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Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren said Wednesday that members of the family that owns pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma should "go to jail" for their role in the opioid crisis.
Warren made the comments about the family behind Purdue Pharma, one of the top opioid manufacturers that was founded by the late brothers Raymond and Mortimer Sackler, as she rolled out a $100 billion plan to address the scourge of opioid addiction.
The Massachusetts senator wrote in a Medium post that the crisis "has been driven by greed, pure and simple" and argues the Sacklers "made their money pushing OxyContin" even after research found that the drug was addictive.
"Under my opioid plan, billionaires like the Sacklers wouldn’t get to live the high life while only 1 out of 5 folks who need opioid treatment get the help they need," Warren said. "Instead, they would pay up to help make sure every person gets the care they need ... An America where when people like the Sacklers destroy millions of lives to make money, they don’t get museum wings named after them, they go to jail.
Warren's rebuke of the Sacklers came as she prepares to make a campaign trip this week to Ohio and West Virginia, two states battered by opioid addiction, to highlight her proposal. The plan is an update of legislation she's previously floated in Congress.
The Sacklers are also generous philanthropists who have made big donations to world-renowned institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Tate Gallery, Louvre and Harvard University.
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Warren, who is a former law professor at Harvard University, believes that her old employer should remove the Sackler name from buildings on campus, her campaign said. She also plans to donate to charity $4,500 in donations her senate campaigns previously have received from the Sackler family, according to the Warren campaign.
The family released a statement pushing back against Warren. Beverly Sackler, the widow of Purdue Pharma co-founder Raymond Sackler, made a $2,500 campaign contribution to Warren's senate campaign in 2018.
“Beverly Sackler is well into her 90s and denigrating her personal donation, made with the best intentions, can serve no proper political purpose," the statement said. "We would welcome a genuine dialogue with the senator that’s fact-based, as the facts clearly demonstrate that the company started by Beverly's family has for decades been the industry leader in combating opioid abuse while providing products essential for the treatment of serious chronic pain."
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The Sacklers are currently facing several lawsuits across the nation by plaintiffs who contend they knowingly exacerbated the opioid crisis. The drug maker and eight members of the Sackler family were accused of racketeering in a suit filed in March in federal court in New York.
Purdue and the family have denied wrongdoing and suggested the company is being singled out for the crisis.
Earlier this week, the Connecticut attorney general’s office released internal emails gathered as evidence in the state’s lawsuit against Purdue. The company’s former CEO, Richard Sackler, refers to addicts as “scum of the earth.”
In one 2001 email exchange, an acquaintance of Sackler wrote to him: "Abusers die, well that is the choice they made, I doubt a single one didn’t know of the risks."
Sackler responded: "Abusers aren’t victims; they are the victimizers."
Warren's plan to combat opioid addiction, known as the CARE Act, is modeled on a 1990 law passed to fight the spread of AIDS and would be funded through a tax she wants to impose on the 75,000 wealthiest Americans. She previously introduced a version of the proposal in 2017 with Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat.
“The ongoing opioid crisis is about health care,” Warren wrote in her post detailing her plan. “But it’s about more than that. It’s about money and power in America — who has it, and who doesn’t. And it’s about who faces accountability in America — and who doesn’t.”
More than 70,000 people died from drug overdose in 2017, the highest year on record, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Health experts say the majority of those deaths were due to opioid crisis.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, another Democratic presidential hopeful, introduced a $100 billion drug addiction and mental health plan last week. The Klobuchar plan includes calls for expanding access to treatment for people addicted to opioids and having the government negotiate the price of Naloxone in order to make it more affordable.
Emergency department visits for opioid overdoses rose 30% in all parts of the US from July 2016 through September 2017, CDC data shows. The Midwest saw opioid-related emergency department visits spike 70% during that period.
About the Warren plan
Under Warren's decade-long plan, the federal government would distribute the money for public health surveillance, research, and to bolster training for health professionals.
The proposal also calls for boosting funding to public agencies and nonprofit groups for treatment, recovery and harm reduction services. Warren also wants to spend more than $500 million a year to expand access for first responders to the overdose reversal drug Naloxone.
Warren is scheduled to visit Kermit, W.V., on Friday. The community of about 400 people in the state’s southern coalfields saw out-of-state drug companies ship nearly 9 million hydrocodone pills to a single pharmacy over a two-year period, according to the Charleston Gazette-Mail.
The town in 2017 filed a lawsuit against five of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical drug wholesalers and a local pharmacy owner, claiming they illegally flooded town with prescription drugs.
“The opioid epidemic teaches us that too often in America today, if you have money and power, you can take advantage of everyone else without consequence,” Warren said. “I think it’s time to change that.”
The plan on fighting opioid epidemic is Warren's latest campaign proposal that she says could be paid for through a $2.75 trillion tax hike on American households  making more than $50 million. She has previously announced proposals to cancel college debt for most Americans and fund universal childcare.
Follow USA TODAY national political reporter Aamer Madhani on Twitter: @AamerISmad
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