Collins took opioid-linked contributions, opposed corporate accountability

Since the onset of the opioid epidemic, Senator Susan Collins has taken thousands of dollars in political contributions from companies and individuals that have profited from the manufacture and distribution of prescription opioids. 

In 2007, Collins’ re-election campaign received $2,300 from Jonathan Sackler, former vice president and son of the former head of Purdue Pharmaceuticals.

That donation was made just two months before Purdue agreed to pay $600 million in fines for misleading regulators, doctors, and patients about the addictive nature of OxyContin, its version of oxycodone. But the Sackler family’s business practices continued even after this settlement. In 2011, they were still pushing the company to develop a low-cost equivalent to OxyContin, to “capture more cost sensitive patients,” as one family member put it in an email.

The surge in supply of legal, prescription opioids resulted in nearly 100,000 deaths in the U.S. from 2006 through 2012. In Maine, over 2,200 people died by overdose between 2007 and 2018.

This past June, Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey joined 40 states and over 2,000 local governments, including Portland, in filing a lawsuit against Purdue and members of the Sackler family, including Jonathan, for “successful efforts to deceptively market opioid drugs in Maine from 2007 through 2017, as Maine’s opioid crisis reached epidemic levels.”

In response to public pressure, a wide range of museums, universities and other institutions, including London’s National Portrait Gallery and New York’s Guggenheim, have distanced themselves from the Sacklers, returning contributed funds or refusing additional contributions. To date, Collins has not publicly returned or repudiated the money she received.

Both Collins and King took contributions from distributors

As recently as this year, Collins and Maine’s independent Senator Angus King have also accepted money from some of the top distributors behind the surge in prescription opioids.

Just six corporations  — McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, and retail giants Walmart, Walgreens and CVS — were responsible for distributing 75 percent of the 76 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone pills that flooded the U.S. from 2006 to 2012, according to a Washington Post analysis of data recently disclosed in a massive civil lawsuit against the country’s biggest opioid distributors and manufacturers. 

Five of those six top opioid distributors donated to Collins through their corporate political action committees, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. Three of the six have contributed to King.

Among the top distributors, Collins took $5,000 ($2,500 to her campaign, $2,500 to her political action committee, Dirigo PAC) from McKesson, $2,500 from Cardinal Health, $2,500 from AmerisourceBergen, $3,000 from Walmart and $3,000 from CVS since 2016. Walgreens is the only company on the list found not to have given to Collins.

Since 2016, King has also taken donations from McKesson ($2,500), Cardinal Health ($12,500) and Walmart ($5,000).

An impact on Maine

“This addiction epidemic is sweeping through communities here in Maine and throughout the country,” Collins said in a statement last year after voting for an $8.5-billion spending package to fight the opioid crisis, which didn’t contain measures to penalize opioid manufacturers and distributors. “We must continue our work to stop its spread and push back against this destructive tide with the combination of education, treatment, and law enforcement,” she said.

In Maine, 400 million pills were distributed from 2006 to 2012, according to information from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. In 2012, the state led the county in prescribing opioids — reaching an average rate of 21.8 prescriptions per 100 people.

In an emailed statement to Beacon, women’s rights advocate Betsy Sweet, one of the Democratic challengers to Collins, blasted politicians for “profiting off of the pain” caused by the influx of addictive prescription drugs.

“I don’t believe any candidate should take any corporate money, but this drug money from opioid distributors is particularly heinous,” Sweet said. “Given how devastating the overprescribing of opioids has been on the people of Maine, no politician should court them or accept any donation from them or any individuals who have profited off of this pain.”

Collins has voted against corporate accountability

While accepting campaign donations from distributors, both Collins and King have endorsed bipartisan legislation in the Senate aimed at addressing the epidemic, such as last year’s “SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act,” which Collins said established a “multipronged approach I have long pushed for: prevention, treatment, and recovery.”

Collins’ “multipronged approach,” however, has not included making sure private drugmakers help shoulder the public costs of the opioid epidemic, which are being borne by federal and local governments. 

In 2018, Collins, a member of the Senate Health Committee, voted against an amendment to the Opioid Crisis Response Act made by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would have imposed retroactive fines on companies and executives that illegally marketed or distributed opioids, as well as create penalties for future illegal activity.

King has backed different legislation that would impose per-pill excise taxes on prescription opioids.

(Senator Susan Collins | Getty)