Biography/Memoir

Guggenheim Museum will no longer accept gifts from makers of OxyContin

The group’s mission statement asks that “museums, universities, and educational institutions worldwide remove Sackler signage and publicly refuse future funding from the Sacklers.”  Purdue Pharma started producing OxyContin, generic name oxycodone, in 1995. The drug became a billion-dollar blockbuster for the company. The Sackler family is listed as the 19th-richest in the world by Forbes…

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Biography/Memoir

Hundreds of cities, counties and Native American tribes file federal lawsuit against Sackler family over opioid crisis

A spokesperson for the families of Drs. Mortimer and Raymond Sackler, the late founders of the company, issued this statement: “These baseless allegations place blame where it does not belong for a complex public health crisis, and we deny them. The company our fathers and grandfathers founded manufactures an FDA-approved medicine … “While we have…

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Biography/Memoir

FDA Chief Scott Gottlieb abruptly resigns

Gottlieb’s FDA has earned its fair share of criticism. Gottlieb also took fire for his agency’s decision to approve Dsuvia, the tablet form of an opioid painkiller more potent than fentanyl. He was also criticized for pushing back the timetable for when new regulatory rules would apply to e-cigarette products, similar to how tobacco cigarettes are regulated.…

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Biography/Memoir

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma reportedly exploring bankruptcy

Purdue has held discussions to resolve the litigation with plaintiffs’ lawyers, who have often compared the cases to widespread lawsuits against the tobacco industry that resulted in a $246bn settlement in 1998. Purdue and three executives in 2007 pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the misbranding of OxyContin and agreed to pay a total…

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Biography/Memoir

Should you be psyched about psychedelics?

Ryskowski said that entheogens can offer healing that won’t be found in traditional medicine. “It means real healing,” he said. “People lose so much of their lives to mental health issues.” Ray Ryskowski said that the conference was something he’s wanted to organize ever since. “We’ve been working up to the conference for years with…

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Biography/Memoir

As tobacco sales dry up, Kentucky farmers look to the state’s ‘original crop’ — hemp

“This is about evolving,” the 43-year-old said, gingerly pinching stalks of hemp that dangled like light fixtures.“Tobacco here is very much the past,” Furnish said. “Hemp is the future.” The hemp provision, which had bipartisan support, labels hemp a commodity crop — like soybeans and corn — and offers farmers insurance if they choose to…

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Biography/Memoir

Black Americans Are Building A Space In Psychedelic Drug Culture After Being Ignored For Decades

…Michael Pollan, Michael Mithoefer, and other white men who are supporting the use of psychedelic drugs to combat mental health issues. The problem goes beyond researchers too: raters (people who subjectively evaluate a patient’s response to a medical treatment); sponsors (an individual, institution, company or organization that takes the responsibility to initiate, manage or finance…

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