newyorker | When we talk about drug abuse in America, our
leaders use the language not just of war but of invasion. It is true, of
course, that many illegal drugs are produced in other countries and
imported into the United States. But our tendency to focus,
relentlessly, on the supply side of the drug problem obscures the more
intractable problem of the demand side—and of our complicity, as
voracious consumers. “An astonishing ninety per cent of the heroin in
America comes from south of the border,” President Trump said on
Thursday, in his remarks on the opioid epidemic. And this is true. But,
in focussing on this particular statistic, and promising that “building a
wall” along the Mexican border “will greatly help this problem,”
President Trump indulged the old nativist myth of drug prohibition.
This week, in the magazine, I wrote a piece about the origins of the current epidemic—a
story that unfolded not in Mexico but in Stamford, Connecticut, where
Purdue Pharma, a privately held company that is owned by the Sackler
family, developed a powerful opioid painkiller, OxyContin, and set out
to persuade the American medical establishment that it was not
addictive. As my piece relates, Purdue succeeded beyond its wildest
imaginings. OxyContin became a blockbuster drug, generating billions of
dollars for the Sacklers. Meanwhile, a generation of Americans grew
addicted to opioid painkillers. Four out of five people who try heroin
today first abused prescription painkillers. In light of such a
statistic, it would be folly to focus on Mexico and not look very hard
at the F.D.A.-approved drug pushers closer to home.
Trump
may not be particularly focussed on pharmaceutical companies, but there
are promising signs that others are. On Thursday morning, federal
agents arrested
the founder of Insys, a drug company that produces a powerful opioid,
and charged him with racketeering and fraud. And on Wednesday it was revealed
that federal prosecutors in Connecticut have opened a new criminal
investigation of Purdue Pharma—focussed on the marketing of OxyContin.
