Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (2014–…): Season 6, Episode 8 - Opioids II - full transcript
John Oliver opens with a quick update about the infamous BREXIT. Then he talks about the news of arresting Julian Assange and how the media is focusing on his looks. After that he provides ...
Welcome, welcome,
welcome to "last week tonight!"
I'm John Oliver.
Thank you so much
for joining us.
Just time for a quick
recap of the week.
And we're going to focus on a
couple of stories
out of britain.
First, brexit, which I believe
is short for "brain exit," the
official word for when
everything that makes sense goes
out the window and everyone is
just stupid all the time.
Britain was supposed to have
left the e. U. By Friday, but the
day before the deadline,
this happened.
The u. K. Is heading for a
Halloween brexit after the e. U.
Extended the deadline for
withdrawal until
October the 31st.
"Halloween brexit"?
Look, brexit is plenty scary
enough without adding
Halloween to it.
It's like we found out there was
a meteor rapidly approaching
earth and named it "weinstein."
It's overkill.
It's complete overkill
at that point.
But it is true, the brexit
deadline has been
delayed until October.
Now, what will they do
with the extra time?
Who knows?
It's hard to imagine that
unsolvable problems ‐‐ like how
to create a hard border with
Ireland without sparking
sectarian violence ‐‐
will suddenly be solved
within six months.
And many, many British people
seem exhausted by the extension.
I imagine in six months' time
we'll probably be in the same
place we're at now, another
stalemate where it's either
gonna get suspended ‐‐ extended
another six months or who knows?
Oh, god.
Another six months
talking about brexit?
Yeah, I can
see how she feels.
Or at least I could before
brexit interviews started
featuring people being casually
eaten by parrots when they talk.
I would trade another 18 months
of brexit to find out
more about that man.
Like "how did he
become a Yankees fan?"
And "is that his parrot?"
'Cause if it isn't, that is the
calmest I've seen someone stay
during a random televised
parrot attack.
This wasn't even the first time
that the deadline has
been pushed back.
Britain was supposed to leave on
march 29th.
And to hear some brexit
supporters tell it, that's when
it did happen.
The 29th of march should have
been the day we leave, and in my
eyes, we've left.
But it's not and you haven't.
So what?
In my eyes, we have.
Today is our independence day,
and whether we have it or not,
we're celebrating it.
Wait, wait,
wait, wait, wait.
Hold on, hold on.
If all that matters to brexit
supporters is what happens
"in their eyes," we may've found
Cancel brexit, but
allow everyone to say it
happened if it makes
them feel better.
That way, no devastating
economic consequences and brexit
supporters get to live happily
ever after in their own personal
"United Kingdom of
the imagination."
But that wasn't the only big
news out of britain.
There was also news concerning
Julian Assange, the most
controversial Australian export
since vegemite.
This week saw a
major development.
Julian Assange arrested.
Julian Assange, now with a
beard, carried out of the
Ecuadorian embassy by London's
metropolitan police.
That bedraggled
beard, lengthy hair.
Looking tired, looking older,
significantly much older.
Looking a very different man
than the one who went into that
embassy some seven years ago.
That's a weird tone to
take on a story that
is this important.
"Yes, his arrest sparks a
difficult debate about the
efficacy of journalistic
protections in the age of
cyber‐espionage, but
look how bad he looks!
He looks like a peeled potato
rolled in spiderwebs.
He looks like Kenneth
Branagh's ghost.
He looks like Gandalf
fucked his stick.
We're having fun.
We're having fun, aren't we?"
But, look, this is a big deal.
Julian Assange has now been
kicked out of the Ecuadorian
embassy after spending
seven years there.
And part of the reason they
may have wanted him out may be
that he did not make life easy
for his hosts.
There have been reports for
some time that assange was sort
of ‐‐ had outlived his welcome
there in the embassy for all
sorts of reasons, including
his ‐‐ you know, that his cat
had been making a mess and that
he was skateboarding
in the halls.
Stealing wi‐fi.
Oh, that's not all.
The ambassador also said that
assange's indoor soccer games
had destroyed embassy equipment
and the government had to
require him to start
cleaning his bathroom.
And, look, at some point in our
lives, we have all lived with
someone like this, and we wished
that we could have British
police carry them out of our
building like a hastily
rolled carpet.
And, look, it's easy to dislike
Julian Assange.
He first fled to the embassy to
escape extradition to Sweden on
rape charges, charges he denies.
And alongside the valuable
information that wikileaks has
helped release, they've also
recklessly published the
sensitive personal data of
hundreds of ordinary people,
potentially putting
lives at risk.
And that's not even getting into
the fact that wikileak's
publication of hacked emails in
2016 helped elect
trump president.
So you're allowed not to like
him, but America's current
attempts to extradite him hang
on a specific charge that many
press advocates find unsettling.
The u. S. Justice department
has charged him with conspiracy
to commit computer intrusion.
Authorities are accusing assange
of conspiring to crack a
password in order to obtain
classified government documents.
Now, that charge stems
from his correspondence with
Chelsea Manning before the
publication of classified
documents in 2010.
And on its face, it currently
seems more than a little flimsy,
prompting the committee to
protect journalists to call it
"troubling for press freedom,"
because the indictment's
language seems to criminalize a
broad range of legally protected
and common
journalistic activity.
And while it is still early at
this point and we don't know
what else assange might be
charged with, or even whether
the u. K. Will extradite him at
all, this story is worrying for
One,
because journalistic freedoms
may be under threat.
And two, unfortunately, in order
to protect them, we may be
forced to utter the one phrase
in the english language scarier
than "Halloween brexit" and
that's, "I'm really sorry,
everyone, but it might actually
be time to defend
Julian Assange."
And now this.
And now, why
would you say that?
Amazon earned $92
million last quarter.
You know why?
'Cause they sell sex toys and
Walmart can't or
won't sell sex toys.
Amazon does.
A friend of mine works
in the warehouse.
He says they sell a ton of them.
Yeah.
I'm just telling you how it is.
Are you smelling me?
Eh, sniffing you a little bit.
You smell good.
Hooters girl Rachel
is here live.
How do I know?
I just touched her.
The weather is kind of like
Harvey weinstein, assaulting us
today with the heat
and temperatures.
