Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
With Stronger, Cheaper Meth Flooding Streets, Recovery Staffs Brace To Help Patients Break Away From 'Pull'
Erika Haas calls it 鈥渢he pull.鈥 When Haas was 24, her doctor prescribed OxyContin for back pain. She quickly progressed to heroin 鈥 and then to methamphetamines. Now 30 and in recovery, she described the grip that meth had over her for more than five years. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like God tells you that if you take another breath, your children will die,鈥 she said, shaking her head and trying to hold back tears. 鈥淵ou do everything you can not to take a breath. But eventually you do. That鈥檚 what it鈥檚 like. Your brain just screams at you.鈥 (Vestal, 11/1)
Kaiser Health News: Meth Trip Or Mental Illness? Police Who Need To Know Often Can鈥檛 Tell
The dispatch call from the Concord, N.H., police department was brief. A woman returning to her truck spotted a man underneath. She confronted him. The man fled. Now the woman wanted a police officer to make sure her truck was OK. 鈥淗ere we go,鈥 muttered Officer Brian Cregg as he stepped on the gas. In less than three minutes, he was driving across the back of a Walmart parking lot, looking for a man on the run. (Bebinger, 11/1)