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Human Costs of Prescription Drugs
Eastern Kentucky is home to one of the largest prescription drug problems in the county, and one of the most abused drugs is a painkiller called OxyContin. This year the maker of that drug, Purdue Pharma, has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for misleading the public about OxyContin’s addictive qualities. Commentator Natasha Watts describes the human costs that prescription drug addictions have brought to her community.
For generations we've suffered from all kinds of pain - without the kinds of health services we needed to deal with addiction and depression.
Click here to find the full script and audio for this story.
Teach Youth Radio
For this month's feature, you will be able to view these strategies and resources:
1. How teachers can align this Youth Radio story to National Standards in the classroom.
2. Suggestions for lesson plans that link the story's content to your classroom's themes and subject areas.
3. Suggestions for lesson plans that explore media literacy, using the story to re-read mainstream media.
4. Bios of the Youth Radio reporters who produced the story.
5. A list of resources and further research related to the story's themes.
6. Links to Youth Radio’s media production techniques as guides and inspiration for your students’ creative media-making projects.
1. NATIONAL STANDARDS: Standards Alignment
Subject: LANGUAGE ARTS
NL-ENG.K-12.1 READING FOR PERSPECTIVE
NL-ENG.K-12.2 UNDERSTANDING THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE
NL-ENG.K-12.3 EVALUATION STRATEGIES
NL-ENG.K-12.6 APPLYING KNOWLEDGE
NL-ENG.K-12.7 EVALUATING DATA
NL-ENG.K-12.8 DEVELOPING RESEARCH SKILLS
NL-ENG.K-12.9 MULTICULTURAL UNDERSTANDING
NL-ENG.K-12.11 PARTICIPATING IN SOCIETY
Subject: LIFE SCIENCE
NS.9-12.6 PERSONAL AND SOCIAL PERSPECTIVES
Subject: HEALTH
NPH-H.9-12.1 HEALTH PROMOTION AND DISEASE PREVENTION
NPH-H.9-12.2 HEALTH INFORMATION, PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
NPH-H.9-12.3 REDUCING HEALTH RISKS
NPH-H.9-12.4 INFLUENCES ON HEALTH
NPH-H.9-12.7 HEALTH ADVOCACY
Subject: ECONOMICS
NSS-EC.9-12.1 SCARCITY
NSS-EC.9-12.2 MARGINAL COST/BENEFIT
NSS-EC.9-12.3 ALLOCATION OF GOODS AND SERVICES
NSS-EC.9-12.4 ROLE OF INCENTIVES
NSS-EC.9-12.5 GAIN FROM TRADE
NSS-EC.9-12.7 MARKETS -- PRICE AND QUANTITY DETERMINATION
NSS-EC.9-12.8 ROLE OF PRICE IN MARKET SYSTEM
NSS-EC.9-12.9 ROLE OF COMPETITION
NSS-EC.9-12.13 ROLE OF RESOURCES IN DETERMINING INCOME
NSS-EC.9-12.14 PROFIT AND THE ENTREPRENEUR
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2. NEWS YOU CAN USE: Story content in your classroom, Suggestions for lesson plans
Word Associations: Write the following words on the board: addiction, community, coal, and Kentucky. Give students 30 seconds per word and ask them to brainstorm what comes to mind and jot their thoughts down on paper. Have student share their responses and discuss. Note, this activity is an important opportunity for you to counter stereotypes of rural America, should some surface from students who don’t have direct experience outside urban or suburban regions in the U.S. (or even if they do).
Language Arts:
Belonging:
Natasha opens with, “Imagine you are sitting in a room with everyone you love, your elementary school teachers, neighbors, childhood friends. And then you leave the room and find out that every single one of those people is an addict. That's how I felt when I returned home after fours years away at college.” Have students discuss Natasha’s opening paragraph—which journalists call the story’s “lede.” An effective lede needs to hook the reader right away. How does Natasha grab your interest? What techniques does she use? Draw attention to the way she sets a scene and then puts her listener in the center of it by directly addressing the audience as “you.” Have students experiment with that same device in their own writing. Also, you might dig deeper into the commentary’s first paragraph by asking your students to talk about the role that “four years away at college” played for Natasha. Did college create a distance between her and her community? Is this a feeling students can relate to? Why or why not?
Images: Natasha says drug addiction has become “just another abandoned building” in her hometown’s landscape. What does she mean by that? Why do you think she chose that image? What effect does it have on listeners? Have students think about something happening in their hometown that makes life harder for residents than it used to be. What image would they choose to describe that effect? What does that image convey about their hometown, as compared to Natasha’s?
Community Values: In Natasha’s words, “The things I valued most in my community have changed forever: trust between neighbors, and intact families.” What do your students value about their community? Have they witnessed a shift in those values? What do students feel has brought about those changes? In describing the shifting values in her community, Natasha is careful not to “air dirty laundry.” What does she mean by that expression? How does she manage to tell a very personal story, without sharing other people’s secrets or betraying the trust she values? What are the expectations in your students’ hometown about “airing dirty laundry?” How did your students learn those values about what is and is not appropriate to share? What happens when someone violates expectations of secrecy?