Okay, Charlie, I'm going to
sit here and hang out with my
new best friend.
I think you two should get a
hotel room or something.
That's a lot of action
going on over there.
Everybody wants a yoga
girl, right, Jason?
That's right.
- All right, on that note...
- Moving on.
Our main story tonight
concerns drugs.
On one hand, America's war on
them has been a complete
catastrophe, but on the other
hand, it did also give
us this photo of Nancy Reagan
sitting on Mr. t's lap, so it
wasn't a complete loss.
And by the way, I pity the fool
that didn't think they were
gonna fuck after that.
Specifically, specifically,
we're going to talk
about opioids.
And if you're thinking, "hold
on, didn't you do a
show on this before?"
Yeah, we did one two
and a half years ago.
But tonight, we're going to do
an update for a couple
of key reasons.
First, the epidemic
is very much ongoing.
In 2017, opioid overdoses killed
more than 47,000 Americans.
And second, since then, we've
learned a lot more about many of
the companies involved, and some
of it has been amazing.
For instance, a criminal case
involving executives from the
drugmaker insys unearthed a
rap video they allegedly made to
motivate their sales force to go
out and sell a painkiller
containing the highly addictive
drug fentanyl.
Take a look.
Yes.
Beast.
Let's just stop for a moment to
unpack the line, "if you're
trying to ball, I'll substitute
you like a xylitol."
That is a reference to the key
ingredient in sugar‐free gum.
It is astonishingly, almost
impossibly lame.
It is genuinely difficult to
come up with a rap
that's lamer that that.
"Splash rules
everything around me.
Hanks get the mermaid.
Daryl Daryl Hannah y'all."
Now, is that lame?
Is that lame?
Yes.
Is it lamer than
the insys video?
I think it's hard for you to
make that case.
And that rap video was just the
tip of the iceberg in terms of
new information now coming out
through numerous court cases.
So tonight, let's pull a few of
these new revelations together
and look at what we've learned
about how the first wave of the
opioid crisis began, because
it's a story of how major
companies acted wildly
irresponsibly, skirted any
meaningful consequences, and for
the most part, avoided
public scrutiny.
And let's start with
drug distributors.
These are the big three.
They're the companies
responsible for getting drugs to
pharmacies and hospitals.
They're supposed to alert
authorities if they notice
suspicious orders of
controlled substances.
But for a sense of just how
badly they failed to do that,
look at Kermit, West Virginia,
named, of course, because it's
where Kermit the frog lives with
his secret second family.
Oh, that's right.
He's in a thruple with
two salamanders named francois
and Gary, and they are
very, very happy.
It was never you, miss piggy.
It was him.
The amount of opioids sent to
Kermit, a town of just 400
people, was utterly ridiculous.
This undercover video of
Kermit's main pharmacy shows
scores of people picking up
prescriptions inside and at the
drive‐thru window.
More than 3 million doses of
hydrocodone were ordered by a
Kermit pharmacist, James wooley,
in one year.
It's true.
3 million doses to a
town of 400 people.
That's around 7500 pills for
every resident in Kermit.
And just to be clear, we mean
every resident in Kermit, not
every resident "in Kermit."
Kermit ‐‐ Kermit is a top, I'll
have you know.
Not that that is any
of your business.
But those sorts of figures
clearly should've caught the
attention of distributors.
In fact, the largest one,
mckesson, alone, shipped
5 million doses of opioids to
Kermit in just two years.
And that's just one example of
mckesson's reckless behavior.
And the problem is, at no point
were they effectively deterred.
In 2008, the DEA alleged
that mckesson had failed to
control its controlled
substances.
Mckesson agreed to pay a
$13 million fine ‐‐
that's all ‐‐ without admitting
wrongdoing, and also promised to
do better by implementing a
controlled substances
monitoring program.
But that emphatically
didn't work.
In fact, a DEA official later
wrote, "their bad acts had
continued and escalated
to a level of egregiousness not
seen before."
Because of course they did.
You can't put mckesson in charge
of monitoring mckesson.
If the bears in your zoo get out
at night and start mauling the
other animals, you don't
deputize one of the bears to
monitor the situation.
And I know what you're thinking.
"But, John, I've already bought
him a little sheriff's outfit to
wear and I think he'd
look great in it."
And yes, of course he would, but
at the end of the day, bears are
gonna bear.
It's just in their nature.
And again, before you say,
"well, I've spent quite a bit of
money designing a custom‐made
sheriff's badge just for him.
Don't you think the bear will
recognize the gravitas of that
symbol and feel compelled to
grow and change his
bear ways in some way?"
No, I don't, because
bears respect nothing.
They think the importance we
place on symbols and status
makes us weak, they value
nothing but blood and strength.
And I know what you're
going to say now.
"Is there anything I can do?"
And the answer, of course, is
no, because while you were
talking, sheriff
bear mauled you.
You're dead.
Goodbye.
The point is, mckesson
monitoring itself clearly didn't
work, because in 2017, they
wound up agreeing to a bigger
fine, this time, $150 million,
which sounds like a lot, until
you realize that's less than one
one‐thousandth of their revenue
for one year.
And while today mckesson says
they've improved their
monitoring systems ‐‐ for
realsies this time,
pinky promise ‐‐
and they argue that they weren't
the ones setting the demand for
opioids at any point, even the
DEA agent in charge of their
case thought their
settlement was absurd.
How do you settle?
How do you say, it's okay, just,
"here, write this check this
time and ‐‐ and close this place
for a little bit, sign this
piece of paper."
How do you do that?
No.
Put 'em in jail.
He's right.
Put 'em in jail!
And honestly, I'd watch an
entire show that's just that guy
telling me where to put things.
Mckesson executives?
"Put 'em in jail!"
These carrots?
"Put 'em in soup!"
This group of corgis?
"Put 'em in tiny boots!
They should be in boots!"
But that is the
big problem here.
For companies involved in the
opioid crisis, fines just became
the cost of doing business.
And throughout this crisis, it's
been difficult to find any real
accountability for the people
involved, and there may be no
more frustrating example of that
than purdue pharma, the
manufacturer behind oxycontin,
the drug that arguably
kickstarted the crisis.
Purdue famously aggressively
marketed oxycontin to doctors as
a less addictive painkiller that
could be used to treat common
conditions like backaches and
knee pain, which was
obviously untrue.
