journal at 7:00 a.m. eastern sunday morning. join the discussion. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. c-span was created as a public service by america's television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. fine --a look at the a oxycontin.e from washington journal, this is 35 minutes. by extorting us from new york city is christopher glaser, i can turn be there to esquire magazine. he is here as part of our spotlight on magazine series. talking about the investigation of the family behind oxycontin and how they are profiting from the opioid crisis.

interested in the epidemic for some time. there was an amazing series in the los angeles times last year that looked into oxycontin and the company that manufactured it. that series referred to the fact that it was actually one family that owns 100% of purdue pharma fromeaps billions oxycontin. it was shocking to make him i did not realize it was a single family behind the drug. the name maymily, sound familiar to viewers, particularly in the cultural world, there are many museums with that name. tell us who this family is. sacklerher: so the family is among the most famous philanthropists in the world. they give millions to education. if you have been to the

metropolitan in new york, or if you have been to the tate in england, the guggenheim, the brooklyn museum, almost all of them, the most important museums in the world have a sackler wing for a room named after them from a donation. same is true if you look at higher education. at almostitutes every ivy league schools. these are top schools, yale, caltech, nyu, etc. host: go ahead. christopher: so i was aware of the sackler name and they are extremely public about some things come extremely public about their donations, but they are private about their business and the source of their fortune. host: talk about that business and the connection between the maker of oxycontin.

christopher: right. so the sacklers are 100% owners of purdue pharma, and they own international companies linked to purdue pharma. it is based in connecticut. constituting is the overwhelming majority of their sales. the company has grossed about $35 billion in oxycontin since it was released in 1996. the sackler's have amassed a fortune of roughly $30 million as estimated by forbes, which could be the largest pharmaceutical fortune in recorded history. host: meanwhile, as we have talked a lot about before, there is an opioid crisis in the country. you write according to the cbc -- cdc, thousands of americans died in 2016 from overdoses, more than that there is 6000 that died from tash more than

the36,000 -- more than 36,000 that died that year from gun violence and car crashes. talk about the source of these opioids, which includes oxycontin, and the way that drug manufacturers and manufacture owners profit from it. christopher: it is important to understand with our current epidemic is that this really comes from the health care system. you know, for years and years and years, there was a strong, customary taboo or stigma about prescribing powerful opioids ate morphine, like heroin one time, there was a taboo against prescribing it for ordinary kinds of pain. what happened over time is that a kind of, there was a movement to use strong, long acting opioids in cancer care for terminally ill patients.

and purdue pharma, they had another drug in the 1980's contin, that was a morphine pill. the company have the idea, what if we took this drug and we marketed it to, instead of cancer patients, we market it to those suffering from toothaches, back pain and menstrual pain. they basically ramped up their operation and it started targeting a huge range of doctors. it really built the market for opioids and got thousands of americans hooked. recently, a lot of people, a lot of people who started on prescription drugs have switched to street drugs like heroin, but the source actually comes from a prescription drug. host: we are talking with christopher glazek about his piece called "the secret of

family, making billions from the opioid crisis." we have regional lines for the discussion. those in the eastern time zone's can call (202) 748-8000. those in the mountain and pacific time zones, (202) 748-8001. people who have had experience with opioids, you or family members, we have a special line for you -- (202) 748-8002. we will go to a caller from florida, east coast. good morning. you are on with christopher glazek. youer: this time of year, ofw, billions of dollars out -- this is costing thousands of people who get killed and died, people --the american

[indiscernible] hadstopher: i'm sorry, i trouble understanding the question. host: i think we still have him. i think we lost him. i think for the people who are affected by this, is there any recourse that they have against the sackler family or the company specifically? christopher: the company is really getting and circled by lawsuits. in 2007, they pled guilty to criminal charges brought by the federal government and they signed a big agreement where they had to pay $600 million, one of the biggest fines in pharmaceutical history and three top executives went down and had to pay millions themselves and pleaded guilty to criminal charges also. that was for criminally misbranding a prescription drug. basically it was determined the

