This isn't a story about corporate greed in the abstract. It's a documented, prosecuted, guilty-pleaded crime — committed by specific people with names, who knew exactly what they were doing.In part 2 of Loudness's opioid series, we get into OxyContin: how Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family built a machine to create as many opioid-dependent people as possible, as fast as possible. The fake "less than 1% addiction" statistic. The 5,000 doctors sent on resort vacations. McKinsey's proposal to pay distributors a rebate for every overdose. The $11 billion quietly moved offshore before the bankruptcy filing.And then: how the prescription epidemic became the heroin epidemic, which became the fentanyl epidemic — a direct causal chain that is still killing people today.Loudness survived it. Hundreds of thousands didn't.Part 3 coming soon: what the street epidemic actually looked like from the inside.The Loudness McEvil Symposium — addiction, homelessness, recovery, and the truth about who actually created this crisis.

REFERENCES:

Books

• Patrick Radden Keefe, Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty (2021) — the essential book on this topic; sourced for the Sackler family history, the blizzard of prescriptions quote, and the milking program details
• Beth Macy, Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America (2018) — on the ground-level impact, particularly in Appalachia; adapted into the Hulu series

Court Documents & Legal Sources

• Massachusetts Attorney General's complaint against Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family (2019) — available at mass.gov/ago — source for the MGH funding details, the internal memos, and the "reckless criminals / scum of the earth" Richard Sackler email
• US Department of Justice — Purdue Pharma plea agreement (2020) — justice.gov — source for the admitted fraud and $8.3 billion settlement
• US Bankruptcy Court — Purdue Pharma Chapter 11 proceedings (2019–2021) — pacer.gov
• US Supreme Court — Harrington v. Purdue Pharma (2024) — ruling on the Sackler immunity shield — supremecourt.gov

McKinsey

• ProPublica — "McKinsey Proposed Paying Pharmacy Companies Rebates for OxyContin Overdoses" — propublica.org, November 2020 — the primary source for the per-overdose rebate proposal
• New York Times — "McKinsey Settles for $573 Million Over Role in Opioid Crisis" — nytimes.com, February 2021

The Distributors

• House Energy and Commerce Committee — "Red Flags and Warning Signs Ignored: Opioid Distribution and Enforcement Failures" (2020) — available at energycommerce.house.gov — source for the West Virginia pharmacy statistics
• Washington Post / 60 Minutes joint investigation — "The Drug Industry's Triumph Over the DEA" — washingtonpost.com, October 2017 — on the DEA revolving door
• State AG settlements — National Association of Attorneys General tracking page — naag.org

Russell Portenoy

• Wall Street Journal — "A Doctor's Change of Heart on Painkiller Risks" — wsj.com, December 2012 — Portenoy's public recantation
• ProPublica — "Doctors Who Get Paid by Drug Companies Prescribe More Brand-Name Drugs" — propublica.org (Dollars for Docs database)

The Sackler Names Coming Down

• New Yorker — "The Family That Built an Empire of Pain" — newyorker.com, October 2017 (Patrick Radden Keefe's original article before the book)
• ArtNet News — tracking coverage of museum name removals, 2019–2022 — news.artnet.com