It would be like using cocaine
for a toothache.
Which, incidentally back in the
1800s, people actually did.
What an idea.
"My tooth hurt this morning, but
I took some medicine, and now
I'm really fucking psyched about
20 different business ideas.
I'm going to write a screenplay.
I know it's the 1800s!"
Purdue is owned by members of
the sackler family.
Collectively they're worth an
estimated $13 billion, which has
enabled them to proudly slap
their name on some truly
impressive monuments to other
people's talent.
The sackler name is on parts of
the met, the louvre, the museum
of natural history, the national
gallery in London, the royal
college of art, an institute at
Yale, a library at Oxford,
and the sackler crossing at the
royal botanic gardens.
Not bad for a family whose name
sounds like a hamburglar‐like
villain that steals testicles.
"Oh, no!
The sackler came in the middle
of the night, and now my penis
is shivering!"
The sacklers love putting their
names on things.
Although until very recently,
they've been miraculously good
at keeping their name off the
opioid crisis.
But that is now changing with
protests like this.
In New York City this
weekend, protesters flooded the
guggenheim museum.
They dropped fake prescription
slips from the upper walkway,
angry that the museum takes big
donations from the sackler
family, which has been accused
of engineering the
opioid epidemic.
Wow.
Look, I know this isn't the
point, but spare a thought for
the guggenheim janitor who has
to clean all that up.
Dennis didn't take millions from
the pharmaceutical industry.
Dennis gets $15 an hour and
maybe the occasional chance to
masturbate on a cezanne.
Look, look, hey.
I didn't say he was
a good janitor.
I just said you should
think about him.
The reason for this change in
public perception is a dawning
realization at just how deeply
some of the sacklers were
involved, because unlike most
second‐generation heirs to a
family fortune, some
were very hands‐on.
Richard sackler worked at purdue
throughout the crisis, serving
as president from 1999 to 2003,
and served on the board along
with seven other family members.
And now, thanks to a number of
lawsuits filed by various
states, we're getting glimpses
of Richard's involvement.
Massachusetts alleges that
Richard sackler at one point
demanded to be sent into the
field with sales reps
on visits to doctors.
In fact, his micromanagement was
apparently so extreme that
purdue's vp of sales and
marketing wrote to the ceo,
"anything you can do to reduce
the direct contact of Richard
into the organization
is appreciated."
And going by some of his
statements, this micromanagement
was in service of a
pretty clear purpose.
According to newly filed
court documents, when oxycontin
was first released,
Richard sackler, purdue's former
president and son of the company
founder, is quoted saying at a
company event that the launch
would be followed by a "blizzard
of prescriptions."
Amazingly, the full
quote is actually worse.
He calls it "a blizzard of
prescriptions that will bury the
competition," and then goes on
to say "the blizzard will be so
deep, dense, and white."
And, look, as a tagline for
"frozen 2," that's pretty good,
but it's troubling when applied
to addictive fucking
painkillers.
And Richard sackler's glib tone
continued, even as purdue began
to see the consequences of the
drugs that they were pushing.
At the dawn of the opioid
epidemic, when 59 deaths were
reported in a single state,
purdue's president wrote, "this
is not too bad.
It could have been far worse."
Wow.
That is both callous and also
completely besides the point,
because the phrase "it could
have been worse" can be applied
to literally anything.
In fact, one of the only things
it cannot apply to is
Richard sackler's statement
regarding those 59 deaths.
And I have to say, I'm just not
sure the full horror of that
comment comes across when you
just hear a guy
reading it on TV.
And the problem is, we have to
use clips like that because
there are no clips
of Richard sackler.
He never does interviews.
Even that photo is one of only a
small handful we could find.
And think of how remarkable that
is in and of itself.
He's an incredibly rich man, and
it's genuinely easier to find
multiple image options of birds
standing on turtles or babies
that look like Wallace Shawn.
And lets all agree, those babies
look a lot like Wallace Shawn.
And this ‐‐ this invisibility
feels deliberate.
And whether it is or not, it has
definitely been convenient for
Richard sackler, because it's
honestly hard to tell the story
of his time at purdue
without any video.
There is only so long anyone
will listen to someone at a desk
reading from court documents.
Trust me, I know that.
I'm painfully aware of that.
So tonight, we've actually done
something unusual.
To help you get the emotional
impact of Richard sackler's
actual words, we got
an actor to play him.
So let's ‐‐ let's try that last
quote again.
Richard sackler, a news article
about oxycontin addiction says
it's caused 59 deaths
in a single state.
How do you respond?
This is not too bad.
It could have been far worse.
That's right.
We got Michael fucking Keaton.
Because ‐‐ and
I'll tell you why.
Because when you're casting for
a shadowy heir to a vast fortune
who doesn't like to be in the
limelight, you go Batman.
And, look, that helps
a little bit, right?
Here, let's try another one.
As evidence mounted that oxy was
causing widespread addiction,
sackler urged the company to
publicly blame those
who were addicted.
Michael Keaton, what
did he actually write?
We have to hammer on the
abusers in every way possible.
They are the culprits
and the problem.
They are reckless criminals.
Sackler
genuinely wrote that.
Not only does that come off as
malicious and cold‐hearted, it
also doesn't make any sense.
He's furious at people who are
part of the problem, but the
people he's angry at helped make
him incredibly rich.
You don't see Adam levine
releasing a song condemning
horny middle‐aged women because
that would be hypocritical.
Who do you think made you who
you are, Adam?
It's your "just dangerous
enough for suburban moms to
masturbate to" energy that got
you where you are today.
Show some respect
for your base, son.
Now, now, for legal reasons, I
have to tell you the sacklers
and purdue insist the family
didn't cause the opioid crisis
and vigorously deny the claims
in the lawsuits we've mentioned,
saying that Richard sackler's
comments have been taken out of
context, with quotes
cherry‐picked from among tens of
millions of other emails and
business documents.
But two things about that.
First, whenever they've added
context, it hasn't
really helped much.
For instance, their explanation
for sackler saying the news of
59 deaths was "not too bad" was
that he was "merely commenting
about the nature of recent press
coverage," which is not better
in any meaningful way.