company had lied about how addictive the drug was. so there was a big settlement already, now there are further suits that just the last couple months, and dozens found by -- many by cities, states, banding together to look at this. so the company is in big trouble. the question remains, is any of the litigation going to reach the family? in the current wave of lawsuits, no family members are named. in 2007 with the big settlement, no family members were named either. it was interesting because it looks like all the top executives from the company went down, the ceo, general counsel, chief medical officer, but that guy had just been promoted to ceo pretty recently. during the time when oxycontin was promoted and when the epidemic was born, the top executive was a member of the sackler family. but they stepped aside after the

federal investigation started. the way the media covered it, it looked like the top people had taken the fall, but in fact no members of the family were named in the suit. host: we are talking about the piece you wrote, "the secret of a family making billions on the opiate crisis." you mentioned earlier when talking about that, the way that oxycontin was made, or the reach was broadened, i want to take a pullout from the story. "had pulled off three of the great marketing triumphs. the first, selling oxycontin. promoting the sackler name. the third ensuring as far as the public is aware, the first and second have nothing to do with one another." the point you are just making, why hasn't the controversy over oxycontin specifically, and the opioid crisis more generally,

stuck to the sackler's at all? christopher: they made one really fateful decision, they did not name the company after the family name. they did not name any of the products after the family name. so it is not sackler pharma, it is purdue pharma. the family was three brothers from brooklyn. they grew up in working-class family, the family owned a grocery store. they got their start in pharmaceutical advertising and the patriarch, arthur sackler, he is most famous for devising the campaign for valmum in the 19 -- calum in the 1960's. and it is interesting, what he did with the value was -- valum is similar to what his siblings did with oxycontin. there was a drug already on the

market that was very similar to sackler hadrthur the idea of taking the similar substance and marketing it for a huge range of indications and elements. -- ailments. he created the concept of psychic tension, what we think about as stress. he said it could be at the root of all problems. you have a headache, sleep problems, if you have indigestion, sexual problems, all these physical conditions could maybe be treated by valum. ure all,e anchor -- a c very similar to what happened with oxycontin. this drug on the market already targeted at cancer patients, but the company had the idea, what if we market it for a range of conditions. host: we have a lot of callers waiting to ask you questions. iris is calling from new

jersey. caller: good morning. i wanted to say that you guys are doing a great job. i watch you every day. i have a grandson who has adhd and he has narcolepsy. wait, i cannot hear you. host: go ahead. you are on. caller: my daughter is having problems with the insurance company. they are refusing to give him the medication, which is --, that he needs for his condition. '4".s 12 years old, 5 he is very well tested. his doctor checked and triple checks, he does the brain scan everything months. host: let me ask, is the drug he needs, are they opioids?

caller: i do not know. they are substance controlled. i guess you would call them that. they are refusing, i was afraid it would happen, that with deregulation, what they are talking about doing, the insurance companies will not want to cover the necessary medications. host: i appreciate your issue, but i think it is not quite on-topic on what we are talking about, profiting off of opioids. christopher glazek, if you have insight you are free to weigh in. christopher: i am not sure the case is exactly the same, but it raises an issue which comes up a lot, there is always a balancing act between delivering medications to patients that really need it, and preventing addictive medication from flooding the market and creating all the public health problems.

it is something we struggled with with opioids for a long time, so you have very organized patient groups concerned that with all the headlines about the opioid epidemic killing thousands of people, it is like 1000 people every week, that they will no longer be able to get opioids that they need. it is a difficult problem to go through. one thing i would say, this is - shift inas been a attitude about this and last year the cdc issued guidelines raising questions about whether powerful, long acting opioids are actually appropriate for treating chronic pain longer than six weeks. there is not strong research that suggests they are effective for chronic pain, because they change your pain threshold. so they work well for a short amount of time, but if you are taking them week after week and month after month, the dose has

to be constantly escalating. so that happens to be a profitable business model if you are selling the drug. if somebody is taking it and they need more and more to keep up, that is a nice profit stream. host: ok. mary and calling from pittsburgh -- mary anne calling from pittsburgh. caller: good morning good i suffer from chronic -- morning. i suffer from chronic pain and i need my medicine. you are blaming the drugmakers for all these problems, when you should be holding the people responsible, themselves. i do not go out and look for heroin. you are, i think that you are appalling because you are saying it is everybody else's fault except for the person who put the needle in their arm. i think you are wrong, because you do not understand chronic pain. if you do not have it, you do

