Mayor de Blasio collected more than $50,000 in donations from two members of the family that owns the pharmaceutical giant behind OxyContin — which he accused this week of “fueling” a national crisis of opioid overdoses, according to a report.
During a Bronx press conference Monday outlining plans by the city to invest $38 million a year to combat the problem, de Blasio singled out Oxycontin.
“A bill of goods was sold to people that these drugs were not dangerous and didn’t lead to long-term addiction, when, in fact, it was well known they did,” he said. He didn’t mention that OxyContin is manufactured by Stamford, Conn.-based Purdue Pharma.
Arts philanthropist Elizabeth Sackler, whose relatives own the company, contributed $30,000 to de Blasio’s now-defunct nonprofit Campaign for One New York, Crain’s reported. She and her son, Michael, donated $14,400 to de Blasio’s 2013 mayoral campaign and another $5,950 to his 2017 campaign.
In 2014, the mayor attended a dinner celebrating Sackler as the first woman elected to the Brooklyn Museum’s board of trustees.
When asked if the mayor plans to return the Sackler donations, Dan Levitan, a spokesman for the mayor’s campaign, would say only, “Elizabeth Sackler is a celebrated historian, activist and philanthropist and we were proud to have her support.”
Michael Sackler said that he and his mother did not own any stock in the company.