As for that "blizzard of
prescriptions" line, they've
claimed the full context for
that is that his remarks were an
allusion to his delayed arrival
at that event due to the
well‐known blizzard of 1996.
Which, again, in no
way exonerates him.
"Oh, hey, guys.
It's not like Richard was
recklessly and callously
anticipating oxycontin's
popularity while
it was sunny out.
It was snowing.
Hello?"
And the thing is, for a family
that complains about a lack of
context, they have fought
tirelessly to withhold it,
because time and again, they
have settled cases on the
condition that evidence will be
sealed and unavailable
to the public.
In fact, a few years back,
purdue settled a lawsuit with
Kentucky on the condition that
the state a. G. Destroy
17 million pages of documents.
17 million pages.
That's an actual blizzard of
context that they did not want
anyone to see.
And you can kind of see why,
because just the glimpses of
information we've seen recently
resulted in that guggenheim
protest, which, in turn, led to
the museum deciding to stop
taking funding
from the sacklers.
And the guggenheim is not the
only institution cutting ties.
The sacklers and London's
national portrait gallery have
mutually agreed to call off a
planned donation $1.3
million donation.
It's true, the
portrait gallery bailed on the
sacklers too.
And I know that, as punishments
go, getting to keep $1.3 million
doesn't sound all
that fucking bad.
But keep in mind that these
people have infinite money and
seem to enjoy nothing more than
using it to purchase
social status.
So not getting to put their name
on things may be a
real punishment.
But I would argue that should
only be half of it.
The other half is having to put
their name on the opioid crisis
they've fought so hard to
distance themselves from.
And that public accounting is
starting to become possible
despite the fact that
Richard sackler has barely
appeared in public.
And there's actually a
tantalizing development, because
a few weeks ago, the transcript
of a video deposition that
Richard sackler gave in that
Kentucky case ‐‐ the case,
remember, where 17 million
documents were destroyed ‐‐
leaked to pro publica
and stat news.
This is it right here.
This is the thing purdue really
didn't want anyone to see.
And there is some
damning stuff in here.
The really effective thing would
be to see the video of this
deposition, but purdue is
fighting ferociously hard to
keep it under seal,
which benefits them.
As you've seen tonight,
newscasters reading quotes will
only get you so far.
But we have the deposition, and
you should know, Michael Keaton
is not the only actor we got to
play Richard sackler.
In fact, we got multiple actors
to read parts of sackler's
deposition, word‐for‐word.
And who better to convey the
arrogance of an early exchange
about sackler's involvement in
purdue than someone responsible
for playing one of the greatest
drug dealers in
television history?
On July 30th of 2014, were
you a director of
purdue pharma inc?
Not that I'm aware.
This is an affidavit filed in
the Southern district
of West Virginia.
And does that appear
to be your name?
That does.
And it's dated July 30, 2014.
It says "declaration of
Dr. Richard s. Sackler.
I am a director of
purdue pharma inc, the general
partner of purdue pharma llp.
I've held this
position since 1990."
If that's what it says, then
that's what it says.
Wow, Richard sackler
came off like a real
dick there, right?
Certainly more so than if I'd
just read that to you.
And since we had Bryan cranston,
we didn't stop there.
Because this deposition also
contains an excerpt of a speech
that sackler gave when oxycontin
was launched, bragging about how
quickly purdue got the
fda to approve it.
So we had him go full
Walter white on that one too.
This didn't just happen.
It was a deftly coordinated
planned event that took dozens
of workers years of
effort to succeed.
The most demanding new drug
approval package for any
analgesic product ever submitted
didn't languish at the agency.
Unlike the years that other
filings linger at fda, this
product was approved
in 11 months, 14 days.
Our previous best approval time
for other products was measured
in years, not months.
God, I felt that
in my fucking bones.
And, look, sure, we
could've stopped there.
Those two actors are
already incredible.
But then we remembered,
this is hbo.
And if we want someone to read
the shit out of another
email that Richard
sackler wrote, this one
characterizing his
devotion to oxycontin,
we have access to the cast of
another iconic drug drama.
Brace yourselves, everyone.
Omar comin'.
You won't believe how
committed I am to make oxycontin
a huge success.
It is almost that I've dedicated
my life to it.
Indeed.
And, look, the only problem is,
all of these actors
are pretty cool.
And Richard sackler
decidedly is not.
And so to embody the fact that
he responded "I don't know" more
than 100 times during his
deposition, we asked
Richard kind to read just a
selection of them.
How much money has purdue or
purdue pharma made?
I don't know.
Do know how much the sackler
family has made up a
sale of oxycontin?
I don't know.
Who is Lydia Johnson?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
How many purdue
entities are there?
I don't know!
Pretty effective, huh?
And Richard sackler might say,
"I didn't sound like that," but
we don't know that if we can't
see the tape, which is why he
should absolutely allow
it to be released.
But if he doesn't, we can only
imagine what was going on during
his deposition.
For instance, maybe he was
sloppily eating a Turkey
sandwich during this actual
exchange about
oxycontin addiction.
Have you made any effort, or
as we sit here today, do you
know how many patients who took
oxycontin in Kentucky became
dependent or addicted?
No.
Do you believe that an
inappropriate number of patients
or an excessive number of
patients who took oxycontin in
Kentucky became
addicted or dependent?
No.
Do you know or has purdue
made any effort to ascertain how
many people who were started on
oxycontin wound up becoming
dependent and moving on to
heroin at some point?
No.
Why would he eat a
sandwich during such a
serious deposition?
I mean, yes, maybe he didn't,
but it would be so easy for
Richard sackler to
prove he didn't.
The point is, until he does,
we've uploaded videos of four
different Richard sacklers
reading extracts from his emails
and deposition to
sure they'll enjoy.
They love having their names on
fucking galleries.
We've also linked to various
state lawsuits at the site so
that you can read
them for yourself.
The point here is,
Richard sackler's deposition
should not be something purdue
gets to bury like it's buried so
many other things
over the years.
So please go to the website and
watch and use the
clips as you see fit.
So if Richard sackler wanted
context, then guess what?
This is it.
It is a blizzard of context!
Deep, dense, and white!
You're welcome, sackler family!
That's our show!
Thanks so much for watching!
See you next week!
Good night!