Where I’m from: Looking at the language in the text, what literary tools does Natasha employ to convey where she is from? The following site Where Are You From? gives a reference to George Ella Lyons’ poem entitled “Where I’m from” and a template for students to follow to create their own poems. Students can use magazine cutouts, family photographs, or drawings to decorate their poems and add a visual dimension.
Health and Science:
Old King Coal: Have your students research coal: What is coal used for? Why is it an important resource? What role does it play in producing energy? How dependent is the US on coal? How is the raw material converted to energy? What effects does it have on the environment? What effects does it have on coal miners? What alternative sources of energy do environmental advocates want to promote over coal? You might have students play different roles (coal miner, government energy official, coal industry executive, environmental activist, etc.) to present research from various perspectives, and then talk about how people’s interests affect the way they interpret “scientific” data.
Environmental Health: Working in coalmines is a dangerous job. Coalminers breathe in harmful particles. Students can do research to find out what Black Lung Disease is. http://www.courier-journal.com/dust/ In what other ways does coal mining affect the health of coal miners? In what ways does it affect the natural environment (you might have students do research to understand “mountain top removal mining”).
Killing pain: Many painkillers are narcotics. What is a narcotic? How do narcotics affect the human body? What do OxyContin’s manufacturers say about the drug—how it works, and its safety and risks? What does the Federal Drug Administration say? What does the Drug Enforcement Agency say? What does the National Institute of Health say? What do patients say? What do addicts and former addicts say? Students can draw a diagram to illustrate the physiological process of painkilling (including the relationship between pain and depression, as Natasha alludes to here) and then discuss the scientific and social debates surrounding the drug.
Legal drugs: Talk to students about their experiences with prescription drugs. Do they know of any other drugs that are used for reasons other than that for which they are prescribed—a practice called “diverted prescription”? Check out Youth Radio’s story about Attention Deficit Disorder drugs being used on high school and college campuses as a study aid: Black Market for ADD Drugs. Do your students know of any legal drugs that are currently being sold on the street?
Social Studies and Economics:
Economic situation: Natasha explains that coal mining plays a large role in her town’s economy. Students can do research to find out how the economy has changed in Kentucky and why. How do other regions of the United States—for example, the area where your students live—connect to and depend on Appalachia for energy?
At what cost: Natasha calls her piece, “Human Costs of Prescription Drugs.” There are also financial costs—including the penalties Kentucky’s attorney general wants Purdue Pharma to pay for how they represented OxyContin’s risks. Have students do research to find out the latest updates on pending legal cases related to OxyContin. How much money is the manufacturer being asked to pay? For what damages? How do lawyers determine the amount of money they ask for in lawsuits seeking damages like those linked to OxyContin? How would your students make those calculations?
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3. CRITICAL MEDIA LITERACY: Putting This Story in Context
Difficult equation: Natasha says, “There’s a culture of addiction in eastern Kentucky now. Just taking one drug away won't erase that.” How does this statement complicate the drug problem? Do students agree that addiction would exist even if this drug were taken off the market? Why or why not? Natasha also concludes with the line, “Millions of dollars don't even begin to cover those costs” in reference to the lives negatively affected by painkiller addiction. Do students agree that the settlements that pharmaceutical companies are required to pay will not solve the drug problem? People caught selling or using illegal drugs face prison sentencing. Does this solve the culture of addiction? What do students think the solution is?
Compare and contrast: Students can explore the following sites. One site Kentucky Coal Miners was created by the son of a coal miner, Roger Philpot. The other Kentucky coal Education was created by the Kentucky Foundation. How are these sites similar and how are they different? What is the purpose of each site? From what perspective is each site addressing the issue of coalmining?
Class analysis: Natasha says, “It’s easy to blame the victims and write it off as a ‘hillbilly problem’. But I definitely see some shared responsibility with drug companies who are finally facing penalties.” What is a hillbilly? What are the class implications of this word? How can this combination of chronic pain, unemployment, and drug addiction be seen as a class issue? Natasha mentions a shared responsibility between drug addicts and drug companies. Do students feel that there is a shared responsibility when it comes to illegal drugs? What are the various parties that share responsibility for illegal drug use and abuse?
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4. MEET THE COMMENTATOR
A native of Letcher County, Kentucky, Natasha Watts first participated in the Appalachian Media Institute as an intern in the 2000 Summer Documentary Institute. Natasha has continued to build on her strong media and leadership foundation by participating in numerous youth engagement projects over the years including serving as an AMI peer trainer, participating in the Time Warner Foundation’s Youth Advisory Board, and working as a Woodrow Wilson Public Scholarship Fellow in collaboration with Appalshop and Eastern Kentucky University’s Appalachian Center. Upon completion of her Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Broadcasting and Electronic Media from Eastern Kentucky University, Natasha returned to Appalshop as AMI’s lead media trainer.
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5. RESOURCES AND RESEARCH
• "Kentucky Coal Education"
• "Kentucky coal and Energy Education project"
• "Kentucky Coal Miners"
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6. MEDIA PRODUCTION FOR LEARNING: Making Audio Narratives
Click here to link to Youth Radio's guidelines for conducting interviews, writing commentaries, and producing features.
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