https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opioid_epidemic
The opioid epidemic, also referred to as the opioid crisis, is the rapid increase in drug use and overdose deaths attributed either in part or in whole to the class of drugs called opiates/opioids since the 1990s.
Opioids are a diverse class of moderate to strong painkillers, including oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, heroin, and fentanyl.
Due to the sedative effects of opioids, opioids may cause respiratory failure and death.
From 1999 to 2021, approximately 645,000 Americans died from opioid use. The number of overdose deaths involving opioids in 2021 was ten times what it was in 1999.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sackler_family
The Sackler family is a Jewish family who owned the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma and later founded Mundipharma. They were described as the "most evil family in America", and "the worst drug dealers in history".
In late 2020, the Committee on Oversight and Reform of the US House of Representatives held a hearing on the role of Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family in the opioid epidemic. Regarding the Sacklers, author Patrick Radden Keefe stated "They could produce a rehearsed simulacrum of human empathy" but were "impervious to any genuine moral epiphany." Jim Cooper, a congressman from Tennessee, stated to David Sackler: "Watching you testify makes my blood boil. I am not sure I am aware of any family in America that's more evil than yours."
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-that-built-an-empire-of-pain
As OxyContin spread outside the U.S., the pattern of dysfunction repeated itself: to map the geographic distribution of the drug was also to map a rash of addiction, abuse, and death. But the Sackler family increased its efforts abroad, and is now pushing the drug, through a Purdue-related company called Mundipharma, into Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Part of Purdue’s strategy from the beginning is to create a market for OxyContin — to instill a perceived need by making bold claims about the existence of large numbers of people suffering from untreated chronic pain.
“It’s a parallel to what the tobacco industry did,” Mike Moore, the former Mississippi attorney general, told me. “They got caught in America, they saw their market share decline, so they export it to places with even fewer regulations than we have.” He added, “You know what’s going to happen. You’re going to see lots and lots of death.” In May, several members of Congress wrote to the World Health Organization, urging it to help stop the spread of OxyContin, and mentioning the Sackler family by name. “The international health community has a rare opportunity to see the future,” they wrote. “Do not allow Purdue to walk away from the tragedy they have inflicted on countless American families simply to find new markets and new victims elsewhere.”