The launch of oxycontin
tablets will be followed by a
blizzard of prescriptions that
will bury the competition!
The prescription blizzard will
be so deep, dense, and white!
welcome to "last week tonight!"
I'm John Oliver.
Thank you so much
for joining us.
Just time for a quick
recap of the week.
And we're going to focus on a
couple of stories
out of britain.
First, brexit, which I believe
is short for "brain exit," the
official word for when
everything that makes sense goes
out the window and everyone is
just stupid all the time.
Britain was supposed to have
left the e. U. By Friday, but the
day before the deadline,
this happened.
The u. K. Is heading for a
Halloween brexit after the e. U.
Extended the deadline for
withdrawal until
October the 31st.
"Halloween brexit"?
Look, brexit is plenty scary
enough without adding
Halloween to it.
It's like we found out there was
a meteor rapidly approaching
earth and named it "weinstein."
It's overkill.
It's complete overkill
at that point.
But it is true, the brexit
deadline has been
delayed until October.
Now, what will they do
with the extra time?
Who knows?
It's hard to imagine that
unsolvable problems ‐‐ like how
to create a hard border with
Ireland without sparking
sectarian violence ‐‐
will suddenly be solved
within six months.
And many, many British people
seem exhausted by the extension.
I imagine in six months' time
we'll probably be in the same
place we're at now, another
stalemate where it's either
gonna get suspended ‐‐ extended
another six months or who knows?
Oh, god.
Another six months
talking about brexit?
Yeah, I can
see how she feels.
Or at least I could before
brexit interviews started
featuring people being casually
eaten by parrots when they talk.
I would trade another 18 months
of brexit to find out
more about that man.
Like "how did he
become a Yankees fan?"
And "is that his parrot?"
'Cause if it isn't, that is the
calmest I've seen someone stay
during a random televised
parrot attack.
This wasn't even the first time
that the deadline has
been pushed back.
Britain was supposed to leave on
march 29th.
And to hear some brexit
supporters tell it, that's when
it did happen.
The 29th of march should have
been the day we leave, and in my
eyes, we've left.
But it's not and you haven't.
So what?
In my eyes, we have.
Today is our independence day,
and whether we have it or not,
we're celebrating it.
Wait, wait,
wait, wait, wait.
Hold on, hold on.
If all that matters to brexit
supporters is what happens
"in their eyes," we may've found
Cancel brexit, but
allow everyone to say it
happened if it makes
them feel better.
That way, no devastating
economic consequences and brexit
supporters get to live happily
ever after in their own personal
"United Kingdom of
the imagination."
But that wasn't the only big
news out of britain.
There was also news concerning
Julian Assange, the most
controversial Australian export
since vegemite.
This week saw a
major development.
Julian Assange arrested.
Julian Assange, now with a
beard, carried out of the
Ecuadorian embassy by London's
metropolitan police.
That bedraggled
beard, lengthy hair.
Looking tired, looking older,
significantly much older.
Looking a very different man
than the one who went into that
embassy some seven years ago.
That's a weird tone to
take on a story that
is this important.
"Yes, his arrest sparks a
difficult debate about the
efficacy of journalistic
protections in the age of
cyber‐espionage, but
look how bad he looks!
He looks like a peeled potato
rolled in spiderwebs.
He looks like Kenneth
Branagh's ghost.
He looks like Gandalf
fucked his stick.
We're having fun.
We're having fun, aren't we?"
But, look, this is a big deal.
Julian Assange has now been
kicked out of the Ecuadorian
embassy after spending
seven years there.
And part of the reason they
may have wanted him out may be
that he did not make life easy
for his hosts.
There have been reports for
some time that assange was sort
of ‐‐ had outlived his welcome
there in the embassy for all
sorts of reasons, including
his ‐‐ you know, that his cat
had been making a mess and that
he was skateboarding
in the halls.
Stealing wi‐fi.
Oh, that's not all.
The ambassador also said that
assange's indoor soccer games
had destroyed embassy equipment
and the government had to
require him to start
cleaning his bathroom.
And, look, at some point in our
lives, we have all lived with
someone like this, and we wished
that we could have British
police carry them out of our
building like a hastily
rolled carpet.
And, look, it's easy to dislike
Julian Assange.
He first fled to the embassy to
escape extradition to Sweden on
rape charges, charges he denies.
And alongside the valuable
information that wikileaks has
helped release, they've also
recklessly published the
sensitive personal data of
hundreds of ordinary people,
potentially putting
lives at risk.
And that's not even getting into
the fact that wikileak's
publication of hacked emails in
2016 helped elect
trump president.
So you're allowed not to like
him, but America's current
attempts to extradite him hang
on a specific charge that many
press advocates find unsettling.
The u. S. Justice department
has charged him with conspiracy
to commit computer intrusion.
Authorities are accusing assange
of conspiring to crack a
password in order to obtain
classified government documents.
Now, that charge stems
from his correspondence with
Chelsea Manning before the
publication of classified
documents in 2010.
And on its face, it currently
seems more than a little flimsy,
prompting the committee to
protect journalists to call it
"troubling for press freedom,"
because the indictment's
language seems to criminalize a
broad range of legally protected
and common
journalistic activity.
And while it is still early at
this point and we don't know
what else assange might be
charged with, or even whether
the u. K. Will extradite him at
all, this story is worrying for
One,
because journalistic freedoms
may be under threat.
And two, unfortunately, in order
to protect them, we may be
forced to utter the one phrase
in the english language scarier
than "Halloween brexit" and
that's, "I'm really sorry,
everyone, but it might actually
be time to defend
Julian Assange."
And now this.
And now, why
would you say that?
Amazon earned $92
million last quarter.
You know why?
'Cause they sell sex toys and
Walmart can't or
won't sell sex toys.
Amazon does.
A friend of mine works
in the warehouse.
He says they sell a ton of them.
Yeah.
I'm just telling you how it is.
Are you smelling me?
Eh, sniffing you a little bit.
You smell good.
Hooters girl Rachel
is here live.
How do I know?
I just touched her.
The weather is kind of like
Harvey weinstein, assaulting us
today with the heat
and temperatures.
Okay, Charlie, I'm going to
sit here and hang out with my
new best friend.
I think you two should get a
hotel room or something.
That's a lot of action
going on over there.
