Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty

by Patrick Radden Keefe

The next day, Richard followed up, saying, “I’d like to try an argument on you. I believe the media has nefariously cast the drug abuser as a victim instead of a victimizer.” For people who knew Richard, this refrain had probably grown a bit tiresome by now. But Wettlaufer had put himself forward as a sympathetic ear. “These are criminals,” Richard continued. “Why should they be entitled to our sympathies?” “I do not believe most drug abusers are nefarious criminals,” Wettlaufer replied, “and I’m sure when you aren’t so pissed, you don’t either.” Such people have lives that “are far more difficult to cope with than ours,” Wettlaufer pointed out. “They deserve pity.” Just the same, he assured Richard, “You are doing NOTHING WRONG. That’s what counts…Deep breaths Richard. You will get through this with your humanity intact. In the final hour, it’s all you have anyway.” Never one to shrink from an argument, least of all this one, Richard wanted to go another round. “I understand what you are saying. But we don’t agree,” he wrote. “The abusers are misbehaving in a way that they know is a serious crime. They are doing it in complete disregard of their duties to society, their family and themselves.” At this point, Wettlaufer was starting to lose patience with his friend. “Poor people in the inner city and in the backwoods of Kentucky almost never have the luxury of thinking about their ‘duty to society.’ They are surviving day to day,” he wrote. Their “criminal intent” is “driv...