Pharma wasn't the only
bad actor in the opioid crisis.

In the 2000s, greed was a
contagion that affected

some of the biggest
corporations in the country.

These companies knew where
these products were going.

It was not a bad judgment,
a mistake.

They knew exactly
where it was going,

and they knew it
was being abused.

It was all about the bucks.

We're in Kensington,
Philadelphia.

Heavily infested drug area.

What's crazy is for
the most part,

I'd say about 80% of the
people down here

ain't even from down here.

They just come here and
get stuck like flypaper.

For decades,
Big Pharma raked in

billions on
prescription painkillers

trapping millions
of Americans in the

vice-like grip
of addiction.

These prescription pills
entered communities through

a sophisticated
distribution network,

designed by
pharmaceutical companies

for ruthless efficiency.

Kermit, West Virginia.
Population: 392.

How many prescription opioids
do you think made their way

into a single pharmacy here
over the course of two years?

A hundred?
A hundred thousand?

A million?

The answer is nine million.

And if you don't believe
these arrived in Kermit

by lawful means, well,
neither did the DEA.

Overdoses are occurring.

West Virginia was leading
the country in overdoses

on a per capita basis.

Former manager at the DEA's
Diversion Control division,

James Geldhof, still gets
emotional describing his

up close and personal
exposure to the opioid epidemic.

So, there was a town hall
meeting I attended in

Portsmouth, Ohio,
in early June of 2011.

It was mothers, fathers and
grandparents of...

Who, um...

who died of overdoses.

And the chief of police at one
point in the meeting,

turned off all the lights
in the gym.

And, showed pictures
of these kids.

Prom pictures...

Homecoming...

Graduation pictures...

Football jerseys.

All of them young.

And they were dead before
they had a chance to live.

Seeing the carnage the
pills were causing

in small town America,
Geldhof began

focusing on the
pharmaceutical distributors,

the shadow pushers in
the new drug trade.

The top companies
McKesson, Cardinal,

AmerisourceBergen are three
of the largest corporations

in America, controlling
around 85% of

Big Pharma's distribution.

It was also done by
companies that, frankly,

if you'd have told me in


they'd be involved in this
kind of behavior,

I wouldn't have believed it.

Some of these companies were
the blue bloods of the industry.

But with the internet came
online pharmacies

and a vast, virtually
unregulated new

distribution network for
dangerous pharmaceuticals

some shipping millions
of pills a year.

When you see that
kind of quantity,

it's obvious that nobody's
paying attention.

There's no way somebody
could think those kind of

quantities would be
used legitimately.

But when the DEA begins
cracking down on online

pharmacies in the early


standing in line at
so-called "pill mills"

one stop shops
that combined a

doctor's office
and a pharmacy.

Pill mills were
operated by doctors.

So, you would go in there,

you'd pay for
an office visit.

It could be 200 bucks,
whatever it might be,

and then you'd get a script.
And then of course,

you'd take it to the
pharmacy and fill it.

And these pill mills will
super-charge an already growing

opioid epidemic that spreads
across the country.

The doctors that were
working in these pill mills

were essentially
drug dealers.

We considered
them criminals.

And we approached
the investigation

as a criminal investigation.

Federal agents raided the Total
Medical Express clinic today,

seizing files and computers.

We never thought we would be
going into doctor's offices.

That's a very honorable
profession and,

unfortunately,
some folks...

throughout the country
have brought dishonor

to that profession.

Twin brothers Chris and
Jeff George

operated four pill
mills in Florida.

Confiscated vehicles seized by
authorities earlier, Vipers,

Bentleys, Mercedes,
all paid for in cash from

suspected pill
mill operators.

At the center of all this
is Jeff George,

who will face m*rder charges.

Prosecutors say he and his
twin brother, Christopher,

ran a $40 million
criminal enterprise.

In three years, the brothers
moved an estimated 20 million

pills before finally being
busted in 2010.

...boxes of supplies.
And interviewed staff

And they were just two guys
in a single state.

Shutting down the pill mills
was like stamping out a

campfire when the forest is
already in flames.

So, the DEA looked to stop
the pills at their source.

Distribution companies were
required to inform the DEA of

suspicious deliveries but
they often stayed silent.

The most common excuses we
heard from the wholesalers is,

basically, they were just
delivery boys.

