PAIN Sackler Storms Guggenheim and Metropolitan Museums for Financial Ties to Opioid Manufacturers

https://hyperallergic.com/484109/pain-sackler-storms-guggenheim-and-metropolitan-museums-for-financial-ties-to-opioid-manufacturers/

Excerpt:

Nan Goldin and her activist group of drug policy advocates, PAIN (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) took the Guggenheim Museum by surprise yesterday, February 9, in a covert direct action against the Sackler Family, owners of the opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma. The group later marched down the Museum Mile on Fifth Avenue for a second, publicly-announced protest at the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The iconic spiral atrium of the Guggenheim Museum was humming with visitors at 6:30 pm, on a busy free admission Saturday, when a rain of leaflets fell from the top stories all the way down to the rotunda’s floor, where Goldin and her supporters started their chants. The pamphlets feature a fake medical prescription citing from an email exchange between Robert Kaiko, the developer of OxyContin, and Richard Sackler, in which Sackler replies to Kaiko’s warnings against the abuse potential of the drug if left uncontrolled with the question: “How substantially would it improve our sales?”