The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org. December 17, 2019 Sacklers Withdrew $10B from Purdue Pharma Amid Scrutiny over Opioid Crisis -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A new audit has revealed how the Sackler family withdrew more than $10 billion from their company, Purdue Pharma, as scrutiny mounted over Purdue Pharma's role in the opioid epidemic. The Sacklers distributed the money among trusts and overseas holding companies, raising even more questions about how much money the family actually has and how much the Sacklers should pay to compensate victims of the United States' opioid crisis. Local and state governments have brought thousands of lawsuits against Purdue Pharma. Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, said, "The fact that the Sackler family removed more than $10 billion when Purdue's Oxy Contin was directly causing countless addictions, hundreds of thousands of deaths, and tearing apart millions of families is further reason that we must see detailed financial records showing how much the Sacklers profited from the nation's deadly opioid epidemic." .