Author's Talk : Patrick Radden Keefe and Evan Hughes

451 Central Avenue,Milton MA 02186

24 March, 2022

Description

Opium: The Business of Addiction On Wednesday, April 27, 2022, the Forbes House Museum, in collaboration with the Milton Public Library and the Milton Coalition (formerly Milton Substance Abuse Prevention Coalition), will open Opium: The Business of Addiction. The exhibition will tell the story of the Forbes family’s involvement in the 19th c. opium trade, its links to the current opioid epidemic, and its lasting impact on US-Sino relations. The history and legacy of the opium trade are complicated, involving political, economic, cultural and medical factors. To better understand the trade and how it relates to our lives today, the museum is hosting a range of programs throughout the coming year. Keefe and Hughes examine stories of greed, deception, excess and legal battles in the pharmaceutical industry. Keefe’s book follows the rise and fall of the Sacklers at the helm of Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, while Hughes’s book documents a similar trajectory by entrepreneur John Kapoor, founder of Insys Therapeutics and maker of Subsys. The books reveal that OxyContin and Subsys are highly-addictive opioids that were aggressively and deceitfully marketed, and which are directly linked to today’s opioid epidemic.