Arthur Sackler: The Man Behind the Opioid Crisis

By Charlie Ramos, 2nd Year History

Now a man renowned for his stake in the continuing Opioid Crisis in America, Charlie explores the beginnings of Arthur Sackler’s pharmaceutical empire, and the lasting impression it has on drug culture in America.

Image via the New Yorker

Born to Isaac Sackler and Sophie Greenberg in 1913, Arthur Sackler became one of three patriarchs of the Sackler family pharmaceutical dynasty, alongside his brothers Mortimer and Raymond. Their contribution to the opioid epidemic dates to the family’s purchase of pharmaceutical company Purdue Frederick in 1952, yet the Sackler name remains engraved in major institutions globally.  

Attending the Erasmus school, Arthur developed an affection for the US founding fathers – particularly Thomas Jefferson, alongside Erasmus himself, for their eclectic interests. Becoming editor of his school magazine, Arthur’s entrepreneurial mind had always been apparent, selling advertising space and taking compensation by commission. Making ends meet for the sake of his parents, working the newspaper route and delivering flowers bred a determination that he drove to instil in his employees later in life, keen to highlight the fact he had not vacationed until the age of twenty-five.

After Erasmus, Arthur attended NYU’s medical school. Following graduation, he set off for Creedmoor Asylum and aimed to trace the chemical causes of mental affliction. Alongside his younger brothers, repulsed by electroshock therapy and the primal methods of lobotomization, he discovered that injecting patients with the hormone histamine had positive results on the mind. The trio, all qualified doctors, opened the Creedmoor Institute for Psychobiologic Studies in 1950 – the first of many institutions embellished with the Sackler name.  

Arthur worked at the pharmaceutical advertising firm William Douglas McAdams during the day, and at the asylum by night. Based on previous research into the effects of histamine, Arthur produced his so-called ‘miracle drug’ Terramycin. Overseeing Pfizer’s accounts, he promised CEO John McKeen the drug a household name. With deceptive advertising failing to highlight adverse and addictive side effects, sales rocketed and turned it into a fashionable party drug.

Following the wild success of Terramycin, Arthur took ownership of William Douglas Adams. L.W Frohlich, a company created by Arthur’s former employee, also sought the same success in marketing Terramycin, using a vast network of contacts to achieve success. Unbeknownst to his employees, Arthur had a clandestine stake in the firm, with attorney Bill Sonnerich confirming “Frohlich’s firm, basically, was Arthur’s”. Thus, the monopoly grows. No single firm could represent two drugs competing to sit at the top of the market; this massive conflict of interest was used to repay Arthur for aiding Frohlich in setting up his firm, so they could “tactically divvy up business”[1]. 

Arthur’s reach expanded beyond advertising to the consumer, developing a good relationship with the chief of antibiotics at the Food & Drug Administration, Henry Welch. Arthur and long-time friend and colleague Félix Martí-Ibáñez had established the medical journal MD, to which Henry Welch was a frequent contributor, with Arthur Sackler as a silent owner. Welch would publicly condone drugs advertised by McAdams both legally and in literature, as well as those which came out of the silently owned pharmaceutical manufacturer purchased by the brothers: Purdue Frederick.[2]  

Following a McCarthyite red scare which found communist ties to Raymond and Mortimer, the Sacklers left Creedmoor for good in 1952, going on to purchase Purdue Frederick. For many years, the company’s biggest output was Senokot, a laxative. Profits allowed the Sacklers to purify their name, so much so that their charitable donations raised little eyebrows as to where the money was coming from. The Sackler Wing at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Sackler Museum at Harvard, the Sackler Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at NYU, and a wing at the Louvre all came to be funded by Sackler wealth. ‘Sackler’ was a name no longer questioned, and as their charity grew, interest in whether the fortune had come from underhanded pharmaceutical advertising lessened.  

Following the death of Arthur Sackler, the company passed to Kathe and David Sackler. Purdue Frederick rebranded to Purdue Pharma and began developing “the taproot of the opioid epidemic”[3], OxyContin. Since its introduction in 1999, there have been 450,000 opioid-related deaths in the US alone, while the company generated $36 billion bringing it to market, the family withdrew $10 billion from the company.  

In 2007, Purdue Pharma pled guilty to charges of misbranding OxyContin, charged with advertising that it was less addictive than short-term alternatives and paid a $600 million fine. 2020 saw similar charges raised. A cumulation of 2500 lawsuits since 2007 from a host of litigants ended in a $6 billion settlement from the company and the liquidation of its UK subsidiary, Mundipharma.  

Carolyn B. Maloney, chairwoman of the committee on oversight and reform, began her opening statement of litigation proceedings stating: “Purdue Pharma, orchestrated by the Sackler family, created false advertising documents, sought out doctors more likely to prescribe opiates, ignored and worked around safeguards intended to reduce prescription opioid misuse, and deflected blame towards those struggling with addiction”[4]. Of Americans who became addicted to opioids in the 2000s, 75% began with OxyContin. 

Despite Arthur Sackler’s death, the family business continues its chokehold on American opioid addiction. Through mass misinformation and manipulation, the Sacklers have single-handedly caused one of America’s greatest health crises.  

[1] Empire of Pain, Patrick Radden Keefe (2021)

[2] The FDA’s regulation and control of antibiotics in the 1950s: the Henry Welch scandal, Félix Martí-Ibáñez, and Charles Pfizer & Co, R. E. McFadyen (1979)

[3] Attorney General of New York

[4] The Role of Purdue Pharma and the Sackler Family in the Opioid Epidemic, Hearing before the Committee on Oversight and Reform, One Hundred and Sixteenth Congress, Second Session, December 17, 2020