not understand it. everybody is being punished because everybody is doing everything else with the needles, you are not seeing heroin coming in across the border. i will wait for your response. christopher: sure. 80% of heroine addicts -- heroin addicts actually started on a prescription drug. there is a hard distinction on the one hand, and people taking drugs as prescribed for chronic pain on the other, it is fuzzier than it might seem. you have case after case of people who are prescribed opioids that are too strong for their condition and they become addicts and it ruins their lives. there is absolutely a large group of patients who need opioids to treat their condition and it is important to keep it available to them, but we need to look at the other side. something i would say, obviously we have a tendency to blame

addicts, and if we do not we often blame the doctors who prescribe it, some of them are involved in illegal activities. sometimes we blame the distributors. but what i really wanted to look at in the investigation, taking an aerial view of the whole problem. who is profiting most here? who has the most aerial view of what is going on? who has the most granular data about where the pills are going, who is taking them and he was prescribing them? it turns out to be the person at the beginning of the chain, the manufacturer. purdue pharma built of market and now we are dealing with the consequences. host: we have hope calling from california with experience with opioid use. go ahead. caller: good morning. i am a doctor. and this is a great topic. i know in the middle to 2000's, congress

passed a bill that makes the companies responsible. so why is congress allowing the products this down market? -- to stay on the market? christopher: that is a good question. some of these questions might be best addressed to the fda. their role is a big part of the story. when they approved the application for oxycontin they made what seems like a number of mistakes in allowing the company to make claims about it, and the company then went beyond those claims, which is a source of a lot of the litigation. part of the issue is whether callers brought up, that there are patients who need these drugs, so there is concern if you issue, or take them off the market entirely, issue blanket prohibition, that you will be preventing cancer patients, terminally ill patients, and other kinds of patients from getting the drugs they need.

other countries do not seem to have this problem in the same way. the united states consumes by far the most opioids compared to any country in the world, more than 50% and we are only 5% of the world population. other countries have not had a prescription drug epidemic. that is one thing that drew me to the investigation also. purdue pharma and the sackler family, which owns international companies, is now trying to do in other countries the same thing they did here. they are reprising their greatest hits in terms of pain, doctors giving speeches on their behalf, downplaying the addiction. they have gotten into hot water in the united states, but now they are taking their same tactics and they are going to china, colombia, brazil, they just released a study in colombia that suggested that 42%

of the population -- 47% of the population suffers from chronic pain. that is half the population. host: we are talking with christopher glazek about his piece in "esquire" magazine, about the family that owns purdue pharma and how they have profited off of oxycontin, while in epidemic rages in the country. talk about, how the viewers have pointed out, that the opioid crisis is much bigger than oxycontin, but talk about how much of this can be attributed to this drug and this family. iss oxycontin, related -- there other drugs involved? talk about those. christopher: i was shocked in my reporting how much responsibility experts pin on this one company and on the

family behind it. the issue is that purdue pharma, through its aggressive marketing, they ended up changing medical taboos and customs in the country. they built this market. then everybody else feasted on the carcass. then we have all the other big manufacturers getting stock in the game, making their own opioids. they saw the profits produced from was making and they went after it. there is an interesting question, purdue pharma is a privately held company going to tory asleep secretive -- and notoriously secretive, owned by one family. they did not have to make the same kind of disclosures about what was going on at the company if they were publicly traded, if they were like pfizer or johnson and johnson. would the big boys really have done the same kind of thing pretty fermented in the 1990's thehing purdue did in

1990's? they are privately held, they do not have to disclose certain things. did it enable them to be more aggressive, take risks with regulators that other companies would not have taken? i think it is a good question. but the broader point is that we tend to think of these big, public health crises as the result of these large and personal forces that are complicated and unfold over time, that are hard to understand. that is true to an extent, but it can distract from the fact that a lot of social problems take form from the action of individuals. and to a degree these prescription drug prices -- crisis in the united states, it really does have its roots in actions taken by executives of particular companies. host: we have a twitter comment

that i will read to you. "we could fix a lot of family fortunes from growing by indian foundations and other nontax entities." is that part of the problem as you see it? christopher: there is a question about our culture's tendency to allow billionaires to -- their reputations through donations to museums and universities and medical research and, you know, and they are tax-exempt and many people think it is actually not a good idea. i am not sure the tax exemption is the most important element of the problem, but certainly the settlers -- the family had purchased goodwill by investing their fortune into these blue-chip brands, into the metropolitan museum of art and others.

