Richard Sackler predicted a 'blizzard of prescriptions' at OxyContin's launch — then devised a strategy to blame the addicts

When Richard Sackler stood before Purdue Pharma's leadership in 1996, he made a prediction that would haunt the company for decades. He anticipated that OxyContin would be "followed by a blizzard of prescriptions that will bury the competition." What makes this statement remarkable isn't the confidence—it's what happened next, and what internal documents reveal about what Sackler and his company knew.

For years, Purdue Pharma told the public, doctors, and regulators that OxyContin was safe. The company instructed its sales representatives to tell physicians that the drug was not addictive, and that addiction only developed in people with an "addictive personality." This messaging became the foundation of OxyContin's explosive growth in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Doctors, trusting the manufacturer's assurances, prescribed it liberally for pain management. The public largely accepted these claims as accurate.

But the epidemic that followed—the addiction crisis that would eventually kill hundreds of thousands of Americans—created a problem for Purdue and the Sackler family. Once the addiction rates became undeniable, the company needed a new strategy. Rather than accepting responsibility for knowingly misleading the medical community, Richard Sackler and his associates developed an approach to shift blame. They began characterizing addiction itself as a character flaw, a weakness of the addict rather than a consequence of their product.

The turning point came in 2007, when Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to felony misbranding charges. This wasn't a minor settlement or regulatory slap on the wrist—it was a criminal conviction. The company admitted in federal court that it had misrepresented 's safety and addiction potential. Following this guilty plea, a court order compelled the disclosure of over 20 million internal documents. These papers provided the documentary evidence that had been missing: proof of what actually knew and when he knew it.