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201 Tresser Boulevard may seem like any other ordinary office tower in Stamford, Connecticut. Driving past it using Google Street View, one Stamford Forum’s grey facade and dark tinted windows fit right in the downtown. But behind these seemingly ordinary walls lies the dark past of Purdue Pharma, and their launch of OxyContin, a drug they promoted as a major breakthrough in pain medication.
Throughout December 1995, behind the tinted windows, Purdue Pharma was working toward the approval of their new pain medication, OxyContin. Approval from the FDA came on December 12, 1995.
Later, it would be uncovered that almost immediately the drug was being abused. Company reports would disclose that OxyContin pills were being stolen from pharmacies around the nation and doctors were being charged for selling prescriptions.
Nevertheless, Purdue Pharma continued to present and market their drug as an oxycodone pill that would offer long-lasting pain relief, and it was well received by doctors and patients alike. The company even would go on to claim that releasing the oxycodone gradually throughout twelve hours would reduce chances of patients abusing it, despite being well aware that this was not the case.
Reports throughout the 1990s would reveal that pills were being crushed, swallowed, and sold, sometimes with labels like “street value”, “crush”, or “snot”.
The company, though, turned a blind eye and continued to market the drug aggressively. According to the National Library of Medicine, Purdue Pharma hosted over 40 national pain management and speaker-training conferences, specifically targeted physicians who prescribed the most opioids and who had the most chronic-pain patients.
The company offered huge bonuses to sales representatives around the nation. This all contributed to the mass promotion of OxyContin that they orchestrated. By the early 2000s, many of the highest OxyContin-prescribing regions would all witness major rises in addiction and overdoses.
Although Stamford and its grey corporate towers housing Purdue Pharma may seem worlds away from us in California, the impact of the decisions and actions made by executives there have been seen around the country, even within our own communities in Alameda County. Quiet decisions made at 201 Tresser Boulevard would result in rising overdose deaths, increased opioid misuse, and a variety of other consequences as prescription opioids became much easier to get access to.
Today, teens in Alameda County face a different, yet connected, opioid crisis. While the crisis now is mostly driven by illegal synthetics like fentanyl, the dark legacy of OxyContin and Purdue Pharma still lingers.
Many struggles with addiction began years earlier, rooted in overprescribing and increasingly blurred lines between treatment and riskier pathways.
That is why looking back matters. The rise of OxyContin goes to prove that major public-health crises can begin quietly in seemingly ordinary places like Tresser Boulevard, where the decisions made there over 20 years ago helped shape a crisis that reached communities nationwide.
For students, families, and policy makers, this serves as a grim warning: When profits are prioritized over people, corporations can cause national health crises and individuals, families and communities ultimately pay the price.
This article was written as part of a program to educate youth and others about Alameda County’s opioid crisis, prevention and treatment options. The program is funded by the Alameda County Behavioral Health Department and the grant is administered by Three Valleys Community Foundation.
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