You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Scan barcode
Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe
142 reviews
hilaryreadsbooks's review against another edition
5.0
[Thank you Anchor Books for the gifted copy]
Many of us know that powerful people are capable of terrible things, but many of us do not know what those terrible things often are. Patrick Radden Keefe’s EMPIRE OF PAIN: THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE SACKLER DYNASTY is an incredible tome of research and investigation that exposes just a part of this terrible world. Focused less on the actual opioid epidemic, EMPIRE OF PAIN hones in on this powerful family and how greed, ambition, and power led to this crisis. Keefe writes with empathy and clarity, and his storytelling, as it was with SAY NOTHING, was phenomenal. Even at 500 pages, I finished this book in just two nights.
What stood out to me the most was the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma’s manipulation of pain patients (and I appreciate Keefe’s note at the end explaining his intention to not contribute to stigmatization of those who use opioids, but rather to demonstrate that the Sacklers and Purdue “have for decades invoked the interests of pain patients as a fig leaf for their own avarice.” The facts that Keefe presents behind this are sobering—there were multiple instances where the Sacklers and other Purdue executives ignored addiction data that foresaw the crisis; instead, they would deny any links and continue to sell Oxy, even using pain patients as examples of Oxy’s effectiveness in their ads. There was, as well, Purdue Pharma’s intention to start selling addiction treatment drugs that target the very market of addiction they created (a business model used by many big pharma companies).
EMPIRE OF PAIN will stay with me for a long time.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Drug use, Drug abuse, Grief, Medical trauma, and Death
Moderate: Suicide and Self harm
gnataliec's review against another edition
informative
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Drug use, Drug abuse, and Death
kdsmoove's review against another edition
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
5.0
“It is a peculiar hallmark of the American economy that you can produce a dangerous product and effectively off-load any legal liability for whatever destruction that product may cause by pointing to the individual responsibility of the consumer.”
*insert annie screaming gif”
the amount of times i screamed at the radio or texted someone “just when i thought these people couldn’t get any worse, they fucking do!” throughout reading this is not a low number. when i tell you i was HOOKED from the beginning and somehow not intimidated by the length.
i knew some about the opioid crisis, even enough to associate the sackler name with it but i had *no idea* just how deep the rot went. i didn’t realize that arthur sackler was the mastermind behind the way the entire pharmaceutical marketing schemes work now. that he basically invented sales and created his own fucking sources and oh my GOD. it was a solid five or six hours in before we even got to Reagan and i did the whole *leo pointing at the tv gif* thing to the stereo.
and of course today to tidy it up it HAD to be the fucking trump administration willing to let them off with a slap on the wrist. i am so mad, i will be staying mad. you should read this. but beware, there’s a lot of trigger warnings to check and it will make you very mad. One of the lines he used was “rip shit pissed” which sounds a lot funnier out loud than it does written down but i will be using it moving forward.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gaslighting, Medical content, Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Medical trauma, Mental illness, and Suicide
serinalovesreading's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse
_fallinglight_'s review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.5
Surreal, insightful, albeit and clinical deep dive into the depraved and unhinged Sackler criminal billionaire family. This book is one of many definitive proofs that the billionaire is incompatible with humanity at this point and greed is an addiction as equally destructive and demoralizing as any substance addiction if not more or worse. The lengths the rotting rich go to to keep their corrosive money are so twisted but it's also morbidly impressive how they weave the web of connections and buy their way into getting the results they want. Particularly this family who honestly wouldn't have made it without ass kissers and enablers and unscrupulous people making their perversity possible bc most of them are so offensively insensitive and stupid.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Medical content, Mental illness, Classism, and Death
Moderate: Suicide attempt, Antisemitism, Body shaming, Fatphobia, and Suicide
mniziolek's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
slow-paced
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse and Drug use
Minor: Death
____emily____'s review against another edition
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, and Drug abuse
Moderate: Antisemitism, Classism, Grief, and Death
Minor: Suicide and Mental illness
samarakroeger's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
slow-paced
4.25
fascinating and extensive look at the villain origin story behind the opioid epidemic. as addicting to read as oxy (although this is certainly a slow release).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Drug use, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Suicide, Antisemitism, and Drug abuse
shadereads's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
3.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Drug abuse
aegagrus's review against another edition
3.25
Empire of Pain is a smart and thorough chronicle of three generations of the notorious Sackler family. Radden Keefe may write in the dramatized language commonly found in tales of “true crime”, but his credibility is bolstered by the years he’s put into this story and the vast quantity of source material he’s able to cite. His book does many things well. It provides a fascinating case study of the ways in which ill-gotten wealth can change a family over time, altering each generation’s proclivities and character. It effectively demystifies relatively arcane fields like pharmaceutical advertising and bankruptcy law. It doesn’t spare those peripherally implicated in the Sackler saga – well-known political figures from both major parties, doctors, lawyers, consultants, and museum administrators. Most importantly, it elucidates where we stand today, unflinchingly demonstrating the insufficiency of the ways in which the Sacklers have been “held to account”.
For all its thoroughness, Empire of Pain has a fairly narrow focus. Radden Keefe readily admits that his book is not intended to be a broad sociological account of the opioid crisis. At times, this tight focus on the Sacklers leaves the reader with questions. Radden Keefe does a pretty good job separating out the impact of Purdue Pharma from that of other opioid suppliers, citing empirical studies to show the close association between Purdue’s activities and the emergence of the crisis writ large. Purdue was an early and aggressive mover; in ascribing responsibility for the crisis, to start at Purdue is entirely justified. In other instances, though, the centrality of the Sacklers to this narrative may have led Radden Keefe to overstate their centrality – on the birth of medication-based psychiatry, for instance, or even on the ideological battles over how the medical field should approach chronic non-malignant pain (which is not to say that the Sackler’s astroturfing did not have a major impact in this regard).
It is also notable that a full third of the book is spent on the activity of Arthur Sackler, the family patriarch, who was already dead by the time OxyContin was created. The ways in which Arthur shaped the family’s trajectory are certainly relevant, getting the Sacklers started in the worlds of art and philanthropy, passing down an array of corporate structures, and inculcating deeply held ideologies in the succeeding generations. Arthur’s role in creating modern pharmaceutical advertising and his aggressive profiteering off of non-opioid tranquilizers (namely Valium) are also interesting. Nonetheless, too much time is probably spent mythologizing the dynasty’s origins, time which could perhaps have been better spent providing somewhat broader context for later material about the marketing of OxyContin and the ensuing litigation.
Empire of Pain is, all in all, well worth reading. If the reader is seeking to understand the opioid crisis itself, this book is probably not a perfect starting point. If the reader already has some background in the opioid crisis, however, or is primarily interested in a case study of the corrupt abuse of corporate, legal, and political power, Empire of Pain is an excellent choice.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Chronic illness, and Medical content
Moderate: Suicide, Antisemitism, and Injury/Injury detail