Everybody wants a yoga
girl, right, Jason?
That's right.
- All right, on that note...
- Moving on.
Our main story tonight
concerns drugs.
On one hand, America's war on
them has been a complete
catastrophe, but on the other
hand, it did also give
us this photo of Nancy Reagan
sitting on Mr. t's lap, so it
wasn't a complete loss.
And by the way, I pity the fool
that didn't think they were
gonna fuck after that.
Specifically, specifically,
we're going to talk
about opioids.
And if you're thinking, "hold
on, didn't you do a
show on this before?"
Yeah, we did one two
and a half years ago.
But tonight, we're going to do
an update for a couple
of key reasons.
First, the epidemic
is very much ongoing.
In 2017, opioid overdoses killed
more than 47,000 Americans.
And second, since then, we've
learned a lot more about many of
the companies involved, and some
of it has been amazing.
For instance, a criminal case
involving executives from the
drugmaker insys unearthed a
rap video they allegedly made to
motivate their sales force to go
out and sell a painkiller
containing the highly addictive
drug fentanyl.
Take a look.
Yes.
Beast.
Let's just stop for a moment to
unpack the line, "if you're
trying to ball, I'll substitute
you like a xylitol."
That is a reference to the key
ingredient in sugar‐free gum.
It is astonishingly, almost
impossibly lame.
It is genuinely difficult to
come up with a rap
that's lamer that that.
"Splash rules
everything around me.
Hanks get the mermaid.
Daryl Daryl Hannah y'all."
Now, is that lame?
Is that lame?
Yes.
Is it lamer than
the insys video?
I think it's hard for you to
make that case.
And that rap video was just the
tip of the iceberg in terms of
new information now coming out
through numerous court cases.
So tonight, let's pull a few of
these new revelations together
and look at what we've learned
about how the first wave of the
opioid crisis began, because
it's a story of how major
companies acted wildly
irresponsibly, skirted any
meaningful consequences, and for
the most part, avoided
public scrutiny.
And let's start with
drug distributors.
These are the big three.
They're the companies
responsible for getting drugs to
pharmacies and hospitals.
They're supposed to alert
authorities if they notice
suspicious orders of
controlled substances.
But for a sense of just how
badly they failed to do that,
look at Kermit, West Virginia,
named, of course, because it's
where Kermit the frog lives with
his secret second family.
Oh, that's right.
He's in a thruple with
two salamanders named francois
and Gary, and they are
very, very happy.
It was never you, miss piggy.
It was him.
The amount of opioids sent to
Kermit, a town of just 400
people, was utterly ridiculous.
This undercover video of
Kermit's main pharmacy shows
scores of people picking up
prescriptions inside and at the
drive‐thru window.
More than 3 million doses of
hydrocodone were ordered by a
Kermit pharmacist, James wooley,
in one year.
It's true.
3 million doses to a
town of 400 people.
That's around 7500 pills for
every resident in Kermit.
And just to be clear, we mean
every resident in Kermit, not
every resident "in Kermit."
Kermit ‐‐ Kermit is a top, I'll
have you know.
Not that that is any
of your business.
But those sorts of figures
clearly should've caught the
attention of distributors.
In fact, the largest one,
mckesson, alone, shipped
5 million doses of opioids to
Kermit in just two years.
And that's just one example of
mckesson's reckless behavior.
And the problem is, at no point
were they effectively deterred.
In 2008, the DEA alleged
that mckesson had failed to
control its controlled
substances.
Mckesson agreed to pay a
$13 million fine ‐‐
that's all ‐‐ without admitting
wrongdoing, and also promised to
do better by implementing a
controlled substances
monitoring program.
But that emphatically
didn't work.
In fact, a DEA official later
wrote, "their bad acts had
continued and escalated
to a level of egregiousness not
seen before."
Because of course they did.
You can't put mckesson in charge
of monitoring mckesson.
If the bears in your zoo get out
at night and start mauling the
other animals, you don't
deputize one of the bears to
monitor the situation.
And I know what you're thinking.
"But, John, I've already bought
him a little sheriff's outfit to
wear and I think he'd
look great in it."
And yes, of course he would, but
at the end of the day, bears are
gonna bear.
It's just in their nature.
And again, before you say,
"well, I've spent quite a bit of
money designing a custom‐made
sheriff's badge just for him.
Don't you think the bear will
recognize the gravitas of that
symbol and feel compelled to
grow and change his
bear ways in some way?"
No, I don't, because
bears respect nothing.
They think the importance we
place on symbols and status
makes us weak, they value
nothing but blood and strength.
And I know what you're
going to say now.
"Is there anything I can do?"
And the answer, of course, is
no, because while you were
talking, sheriff
bear mauled you.
You're dead.
Goodbye.
The point is, mckesson
monitoring itself clearly didn't
work, because in 2017, they
wound up agreeing to a bigger
fine, this time, $150 million,
which sounds like a lot, until
you realize that's less than one
one‐thousandth of their revenue
for one year.
And while today mckesson says
they've improved their
monitoring systems ‐‐ for
realsies this time,
pinky promise ‐‐
and they argue that they weren't
the ones setting the demand for
opioids at any point, even the
DEA agent in charge of their
case thought their
settlement was absurd.
How do you settle?
How do you say, it's okay, just,
"here, write this check this
time and ‐‐ and close this place
for a little bit, sign this
piece of paper."
How do you do that?
No.
Put 'em in jail.
He's right.
Put 'em in jail!
And honestly, I'd watch an
entire show that's just that guy
telling me where to put things.
Mckesson executives?
"Put 'em in jail!"
These carrots?
"Put 'em in soup!"
This group of corgis?
"Put 'em in tiny boots!
They should be in boots!"
But that is the
big problem here.
For companies involved in the
opioid crisis, fines just became
the cost of doing business.
And throughout this crisis, it's
been difficult to find any real
accountability for the people
involved, and there may be no
more frustrating example of that
than purdue pharma, the
manufacturer behind oxycontin,
the drug that arguably
kickstarted the crisis.
Purdue famously aggressively
marketed oxycontin to doctors as
a less addictive painkiller that
could be used to treat common
conditions like backaches and
knee pain, which was
obviously untrue.
It would be like using cocaine
for a toothache.