They knew exactly
where it was going,

and they knew it
was being abused.

Purdue did keep a list,
internally,

of doctors that
they suspected

were involved in black
market diversion.

They called it List Zero.

And, at any time a sales rep
would start to

suspect that a doctor maybe
was involved in diversion,

they'd be added
to this list.

Sometimes they would continue
selling to that doctor.

Sometimes they would stop
selling to that doctor.

But what they never did
was share that list

with law enforcement.

The users were
addicted to the drugs,

and the drug companies
and distributors were

addicted to the
steady flow of cash.

And in 2016,

the federal government
even passed a law that

made it more difficult for the
DEA to do anything about it.

Sold as a way to ensure
patients' access to needed

pain medications while also
improving enforcement,

Representatives Tom Marino
and Marsha Blackburn

introduced HR 4-71.

Few noticed that buried in the
bill were provisions that would,

instead, put a
stranglehold on the DEA

by raising the burden of
proof its agents needed to

launch investigations of
large prescription drug

shipments they
found suspicious.

Geldof's boss confronted
Congresswoman Blackburn.


of opiate overdose.

Okay, opiate associated
overdose.

This is not a game,
we're not playing a game.

Nobody is saying it
is a game, sir.

We're just trying to craft
some legislation.

The legislation passed by
unanimous consent and

was signed into law by
President Obama...

with little attention paid
to the fact that

Marino and Blackburn
together had received

nearly a million dollars in
campaign donations

from the pharmaceutical
and health industries.

The effect on the DEA's
diversion control

was devastating.

The cases became more
difficult to make.

Chief counsel kept requiring
more and more evidence

to make these cases.

So, how does an anti-opioid
addiction bill end up

limiting the DEA's powers?

Leading to more addiction?

...controlled substances...

It helped that a former DEA
attorney, Linden Barber,

reportedly helped craft the
legislation so it aided his

new client, pharmaceutical
distributor, Cardinal Health.

...DEA compliance program.

If you have a DEA
compliance issue,

or you're facing a
government investigation,

or you're having administrative
or civil litigation involving

the Controlled Substances Act,
I'd be happy to hear from you.

I did lose respect for
Linden at that point.

There was no reason for
that legislation to pass.

As it got harder for the
DEA to enforce the law,

the wreckage from
opioid abuse grew.

The opioid crisis
was in full bloom.

If you're gonna do anything,

if you're gonna err on
the side of anything,

you've got people
dying here.

These aren't
record-keeping violations.

These are pills that are
winding up on the street.

By the late aughts,
nearly 50,000 Americans

are dying each
year from opioid abuse

triple the number from
just a decade earlier.

So many die that the average
American's life expectancy

drops by
nearly a year.

Addiction to prescription
opioids has caused people

to turn to cheaper
narcotics like heroin.

And soon, the Big
Pharma-fueled opioid

epidemic will give rise
to the tragic return

of heroin a drug whose
dark history is

directly tied to the US
government's overseas wars.

[Bang, bang]!

If your primary goal is
fighting communism and

your secondary goal
is fighting drugs,

then maybe you've got to
subordinate your goal of

fighting drugs to the higher
good of fighting communism.

Our country's leaders have
spoken out for years about

the dangers of ill*gal
drugs in America.

Drugs are menacing our society.

They're threatening
our values and

undercutting our
institutions.

They're k*lling
our children.

Fine-tuning the message as the
drug of choice changed.

This... this is
crack cocaine.

Seized a few days ago by
Drug Enforcement agents

in a park just
across the street

from the White House.

And yet, even as presidents
spoke out against drugs,

their administrations
help fuel

every major
addiction epidemic.

The only answer to communism
is a massive offensive for

freedom. Freedom from
hunger, from disease,

and a victory for the ageless
hope of people everywhere.

Freedom from tyranny.

As the US and the Soviet Union
battled for geopolitical

dominance, the CIA formed
strange alliances abroad...

shaking hands with some of
the world's most notorious

drug traffickers in the
name of democracy.

Communism and socialism.
What can we do about it?

At the end of World w*r II,

the US is concerned
that more and more countries

are gonna go socialist,
go communist.

[Cheering]

And in France, it looked
like the communists might

actually be able to win
national elections.

They controlled Marseilles.

