More Than All the Money in the World
Review of Netflix Series "Painkiller" (Oxycontin, Purdue Pharma, and the Sacklers), and My Experiences with the Legal Fallout
My iPad lockscreen photo (my firstborn son Kelvin, who died from an accidental Oxycontin overdose on 3/17/2102 at 28)
I really wanted to refer to them as the Sack O’Shitlers, due to their constant cynical and criminal lying, but I won’t. After all, it’s a bit childish to call people names like that (a little Trumpesque, even) and I’m pretty sure that not every member of the Sackler family is evil; so, I will refrain from such namecalling.
Nevertheless, I still and will probably always refer to the company they ran as Perdition Pharma rather than Purdue Pharma; those who knowingly promoted and advanced or even turned a blind eye to their malignant behavior are or were “perdition farmers” (merchants of death).
I just finished binge-watching Painkiller on Netflix, which was released yesterday (August 10, 2023) — I watched two episodes yesterday, and the other four today. Painkiller, like the similar Dopesick, which appeared on Hulu in 2021, is very well done. The thing that makes Painkiller stand out over Dopesick is the disclaimer at the start of each episode, where parents of Oxycontin victims read a statement about the series being based on true events but that it also contains elements and characters that are fictional, after which they briefly relate something that they only wish were fictional: the personal heartbreak and anguish they suffer as a result of the loss of a child. It’s excruciating to watch them, actually, and I profoundly sympathize with them all — the lead image I used for this article is a portrait of who was for me the subtext of the series: my firstborn son, Kelvin Caleb Mordecai Shannon, 12/28/83 - 3/17/2012. He was always just below the surface in the story for me, as I’m sure other survivors experience with their lost loved ones when they watch such shows.
As for the acting in the show, I found it top-notch across the board. The only actor I recognized was Matthew Broderick. Watching Painkiller, I realized the range Broderick has, portraying characters as disparate as the naive and charismatic Ferris Bueller to this one, the slimy sociopath Richard Sackler.It’s been over eleven years, and I am now revealing for the first time (I never even told my wife) a recurring fantasy I had after Kelvin died: I would find a pretext to burst into a meeting of the Perdition Pharma board of directors, machine gun in hand, and mow down all of those there who bore guilt in the production, marketing and distribution (“pushing”), and defending (legally and otherwise) of Oxycontin.
But I am not a violent person; I haven’t had a physical altercation with anyone since high school (and that was in the 1970s). In fact, I don’t own a gun of any sort, let alone an assault weapon such as a machine gun, and the only knives I have are used in the kitchen for prepping dinner and at the dining room table to cut pats of butter to melt on baked potatoes and French toast. I never planned on following through on my waking fever dream; but it was my fantasy, borne of my intense grief and seething anger. I would never actually do something like that, and it wouldn’t even the score anyway: the whole lot of those scumbags combined aren’t worth Kelvin. None of them are half the man Kelvin was.
Again, I would never actually carry out a violent attack like that, but if a member of that terrorist tribe of criminals against humanity is ever in the same place that I am, they would be advised to keep out of striking distance, as I cannot guarantee that I wouldn’t experience a surge of uncontrollable rage and go temporarily insane at the sight of them.
I wonder if it’s a coincidence that this appeared in the news the same day Painkiller was released:
The thing I didn’t like about Painkiller is the indiscriminate and profligate use of the threadbare F-word. Do people really talk like that? Nobody I know does. It’s very jarring and off-putting to hear; it's also ignorant and meaningless when used as a catch-all adjective or intensifier. At the very least, anyone who speaks like that should expand their vocabulary and/or try to be a little more creative.UPDATE 8/12/2023
There was another article in the NYT today about the case; here’s an excerpt:
My wife and I are among the claimants; the last paperwork I filled out about the case is the amount we feel entitled to. I googled how much money there is in the world, and added a dollar to that sum as my answer. Obviously, I was making a statement. What connection is there between money and a person’s life? How could any amount make it up to us? But being made to fork over the dough is the only thing people and corporations like that pay any attention to, so the more they have to suffer financially, the better. Maybe others will take note of the consequences of harming others and heed the warning.
ANOTHER UPDATE
There was another related article in the NYT today (8/15/23):
YET ANOTHER UPDATE (2/18/2024)
The other day I received another packet of legal information regarding the case against Purdue (“Perdition”) Pharma, or specifically against some other nondescript company which Purdue apparently sold their business to, or by some other type of shenanigans/sleight of hand, so that an entity with less available capital ($ bread $) be “on the hook,” so that the amounts they pay out to the litigants/complainants are reduced. I don’t know how they did that, but that seems to be, in a nutshell, what happened. The case is supposed to be completed in about a month, but I’ll believe it when and if it actually does happen. If the Sack O’Shitlers “get away with it” in this way, it will be highly irritating.
PROBABLY THE LAST UPDATE (5/1/2024)
To make a long story short (I’m disgusted and bored with it): I emailed the law firm about the status of the case, and ultimately found out that the paperwork I submitted earlier was not to become a recipient of part of the fines imposed, but just to qualify for later applying to receive such. Had I not asked about it, I would have never known that!
But it turns out that we are not qualified anyway, because the claimant / deceased person (Kelvin) would have had to receive a prescription for the drug, and then only for specific drugs (Percocet, etc., but Oxycodone and Oxycontin are not on their list).
But it was not only those who were prescribed these “medications” who suffered as a result. But, I’m done. Money would not have solved anything for us, anyway.
Yet hopefully — albeit maybe only indirectly, having to “for over the dough” punished the Sack O’Shitler family and caused others to at least pause before committing similar crimes against humanity in the future — and that is presumably happening or has happened already.
‘Nuff said.
REALLY PROBABLY THE LAST UPDATE (5/9/2024)
I got two letters today telling me, in legalese and in so many (so many!) words, that we won’t be getting a settlement for the death of our son Kelvin from his accidental overdose of Oxycontin (“Purdue Cocaine”). I don’t care about the $$ that much, as I live by Proverbs 30:8 (“give me neither poverty nor riches”), but it is irritating that they didn’t say up front (or make it clear — maybe they did mention it in the small print), that the claimant must have had a prescription to qualify for a settlement. So in the end it was just a runaround and shell game. The perpetrators get free on technicalities they’re allowed to impose.
Shouldn’t it have been based on those who were injured by it? Especially those who died as a result of their highly-addictive drug, regardless of how they got it?
NO MORE PROMISES (Another Update)
So I was wrong again; I got another letter from Endo today:
Still, though, proof of a prescription is required, so … it’s of no use to me.
FINAL UPDATE? 10/25/2024
I got the following in the mail today, saying the claim is denied because there is no proof of Kelvin having had a prescription for opioids. So if somebody got ahold of that poison in any way, the manufacturer/monger of it has blood on their hands, whether the decedent got it by prescription or other means, but “you can’t fight ‘city hall’ [Big Pharma]” apparently.
Words just won’t come…….I’m sure you understand me Clay.😢