NY museum protesters target family for role in opioid crisis

(RNN) - Protesters in New York used pill bottles and pamphlets to highlight a museum donor’s role in the opioid crisis on Saturday.

Activists staged their protest in the Sackler Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Brothers Arthur, Mortimer and Raymond Sackler donated $3.5 million and had the wing named after them in the ‘70s.

The family owned the company, Purdue Pharma, that developed OxyContin, a highly addictive pain-killing drug central to the crisis.

Photographer Nan Goldin led the protest.

“We are artists, activists, addicts. We are fed up,” she said.

The protesters filled a reflecting pool with pill bottles and handed out mock museum maps. The mock maps said the Sacklers “advertised and distributed their medication knowing all the dangers.”

They also said the family “built their empire like every other drug dealer; exploiting the physical and emotional pain of people.”

The protest called for museums and cultural institutions to reject money from the Sacklers, and demanded the family fund addiction treatment.

“We intend to hold the Sacklers accountable, and put social and political pressure on them to respond meaningfully to this crisis,” the pamphlet said.

In January Goldin started a group called P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) to pressure the Sackler family.

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