France has become
the battleground

for clashing ideologies.

Maurice Torres leads the
communists in an

open fight between two
political extremes.

The CIA starts allying with

the Corsican
Marseilles mafia...

to, you know, use them
as a kind of terror force

against the communists.

And part of that
alliance with these

gangsters in southern
France involves

turning a blind eye and
even facilitating their

importation of heroin
from Southeast Asia.

I think that what puts
this into relief are...

evils of politics.

You've got to break some eggs
to make some omelets.

If your primary goal is
fighting communism and

your secondary goal
is fighting drugs,

then maybe you've got to
subordinate your goal of

fighting drugs to the higher
good of fighting communism.

Years later, America's w*r
against communism

and its partnership with
the drug trade

extended to
Southeast Asia, itself.

[Bang... bang]!

[Rock music &
g*nf*re continues]

As the w*r in Vietnam is

ramping up and
the US role in

that w*r is increasing,
there are

these off-the-book wars

in Laos in particular

and that w*r involves
the training by the CIA

of hill tribes,
particularly the Hmong,

as a mercenary force to
fight the Pathet Lao,

which were a communist
force in Laos.

And one of the ways that
that w*r was conducted and

funded was in collaboration
with Vang Pao,

who was a major drug
smuggling warlord.

Along with being a
staunch anti-communist,

Vang Pao also controls
massive fields of poppies,

which he harvests and
refines into heroin.

So, a bargain is made.

When Americans are risking
their lives in w*r,

it is the responsibility of
their leaders...

to take some risks.

One of those risks involves
the CIA partnering with Pao's

ragtag army to fight a secret
w*r against the communists.

In exchange,
the CIA helps Pao

move his drugs
out of the country

using an Agency-owned
passenger and cargo airline

called Air America.

Airforce aerial
port personnel,

under constant enemy fire,
load and offload...

Turning a blind eye to
ongoing heroin smuggling by

their forces and then also,
you know, using that

income stream to help
fund this secret w*r.

Vang Pao's heroin then
makes its way west -

with the help of
New York gangsters and

their old connections
in Marseilles.

A smuggling route
immortalized in the movie,

The French Connection.

By the early 70s,
America's inner cities

are flooded with smack.

Every day, I had
taken heroin.

- For a year and a half?
- Yes.

How much does it cost to get?

Well, I really couldn't say,

but it cost enough
to k*ll myself.

But it won't be the last
time the US government

strikes a devil's bargain
in pursuit of a

strategic foreign
policy goal.

Three decades after
Vietnam, another w*r.

This one, a so-called
w*r on Terror,

will see America once again
climb into bed with some of

the world's biggest
heroin producers.

[Explosions & g*nf*re]

The story begins with
the Soviet invasion,

occupation of Afghanistan.

The US starts to support these
Mujahideen groups.

And these Mujahideen parties
are the US allies in the

process of destroying the
Afghan communist revolution.

Part of how the Mujahideen
groups are funding their effort

is through exporting opium
poppy that's then

refined into heroin.
Again,

it's the smuggling networks
for weapons and supplies

and personnel facilitate the
smuggling of drugs.

But, the Mujahideen have
created such misery and

horror that this fanatical,
puritanical force arises

out of the south of
Afghanistan the Taliban.

They eventually control
most of Afghanistan.

They give sanctuary
to Osama bin Laden.

Then after 9/11,
the US returns...

coming after
Osama bin Laden.

The US drives
out the Taliban.

Who is the US going to
use as local allies?

Well, those Mujahideen parties.

Once again, our military
leaders make a bargain that

will haunt American cities and
citizens for years to come.

I want to remind you
that while

today's operations
are visible,

many other operations
may not be so visible.

Kandahar Province, southern
Afghanistan, 2001.

As the US military is fighting
a deadly Taliban insurgency,

they make a powerful ally...

the brother of the US
installed president.

Hamid Karzai's brother,
Wali Karzai,

is a major drug dealer.
And everybody knew that.

The government of Afghanistan...

was a government
of drug dealers.

And, the US turned a
blind eye to that reality.

It's an open secret that
our troops are

protecting Karzai's
poppy fields.

Even right-wing news
stations are covering

our military's strange
assignment.

We are tolerating the
cultivation of the opium

because we know that if we
were to destroy it now,

the population would turn
against the marines,

and it would be a
real security risk.