devise a lot of goodwill -- it b uys a lot of goodwill. i spoke with those that received donations from them over the years and they had nothing but amazing things to say about the family, they are the nicest people, the best donors. their strategy is different from some people. you have bill gates for instance who started this single giant global behemoth the gates foundation, really involved in causes like malaria and other diseases. you have andrew carnegie, in the 19th century, who founded thousands of libraries with his name on it. what the sackler family has done is they chose institutions that already have endowments and the attached their names to those institutions by buying and. -- in. it is a different strategy, but effective at making them a beloved family and the charity circuit. host: i want to get to some questions we still have.

dan calling from columbus, georgia. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: i was just watching this. and years ago i was prescribed oxycontin for pain. they did not try me on it, they just threw me on oxycontin, which i got addicted to. buti have issues like -- you really cannot understand someone's pain unless you are living it. but i got off of the oxycontin by the way of methadone treatment. now i am stuck there. what do i do about that? host: go ahead, christopher. christopher: it is a good question. another really difficult thing about the opioid epidemic is that we have the interest in trying to prevent new addicts from being created, and we have

the question of how to best treat people who are currently addicted. we know the best treatment for opioid addiction is this medication assisted treatment, which involves some kind of opioid maintenance. if you can get people on a standard dose that they take every day that does not increase, that satisfies their physical dependence on opioids and it does not disrupt their lives, evidence shows it is the best strategy. we do that a number of ways and methadone clinics are a successful approach to that. likeso use medications subject ask -- and new medications are being developed, also. when you're talking about the opioid crisis, we have to get rid of all the opioids, well, that could be a catastrophe also. many people are addicted and we need to make sure that that is protected, these maintenance doses.

when we develop tools to get them off of the maintenance dose, that is something we are hopeful about. host: karen is calling from colorado with experience in the opioid epidemic. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. i am so glad to have an opportunity to say something about this, and i am sure i am speaking for millions in this country. i am 53 years old. was atil i was age 29, i world traveling musician. guide takingay people down the colorado on trips. careerad this great trajectory. with aot diagnosed disease, an excruciatingly

bladder disease that technically they do not call terminal, although we are what iminal, and they -- went through in those last 20 years, the first six years i did not want, i did not want to start any pain meds. but it doesn't take long before you say uncle. and what is missing from all these conversations is everybody is talking about addiction. um, i do not know where everybody is getting their information, but patients that have been barred from congress testify because when somebody deals with chronic pain there is a certain amount

you can distract yourself from, but when it becomes above level 4 or 5, somebody's personal level, it becomes a terminal illness and it started affecting me and i ended up getting gallbladder disease and others. i was the picture of health for my first 29 years. host: karen, we only have a little bit of time left and i want to give christopher a chance to respond. christopher: i am so sorry to hear about the caller's medical problems. and i would like to reiterate effectiveds are an treatment for a lot of people and it is important for those that need the drug, that they get the drug. the issue we have, with the medical system in our country, when you connect the profit motive to a highly addictive medication, the opportunities and incentives to overprescribed are so great that it is up

creating problems like we have, like the opioid epidemic, where millions have died. you have pharmaceutical companies at the same time giving money to doctors, you know, and giving money to pharmacists and distributors in a sophisticated system for incentivizing each part of the chain to prescribe more and more. other countries do not have the prescription drug crisis we have, and it has a lot to do with, almost everything you do with the profit motive from the manufacturer. host: ok. christopher glazek, thank you for joining us to talk about your story. they can find it on esquire.com. you can also find christopher on twitter. >> c-span's washington journal, live every day with news and

policy issues that impact you cured coming up sunday morning, republican pollster brian me neighbor and democratic pollster discuss key issues facing the trump presidency heading into campaign 2018. and then a nuclear historic and -- historian will talk about the president's authority to launch nuclear weapons. he sure to watch washington journal, live at 7:00 eastern sunday morning cured joined the discussion to it -- the discussion. saudi arabia's crown prince has ordered the arrest of at least 200 leaders. there was a discussion in washington, d.c. on the future of saudi arabia and leadership. this is 90 minutes. mr. jahshan: --