In 2011, higher-ups at the pharmaceutical distribution giant AmerisourceBergen amused themselves by circulating an email poking fun at some of their customers. It adapted the Beverly Hillbillies theme song to the intensifying opioid crisis, with new lyrics imagining “Jed, a poor mountaineer” who “barely kept his habit fed” driving a crew of Appalachian “Pillbillies” across state lines to stock up on “Hillbilly Heroin” at unscrupulous pain clinics.

In AmerisourceBergen’s corporate offices, working-class drug consumption habits weren’t merely a source of entertainment but a matter of professional interest. The company is one of the nation’s top distributors of drugs like OxyContin, and it’s alleged, in multiple state lawsuits, to have worked directly with pill mills — what the parody lyrics called “cash ‘n carry” clinics — to increase opioid sales. Executives and team leaders also referred to “hillbillies” and “pillbillies” in ordinary business-related correspondence.

These emails, presented at trial in opioid-ravaged West Virginia earlier this year, earned the company bad press in the Washington Post and other mainstream outlets. Social media onlookers condemned the corporate culture at AmerisourceBergen as distasteful, ugly, classist.