Representatives of the Sackler family, who became multibillionaires by selling OxyContin widely held responsible for creating the US opioid epidemic which has claimed more than 500,000 lives, did nothing to damp down public hostility when two of the extended and extensive family turned up this week at a US congressional committee. Apologies and acknowledgements of wrongdoing were not forthcoming which prompted infuriated members of Congress to liken the Sacklers to the Mexican drug cartel leader, El Chapo, and the multi-billion dollar fraudster, Bernie Madoff. One congressman said he thought they were possibly the most evil family in America.
A previous post with detail on the founders is at September 16 2019.
In the late 1990s Dr. Richard Sackler, senior vice president and then president of Purdue Pharma, aggressively pushed back, when concerns started to become public, according to newly unsealed documents. He said a robust response was in order insisting that oxycontin was “less prone to addiction potential, abuse or diversion” than other opioid pain pills. https://www.statnews.com/2019/12/02/purdue-richard-sackler-proposed-plan-play-down-oxycontin-risks/
Purdue Pharma continued to market and sell opioids as late as 2019 and then faced with a mountain of lawsuits filed for bankruptcy in September 2019. In October 2019 the privately owned company reached a settlement of around $8.3bn, admitting that it “knowingly and intentionally conspired and agreed with others to aid and abet” doctors dispensing medication “without a legitimate medical purpose”.
What is intriguing from an astrological point of view is the proliferation of Uranus Neptune across most of the available charts. The founder Arthur and one of the early trio of brothers were born on the Uranus opposition Neptune. The company LLP of 14 June 1991 was on the Uranus Neptune conjunction in Capricorn.
Richard Sackler, 10 March 1945, the more recent face of the company over its horror period is a Sun Mercury in Pisces in an expansive opposition to Jupiter in Virgo. There is not much notable without a birth time except that his Pluto sits exactly on the midpoint of a Uranus trine Neptune, with his Jupiter semi-square his Uranus/Neptune midpoint as well. The third brother of the original founders also has his Pluto semi-square his Uranus/Neptune midpoint.
One of the meanings Ebertin ascribes to Uranus Neptune is ‘elimination of waking consciousness’ and ‘apoplexy of the brain’ as well as instability, confused psychic states, lack of emotional balance. And the Sacklers dreamed up the drug which did all that and made themselves obscenely rich messing with other people’s heads.
There are notably aggressive Mars across various of the charts as well.