A source-grounded investigation into how Purdue Pharma turned OxyContin, a federally approved controlled-release oxycodone medicine for severe pain, into one of the most profitable drugs in America. The episode follows the sales systems, prescribing-data tactics, medical education campaigns, addiction-risk messaging, regulatory failures, and early warnings that shaped the prescription-opioid phase of the opioid crisis. It separates Purdue’s corporate guilty pleas from civil allegations involving individual Sackler family members, traces the 2007 and 2020 federal resolutions, examines bankruptcy fights over releases for nonbankrupt owners, and follows the Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling through the revised multibillion-dollar settlement framework. The story keeps the wider system in view: physicians, regulators, distributors, pharmacies, consultants, insurers, courts, and public-health agencies all played roles. At the center remains the unresolved question of whether money, guilty pleas, and institutional reforms can answer for mass harm without fuller public trials.

This podcast uses artificial intelligence in its research, writing, production, and narration. Episodes are editorially reviewed before publication.

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YES OR NO: Did Purdue’s OxyContin settlements deliver real accountability??????