The scandal of OxyContin, the painkiller that caused untold pain

Last week I was staying in a cool hotel in the middle of San Francisco. When I walked out to find coffee in the morning, I came across a man with his trousers lowered as he injected himself in the groin. An older fellow nearby used the street as a toilet, adding to the human excrement on the pavement. A woman lay crashed out, hair matted over her face in the heat. Returning later in the day, passing the clusters of tents and people chasing dragons from foil, I was asked: ‘Do you want anything?’

These disturbing scenes of human despair were beside a smart shopping mall in the city with the most billionaires per capita on the planet. San Francisco saw almost three times as many people killed last year by fentanyl — the ultra-potent opioid many times stronger than heroin — than who died from Covid. And this superb exposé points the finger of blame squarely at one family: the Sacklers, who became unbelievably rich while hiding behind the facade of their private firm and seeking to launder their name with donations to art galleries, museums and universities.