The opioid crisis isn’t just the Sacklers’ fault – and making Purdue Pharma pay isn’t enough on its own to fix the pharmaceutical industry’s deeper problems

Purdue’s profit-seeking became a model for other drugmakers, distributors and pharmacy chains. The ensuing sales frenzy led to skyrocketing rates of opioid addiction and related harms by the early 2000s – perhaps the worst pharmaceutical crisis in U.S. history. Above: A 1944 article decried the dangers of prescribed opioids.