Height of Opioid Epidemic, Drug Co Execs Made Fun of West Virginians; SCt Purdue Sackler Case 12.23

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'As Opioid Epidemic Raged, Drug Company Executives Made Fun of West Virginians,' Mountain State Spotlight, May 13, *2021.Ed. (WVa was one of the top states with deaths from drug overdoses in the last 20 years).

At the height of West Virginia’s opioid epidemic, executives at a leading drug distributor exchanged emails making light of the crisis. The emails were put forth by Cabell County attorney Paul Farrell Jr. during trial at U.S. District Court in Charleston. The trial pits the county and the city of Huntington against the nation’s 3 largest drug distributors, who they argue fueled the overdose crisis. In one, shared on Thursday, AmerisourceBergen executive Chris Zimmerman shared a lyrical parody of the theme song for

“The Beverly Hillbillies,” making fun of “a poor mountaineer” who purchased pills at a “cash ‘n carry” pain clinic.

Another was titled “OxyContinVille” and included a parody of a Jimmy Buffett song that described driving from Kentucky to buy pills. In a 3rd email, a member of Zimmerman’s team wrote, “One of the hillbilly’s must have learned how to read" in response to an email detailing Kentucky’s new opioid regulations. Zimmerman apologized in court for the contents of some of the emails, including the use of the term “pillbillies,” which he said referred to drug dealers, not patients. “I shouldn’t have sent the email,” he said, but added that he took the attacks upon his credibility “personally.”

He said the documents were cherry-picked out of context and defended the corporate culture at AmerisourceBergen, one of the 3 opioid distributors on trial in Charleston, and said it was of the “highest caliber.” But Farrell disagreed. “It is a pattern of conduct by those people charged with protecting our community — and they’re circulating emails disparaging hillbillies,” said Farrell. Thursday was the 2nd day of Zimmerman’s testimony, during which he acknowledged the “devastating effect” of the opioid epidemic but deflected responsibility — blaming, in turn, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and then lower-level employees at his company.

As senior VP and head of investigations for one of the largest companies in the US, Zimmerman’s role at AmerisourceBergen was to oversee compliance of the distribution chain, including marking suspicious orders of opioid pills that the company shipped by the millions, 2006 -2014. Plaintiffs assert that Zimmerman’s team had a responsibility to prevent such shipments from going through — shipments that earned AmerisourceBergen a profit at West Virginia’s expense...

https://mountainstatespotlight.org/2021/05/13/opioid-company-executives-made-fun-of-west-virginians/
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- 'Purdue Pharma, Sacklers' OxyContin settlement lands at the Supreme Court,' NPR, Dec. 4, 2023

The opioid crisis comes to the Supreme Court Monday as the justices hear arguments in a challenge to the bankruptcy deal meant to compensate victims of the highly addictive pain killer OxyContin.

Under the terms of the deal approved by a lower court, Purdue Pharma—the maker, aggressive peddler, and deceptive marketer of Oxycontin— agreed to pay billions of dollars to those harmed in the opioid epidemic. In exchange, the deal shields members of the Sackler family from personal liability, though they owned and ran the company...
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/04/1215717223/purdue-sacklers-oxycontin-supreme-court