5 takeaways:
➀ Explore how opioids changed the geography of America’s addiction problem. The sudden wave of overdoses not just in cities but in suburban and rural area confounded residents and caught some reporters by surprise. Beth Macy, a Virginia journalist and author of “Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America,” said that in the early 2010s, people were surprised that heroin had come to their leafy rural and suburban enclaves. “Heroin had exploded and not in the inner city, but actually in the wealthiest suburb in Roanoke County,” said Macy. “… They’re like, ‘What? Wealthy white kids do heroin?’ And I knew there was a much bigger story to tell.”
➁ Remember the big picture — but use a case study to illustrate it. Charlotte Bismuth based her book “Bad Medicine: Catching New York’s Deadliest Pill Pusher” on a case she handled as a felony narcotics prosecutor in New York. The case started with a shocking discovery: “We realized that actually the most heinous crimes being committed in the five boroughs of New York were being committed by doctors.” The doctor she prosecuted and wrote about had written more than 21,000 prescriptions, over 2.5 years, 56% of them for oxycodone, the drug at the heart of the prescription opioids crisis. Bismuth and fellow prosecutors identified 16 overdose deaths associated with the doctor’s clinic and prosecuted him for his role in two of them. Bismuth explained the types of cases that have been brought as a result of the opioids crisis and offered a tutorial on the differences between cases in state and in federal courts.
➂ Dig into data emerging from courthouses and public health agencies. Eric Eyre, a reporter with Mountain State Spotlight who won a Pulitzer Prize for his opioids coverage while at the Charleston Gazette-Mail, explained how reporters can get data on opioids prescriptions and overdoses nationwide. The prescription data come from a nationwide database of all prescription opioids that have been sent to every pharmacy and hospital — by distributor, by county and by individual pharmacies; the database emerged from lawsuits against the drug industry. (Access it here, and click here for Eyre’s tip sheet on data sources.) Public health data on drug overdose deaths by state, county and type of drug are available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
➃ Tap into court records for free to track cases involving the drug industry and opioids. Accessing federal court records through the PACER system usually costs money, a practice that the National Press Foundation has urged Congress to change. But documents that have already been accessed by other users are available at no cost at CourtListener.com, developed by the non-profit Free Law Project. “I’ve been opening a lot of stuff on PACER, so probably you can piggyback on what I opened and get it for free,” Eyre said. The filings for a pivotal case in West Virginia are here.
➄ Don’t hesitate to get mental health help while reporting such a harrowing story. Macy had long written about trauma and knew the effects it could have. Still, reporting and writing “Dopesick” — the human tragedy she witnessed, the legal threats posed by her taking on drugmaker Purdue Pharma — took its toll, she said. She couldn’t sleep and had panic attacks. She received medical help and counseled reporters on such stories to stay in tune with their own emotions. “Just have friends you can talk to about it, have colleagues, have … people that you trust,” she said.
Speakers:
Eric Eyre, Reporter, Mountain State Spotlight; winner, Pulitzer Prize; author, “Death in Mud Lick: A Coal Country Fight against the Drug Companies That Delivered the Opioid Epidemic”
Beth Macy, Author, “Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America”
Charlotte Bismuth, Author, “Bad Medicine: Catching New York’s Deadliest Pill Pusher”
This program is sponsored by the American Society of Addiction Medicine, with support from Arnold Ventures. NPF is solely responsible for the content.
