A Connecticut gallery owner was arrested after dropping a 10-foot-long sculpture of a heroin spoon in front of Purdue Pharma’s headquarters on Friday — and he says he plans to “gift” more spoons to other drug companies, as well as to politicians and doctors.
Fernando Luis Alvarez, who owns Stamford’s Fernando Luis Alvarez Gallery, was charged with a criminal misdemeanor and a felony after leaving the roughly 800-pound piece, which was hand-made by Boston-based artist Domenic Esposito, in Purdue’s driveway and refusing to remove it, the HartfordCourant reports.
Alvarez told TIME that the stunt — which coincided with an opioid-related show at his gallery — was meant to send a message to Purdue Pharma and to hold the company accountable for what he says are its contributions to the country’s opioid epidemic.
“The bigger picture, which both Domenic and I really clicked on, is the importance of creating awareness for the right type of accountability,” Alvarez says. “The justice department and the country has to start putting some of these people behind bars, because they go on and make a lot of money and then they pay a fine and so be it. That is just not the way it should be.”
Stamford-based Purdue Pharma, which makes the widely prescribed opioid painkiller OxyContin, has drawn scrutiny for its sales and marketing practices, which several lawsuits allege led to improper prescribing practices that have contributed to patient misuse. Purdue has denied these allegations, but the company stopped promoting the drug in February and announced on Wednesday that it would eliminate the remainder of its salesforce.
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