Which, incidentally back in the
1800s, people actually did.
What an idea.
"My tooth hurt this morning, but
I took some medicine, and now
I'm really fucking psyched about
20 different business ideas.
I'm going to write a screenplay.
I know it's the 1800s!"
Purdue is owned by members of
the sackler family.
Collectively they're worth an
estimated $13 billion, which has
enabled them to proudly slap
their name on some truly
impressive monuments to other
people's talent.
The sackler name is on parts of
the met, the louvre, the museum
of natural history, the national
gallery in London, the royal
college of art, an institute at
Yale, a library at Oxford,
and the sackler crossing at the
royal botanic gardens.
Not bad for a family whose name
sounds like a hamburglar‐like
villain that steals testicles.
"Oh, no!
The sackler came in the middle
of the night, and now my penis
is shivering!"
The sacklers love putting their
names on things.
Although until very recently,
they've been miraculously good
at keeping their name off the
opioid crisis.
But that is now changing with
protests like this.
In New York City this
weekend, protesters flooded the
guggenheim museum.
They dropped fake prescription
slips from the upper walkway,
angry that the museum takes big
donations from the sackler
family, which has been accused
of engineering the
opioid epidemic.
Wow.
Look, I know this isn't the
point, but spare a thought for
the guggenheim janitor who has
to clean all that up.
Dennis didn't take millions from
the pharmaceutical industry.
Dennis gets $15 an hour and
maybe the occasional chance to
masturbate on a cezanne.
Look, look, hey.
I didn't say he was
a good janitor.
I just said you should
think about him.
The reason for this change in
public perception is a dawning
realization at just how deeply
some of the sacklers were
involved, because unlike most
second‐generation heirs to a
family fortune, some
were very hands‐on.
Richard sackler worked at purdue
throughout the crisis, serving
as president from 1999 to 2003,
and served on the board along
with seven other family members.
And now, thanks to a number of
lawsuits filed by various
states, we're getting glimpses
of Richard's involvement.
Massachusetts alleges that
Richard sackler at one point
demanded to be sent into the
field with sales reps
on visits to doctors.
In fact, his micromanagement was
apparently so extreme that
purdue's vp of sales and
marketing wrote to the ceo,
"anything you can do to reduce
the direct contact of Richard
into the organization
is appreciated."
And going by some of his
statements, this micromanagement
was in service of a
pretty clear purpose.
According to newly filed
court documents, when oxycontin
was first released,
Richard sackler, purdue's former
president and son of the company
founder, is quoted saying at a
company event that the launch
would be followed by a "blizzard
of prescriptions."
Amazingly, the full
quote is actually worse.
He calls it "a blizzard of
prescriptions that will bury the
competition," and then goes on
to say "the blizzard will be so
deep, dense, and white."
And, look, as a tagline for
"frozen 2," that's pretty good,
but it's troubling when applied
to addictive fucking
painkillers.
And Richard sackler's glib tone
continued, even as purdue began
to see the consequences of the
drugs that they were pushing.
At the dawn of the opioid
epidemic, when 59 deaths were
reported in a single state,
purdue's president wrote, "this
is not too bad.
It could have been far worse."
Wow.
That is both callous and also
completely besides the point,
because the phrase "it could
have been worse" can be applied
to literally anything.
In fact, one of the only things
it cannot apply to is
Richard sackler's statement
regarding those 59 deaths.
And I have to say, I'm just not
sure the full horror of that
comment comes across when you
just hear a guy
reading it on TV.
And the problem is, we have to
use clips like that because
there are no clips
of Richard sackler.
He never does interviews.
Even that photo is one of only a
small handful we could find.
And think of how remarkable that
is in and of itself.
He's an incredibly rich man, and
it's genuinely easier to find
multiple image options of birds
standing on turtles or babies
that look like Wallace Shawn.
And lets all agree, those babies
look a lot like Wallace Shawn.
And this ‐‐ this invisibility
feels deliberate.
And whether it is or not, it has
definitely been convenient for
Richard sackler, because it's
honestly hard to tell the story
of his time at purdue
without any video.
There is only so long anyone
will listen to someone at a desk
reading from court documents.
Trust me, I know that.
I'm painfully aware of that.
So tonight, we've actually done
something unusual.
To help you get the emotional
impact of Richard sackler's
actual words, we got
an actor to play him.
So let's ‐‐ let's try that last
quote again.
Richard sackler, a news article
about oxycontin addiction says
it's caused 59 deaths
in a single state.
How do you respond?
This is not too bad.
It could have been far worse.
That's right.
We got Michael fucking Keaton.
Because ‐‐ and
I'll tell you why.
Because when you're casting for
a shadowy heir to a vast fortune
who doesn't like to be in the
limelight, you go Batman.
And, look, that helps
a little bit, right?
Here, let's try another one.
As evidence mounted that oxy was
causing widespread addiction,
sackler urged the company to
publicly blame those
who were addicted.
Michael Keaton, what
did he actually write?
We have to hammer on the
abusers in every way possible.
They are the culprits
and the problem.
They are reckless criminals.
Sackler
genuinely wrote that.
Not only does that come off as
malicious and cold‐hearted, it
also doesn't make any sense.
He's furious at people who are
part of the problem, but the
people he's angry at helped make
him incredibly rich.
You don't see Adam levine
releasing a song condemning
horny middle‐aged women because
that would be hypocritical.
Who do you think made you who
you are, Adam?
It's your "just dangerous
enough for suburban moms to
masturbate to" energy that got
you where you are today.
Show some respect
for your base, son.
Now, now, for legal reasons, I
have to tell you the sacklers
and purdue insist the family
didn't cause the opioid crisis
and vigorously deny the claims
in the lawsuits we've mentioned,
saying that Richard sackler's
comments have been taken out of
context, with quotes
cherry‐picked from among tens of
millions of other emails and
business documents.
But two things about that.
First, whenever they've added
context, it hasn't
really helped much.
For instance, their explanation
for sackler saying the news of
59 deaths was "not too bad" was
that he was "merely commenting
about the nature of recent press
coverage," which is not better
in any meaningful way.
As for that "blizzard of
prescriptions" line, they've
claimed the full context for
that is that his remarks were an
allusion to his delayed arrival
at that event due to the
well‐known blizzard of 1996.
