How One Family Made Billions While KILLING Half A Million | The Class Room ft. Second Thought

The Sacklers are among the richest families on Earth. At one point they were worth at least 13 billion dollars. Their company, Purdue Pharmaceuticals, is responsible for the opiate painkiller Oxycontin–which represented 80% of their business–and is nearly entirely responsible for the opioid addiction epidemic crushing America today. The company pleaded guilty to related charges in federal court twice.

You probably already know how corrupt the Sacklers are: books, documentaries, congressional hearings, an entire acted-out Hulu miniseries. They’ve been sued by 48 out of 50 states, their names have been removed from buildings. Everyone on Earth seems to get it: The Sacklers are largely to blame for a drug crisis that’s killed half a million people.

And yet The Sacklers still have a ridiculous amount of money and will likely never face any change in the extreme comfort of their lives.

They pursued endless capital accumulation over public health and they got away with it by exploiting byzantine corporate and financial law to hide their wealth and allying with the very people who were supposed to be regulating them.

This is how the Sackler family got rich.
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