Hundreds protest Purdue Pharma HQ
A protest Friday morning by several hundred activists outside the downtown Stamford headquarters of Purdue Pharma highlighted the growing grassroots campaign seeking accountability from the OxyContin maker, which faces hundreds of lawsuits for allegedly fueling the national opioid crisis.
In perhaps the largest-ever demonstration outside the company’s offices at 201 Tresser Blvd., about 500 people, including many parents of children who died of opioid overdoses and advocates in recovery from opioid addiction, gathered for around two hours of speeches, marching and chanting. Ryan Hampton, 38, a Los Angeles-based activist and author who battled addiction to opioids including OxyContin for 10 years, and Cheryl Juaire, 59, a Marlborough, Mass.-based advocate whose 23-year-old son died of a heroin overdose in 2011, led the event, which drew attendees from across the country.
“You don’t care, but we do,” Juaire said of Purdue, during a speech that described the toll of the epidemic of opioid abuse. “We are coming after you, Purdue, together and united ... and we are going to bring you down.”
In response, Purdue issued a statement that said the company shared the protesters’ concerns about the opioid crisis and respected their “right to peacefully express themselves.”
“Purdue is committed to working collaboratively with those affected by this public health crisis on meaningful solutions to help stem the tide of opioid-related overdose deaths,” read part of the statement.
During the protest, Hampton, and Juaire went in the building to deliver a letter to Purdue CEO and President Craig Landau, demanding that Purdue create a fund to tackle the opioid crisis, similar to the one established by tobacco companies as part of a nationwide settlement in 1998 that was worth $246 billion. They did not meet Landau; they said they were told he was out of town.
“My first drug dealer was a person in a white coat that gave me enough OxyContin to almost kill me,” Hampton told the crowd. “I am a survivor of this crisis, the crisis that the company behind me started.”
No Purdue officials came outside to meet the protesters, many of whom carried signs with pictures of family members and friends who had died of opioid overdoses. The company did not immediately make any executives available for an interview with Hearst Connecticut Media.
Paralleling Hampton’s speech, many of the other protesters gave speeches and held signs that described Purdue as a “criminal” culprit of the opioid crisis that has swept the country since OxyContin, Purdue’s top-selling drug, went on the market in 1996.
From 1999 to 2016, more than 200,000 people in the U.S. died from overdoses related to prescription opioids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overdose deaths involving prescription opioids in 2016 totaled five times the toll in 1999, while sales of those drugs quadrupled, the CDC said.