The New Yorker has published a fascinating, in-depth article on how the Sackler family (owners of Perdue Pharmaceutical) made billions of dollars selling Oxycontin throughout America. While effective pain management was, and is, a very important medical consideration, scores of people were introduced to a drug that was heralded as relatively “safe”, but which opened

Treatment professionals have long recognized a causal link between active substance abuse and the exacerbation of mental health symptoms. Similarly, those treating addiction have observed a patient’s drug use and associated problems suddenly escalate when the patient goes off of a needed psychotropic medication. That these two illnesses are connected is no great surprise. The