And that was at the heart of
the failure of any kind of

nation building effort
in Afghanistan.

After 2001, the global
distribution of heroin

explodes under
America's watch.

If the United Nations Office
on Drugs and Crime

estimated in
the early 2000s

that 92% of world
heroin supply

was sourced from Afghanistan,
then presumably

some of it reached the US.

The timing couldn't
have been worse.

By the 20-teens,

opioid use has reached
epidemic levels

leaving the door
wide open for

a cheaper street
drug to gain hold.

Health officials are concerned
about Oxy addicts making the

switch to heroin, both
experienced users and

especially those using the
drug for the first time.

When I, when I was doing
heroin, early 2000s,

people were dying,

they weren't dying
like they are now.

In 2007, news breaks that
the Department of Justice

finally seems to have caught
up with the Sackler family's

company,
Purdue Pharma.

Purdue had admitted it falsely
promoted OxyContin as less

addictive by among other
means claiming the drug's

slow-release formula did not
cause a buzz or euphoria and

could be used to
weed out addicts.

The corporate giant faces an
array of criminal and civil

charges for falsely
marketing its drug OxyContin

as less addictive
than other opioids.

Purdue Pharma's
top executives

Michael Friedman,
president and CEO

and the company's medical
director, Paul Goldenheim,

and lawyer
Howard Udell,

all three executives and the
company plead guilty in the US

to misleading regulators,
physicians and patients.

As punishment for misbranding
OxyContin as a cure-all for

any type of pain, Purdue is
forced to pay $634 million,

a record for a
pharmaceutical company,

but a mere fraction of the
Sackler family fortune

earned off of the drug.

The company has cut a plea deal
with the government.

None of the company's
executives are sentenced

to prison, and no one from
the Sackler family

is personally implicated
in the charges.

More than 70,000 people died
of overdoses last year.

The largest number
ever recorded.

While Purdue's 2007
settlement with the feds

was a slap on the wrist
for the drug-maker

it's a punch in the gut to

their victims and
their families.

And in the 20-teens, as the
healthcare industry finally

cracks down on dirty doctors
writing shady scripts,

and law enforcement shuts down
on the last of the pill mills,

hundreds of thousands
of addicts

are left desperate
for a fix.

Dan, wake up!
There you go.

- Come on, man.
- See?

Oh! There you go.
That Narcan got em'.

In the Kensington
neighbourhood of Philadelphia,

residents reckon with the
horrors of a still

out of control
heroin epidemic.

Rosalind Pichardo has been
working with users on these

streets for years,
saving one life at a time.

Sometimes with
news cameras in tow.

Come on, sunshine.

Yo, there we go.

If we weren't around,
he would have died.

Many of the users here
tell a similar story:

They started down the
road to addiction

with the Sacklers'
OxyContin pills.

So, I started with
painkillers.

And as pill addicts move
to cheaper and

easier to obtain heroin,

they find much of the
product is laced with the

highly potent synthetic
painkiller Fentanyl.

When I when I was doing
heroin, early 2000's,

people were dying,
they weren't dying

like they are now.

I thought heroin was
bad back then.

This is the hardest thing
I've ever tried to come off.

I'm literally scared to try
and come off of this drug.

It's, it's so addicting,
so strong.

And it's, it's scary to
even think about

trying to come off of it.

Pichardo and other activists
see this epidemic

that began with
prescription pills,

as a public health crisis

where saving lives should
be the first priority.

They propose opening the
country's first-ever

"safe injection site."

What the safe consumption
sites mean for me is

a place where people can
use drugs safely.

But also have services,
you know,

having doctors on board in
case someone ODs,

to know that if someone wants
to use drugs, they can,

but they won't die.

The people like me, they can
have a safe spot to use what

they got to use and do what
they got to do and go.

But I think that
would be great.

But a federal judge
declares the

Kensington safe injection
site proposal ill*gal,

citing the 1986 so-called
"Crack house statute"

that makes it a felony to
knowingly use a location for

distribution of a
controlled substance.

For the government to think
that a safe consumption site

is a crack house
is ludicrous.

A safe consumption site's
not giving drugs,

they're already
bringing their drugs.

You know, we're just
making sure that,

when they use their drugs,
they come out alive.

