Oxycontin is the number one selling prescription pain pill sold in the USA with sales reaching $3 billion per year.  There are other forms of prescription opioids and all together their sales have quadrupled over the last decade.  The warning bells are sounding in our country that we have a prescription painkiller epidemic on our hands.

In 1998, Purdue Pharma the maker of Oxy, made a marketing video that was shown to 15,000 doctors that claimed Oxy was less addictive than other drugs.  The paid doctor in the video urged other doctors to prescribe opioids more often. That doctor now says some of his statements went too far and there were no studies of the long term effects of the drug.

A four year investigation into Purdue Pharma and their marketing arm Purdue Frederick ended in 2007 when Purdue Frederick Company pled guilty to charges of knowingly and fraudulently misbranding Oxycontin as being less addictive, less subject to abuse and diversion, and less likely to cause tolerance and withdrawal problems, than other pain medications. Purdue agreed to pay a $634.5 million fine.

That 1998 video highlighted seven patients who were successfully using Oxy.  Take a look at this follow up video completed in 2012, fourteen years since they endorsed Oxy.  What happened to the poster children of Oxycontin?