Which, again, in no
way exonerates him.
"Oh, hey, guys.
It's not like Richard was
recklessly and callously
anticipating oxycontin's
popularity while
it was sunny out.
It was snowing.
Hello?"
And the thing is, for a family
that complains about a lack of
context, they have fought
tirelessly to withhold it,
because time and again, they
have settled cases on the
condition that evidence will be
sealed and unavailable
to the public.
In fact, a few years back,
purdue settled a lawsuit with
Kentucky on the condition that
the state a. G. Destroy
17 million pages of documents.
17 million pages.
That's an actual blizzard of
context that they did not want
anyone to see.
And you can kind of see why,
because just the glimpses of
information we've seen recently
resulted in that guggenheim
protest, which, in turn, led to
the museum deciding to stop
taking funding
from the sacklers.
And the guggenheim is not the
only institution cutting ties.
The sacklers and London's
national portrait gallery have
mutually agreed to call off a
planned donation $1.3
million donation.
It's true, the
portrait gallery bailed on the
sacklers too.
And I know that, as punishments
go, getting to keep $1.3 million
doesn't sound all
that fucking bad.
But keep in mind that these
people have infinite money and
seem to enjoy nothing more than
using it to purchase
social status.
So not getting to put their name
on things may be a
real punishment.
But I would argue that should
only be half of it.
The other half is having to put
their name on the opioid crisis
they've fought so hard to
distance themselves from.
And that public accounting is
starting to become possible
despite the fact that
Richard sackler has barely
appeared in public.
And there's actually a
tantalizing development, because
a few weeks ago, the transcript
of a video deposition that
Richard sackler gave in that
Kentucky case ‐‐ the case,
remember, where 17 million
documents were destroyed ‐‐
leaked to pro publica
and stat news.
This is it right here.
This is the thing purdue really
didn't want anyone to see.
And there is some
damning stuff in here.
The really effective thing would
be to see the video of this
deposition, but purdue is
fighting ferociously hard to
keep it under seal,
which benefits them.
As you've seen tonight,
newscasters reading quotes will
only get you so far.
But we have the deposition, and
you should know, Michael Keaton
is not the only actor we got to
play Richard sackler.
In fact, we got multiple actors
to read parts of sackler's
deposition, word‐for‐word.
And who better to convey the
arrogance of an early exchange
about sackler's involvement in
purdue than someone responsible
for playing one of the greatest
drug dealers in
television history?
On July 30th of 2014, were
you a director of
purdue pharma inc?
Not that I'm aware.
This is an affidavit filed in
the Southern district
of West Virginia.
And does that appear
to be your name?
That does.
And it's dated July 30, 2014.
It says "declaration of
Dr. Richard s. Sackler.
I am a director of
purdue pharma inc, the general
partner of purdue pharma llp.
I've held this
position since 1990."
If that's what it says, then
that's what it says.
Wow, Richard sackler
came off like a real
dick there, right?
Certainly more so than if I'd
just read that to you.
And since we had Bryan cranston,
we didn't stop there.
Because this deposition also
contains an excerpt of a speech
that sackler gave when oxycontin
was launched, bragging about how
quickly purdue got the
fda to approve it.
So we had him go full
Walter white on that one too.
This didn't just happen.
It was a deftly coordinated
planned event that took dozens
of workers years of
effort to succeed.
The most demanding new drug
approval package for any
analgesic product ever submitted
didn't languish at the agency.
Unlike the years that other
filings linger at fda, this
product was approved
in 11 months, 14 days.
Our previous best approval time
for other products was measured
in years, not months.
God, I felt that
in my fucking bones.
And, look, sure, we
could've stopped there.
Those two actors are
already incredible.
But then we remembered,
this is hbo.
And if we want someone to read
the shit out of another
email that Richard
sackler wrote, this one
characterizing his
devotion to oxycontin,
we have access to the cast of
another iconic drug drama.
Brace yourselves, everyone.
Omar comin'.
You won't believe how
committed I am to make oxycontin
a huge success.
It is almost that I've dedicated
my life to it.
Indeed.
And, look, the only problem is,
all of these actors
are pretty cool.
And Richard sackler
decidedly is not.
And so to embody the fact that
he responded "I don't know" more
than 100 times during his
deposition, we asked
Richard kind to read just a
selection of them.
How much money has purdue or
purdue pharma made?
I don't know.
Do know how much the sackler
family has made up a
sale of oxycontin?
I don't know.
Who is Lydia Johnson?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
How many purdue
entities are there?
I don't know!
Pretty effective, huh?
And Richard sackler might say,
"I didn't sound like that," but
we don't know that if we can't
see the tape, which is why he
should absolutely allow
it to be released.
But if he doesn't, we can only
imagine what was going on during
his deposition.
For instance, maybe he was
sloppily eating a Turkey
sandwich during this actual
exchange about
oxycontin addiction.
Have you made any effort, or
as we sit here today, do you
know how many patients who took
oxycontin in Kentucky became
dependent or addicted?
No.
Do you believe that an
inappropriate number of patients
or an excessive number of
patients who took oxycontin in
Kentucky became
addicted or dependent?
No.
Do you know or has purdue
made any effort to ascertain how
many people who were started on
oxycontin wound up becoming
dependent and moving on to
heroin at some point?
No.
Why would he eat a
sandwich during such a
serious deposition?
I mean, yes, maybe he didn't,
but it would be so easy for
Richard sackler to
prove he didn't.
The point is, until he does,
we've uploaded videos of four
different Richard sacklers
reading extracts from his emails
and deposition to
sure they'll enjoy.
They love having their names on
fucking galleries.
We've also linked to various
state lawsuits at the site so
that you can read
them for yourself.
The point here is,
Richard sackler's deposition
should not be something purdue
gets to bury like it's buried so
many other things
over the years.
So please go to the website and
watch and use the
clips as you see fit.
So if Richard sackler wanted
context, then guess what?
This is it.
It is a blizzard of context!
Deep, dense, and white!
You're welcome, sackler family!
That's our show!
Thanks so much for watching!
See you next week!
Good night!
The launch of oxycontin
tablets will be followed by a
blizzard of prescriptions that
will bury the competition!
The prescription blizzard will
be so deep, dense, and white!