And while efforts like
Pichardo's are stymied by the

government's unrelenting and
unsuccessful w*r on drugs...

a decade after the Justice
Department's sweetheart deal

with the Sackler family,
efforts to finally hold them

personally accountable for the
crisis they helped to create

have yet to succeed.

I have to wonder, if it turns
out the Sackler family

and there are some hints
right now that they have

moved around money to
protect it, knowing that

there could be potential
future litigation.

Members of the Sackler
family began making

transfers of money
out of the company.

They transferred up to $10
billion out of the company and

into their own
network of trusts.

[Hammering]

[Cheering & applause]

The Sackler name was hammered
off the building in front of a

group of people, mostly Tufts
Medical School students.

The name came down,
you could hear those cheers.

The members of the Sackler
family who owned and at times

ran Purdue Pharma have tried to
escape the public spotlight

in the years since their


But that was all
about to change.

I think it's clear that your
family has tried to

fraudulently shield money for
your own personal benefit.

I think it's appalling.

Those profits, in my opinion,
should be clawed back.

The House Committee on
Oversight & Reform hold a

virtual hearing to investigate
the role Purdue Pharma and

members of the Sackler
family had played in

America's ongoing
opioid crisis.

Will you apologize for the role
you played in the opioid crisis?

Despite all the misery and
death directly tied to

their product,
both Kathe Sackler and

her cousin David take
no responsibility.

I have asked myself
over many years.

I have tried to figure out,
was

is there anything that I
could have done differently,

knowing what I knew then,

not what I know now,
and, and I...

I have to say, I can't
there's nothing that

I can find that I would
have done differently.

I believe I conducted myself
legally and ethically.

And I believe the full record
will demonstrate that.

An estimated 800,000
Americans have died from

opioid related
deaths since 1999.

The true cost of over twenty
years of death and destruction

seems incalculable,
but by 2018,

public pressure to hold the
Sackler family accountable

was now impossible
to ignore.

A dramatic protest inside
the Sackler wing at

New York's Metropolitan
Museum of Art.

And in the courts, thousands of
lawsuits from families and

state governments demanding
restitution are stacking up.

Feeling the heat, in November


announces they have reached a
new deal with the family....

The global settlement announced
today involves the company

pleading guilty to


defrauding the
United States.

It could be the largest
settlement ever paid

by private citizens.

The resolution also requires
tens of millions of documents

to be made public about the
role that Purdue and the

Sacklers played in
the opioid crisis.

If this seems like a win for
the government, it isn't.

Members of the Sackler family
transferred up to $10 billion

out of the company and into
their own network of trusts.

When we talk about
the settlement,

which is $4.25 billion,
that's a fraction of

what they took out
of the company.

With an estimated family
fortune of $11 billion,

and payments scheduled
over 9 years,

the $4.2 billion settlement can
be paid off with interest alone.

And while the 487-page
bankruptcy deal calls for the

Sacklers to relinquish control
of Purdue Pharma,

which is reformed as a new
entity whose profits will go

towards to those who
have suffered...

Sackler family members are
all given immunity

from any future prosecution.

It's a shocking outcome that
makes news across the country.

In a landmark ruling,
Wednesday,

a federal bankruptcy judge in
New York granted immunity from

opioid lawsuits to members
of the Sackler family,

the owners of Purdue Pharma.

Even the judge who
signed the final deal

called it a "bitter result."

After all the death and
destruction...

One thing remains clear:

The Sackler family
appears untouchable.

And so, when we look back
on the opioid crisis,

the story the Sacklers and
OxyContin and Purdue Pharma,

it's hard not to see
this as a parable,

not about how the government
can't be effective,

but about how, if you take the
brakes off of corporate power,

the government
can't be effective.

Our government's
misguided alliances

with drug traffickers
facilitated the importation

of heroin into this country
and helped set the stage

for the opioid era and the
return to heroin

we're living through now.

Allowing drug makers like
Purdue to flood our

neighbourhoods with their pills
only added fuel to the fire.

And it's all a uniquely
American problem.

A lot of people are in denial.

So, I, I think that if people
will come here with an

open mind and an open heart,
to see what we see,

hopefully, that will
change their mind.

And obviously it's not over,

it's still burning
through our society.

We're all paying the price.