Hey Weeds listeners, this is Sarah Cliff but this is not the Weeds. This is a brand new podcast.

This is our pilot episode. We're still figuring out if we're going to do a first season and it is so new that we do not have a name for this podcast.

So I have two requests of you and they both involve sending an email to Weeds at Box.com.

First, I want you to send us your suggested names. We are desperate for some good name ideas because all of ours are terrible.

And second, I want you to send us feedback on this episode. What you liked about it, what you did it like, topics you'd want us to cover if we do do a full season.

If you want to hear a full season of this podcast, please send us an email and let us know that.

So with that, I will let you get to listening, happy listening and happy Thanksgiving.

Laura Marston's apartment is pretty average for a 34 year old living in DC. The rooms are pretty small and she's got these two pet cats running around.

And at first glance, her fridge, it seems pretty normal too.

I mean, you can see there's bread, there's eggs, there's like sodas and protein shakes.

Then she opens up the vegetable crisper and it's got all these plastic bags full of white prescription boxes.

246, 810, 1213 vials of insulin. So this has like a street price of like 30 to 100 something like that.

That number isn't far off. Each file holds less than a tablespoon of insulin, but its retail price is around $250.

Which is obviously really, really expensive, especially given that it didn't use to be this bad.

A file was just $20 when Laura was first diagnosed in 1996. So you have the same drug, the same packaging, but now it's 10 times more expensive.

And Laura has no way of knowing if that price will keep climbing.

It's just, it's kind of a terrifying existence.

And it's not just Laura and her insulin. This is a pattern we see over and over again. Back in August,

the cost of EpiPens are on the rise. And back in 2015, there was that pharma bro, Martin Chacrelli,

who jacked up the price of a key malaria and HIV drug.

One tablet of dare per'm used to cost $13.50, the drug maker recently increased the price to $750.

It's all part of this really big and uniquely American story.

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