Recent editorials from Tennessee newspapers:
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May 18
The Commercial Appeal on efforts to fight the opioid crisis:
Should the Shelby County Commission sue Big Pharma to recover millions of tax dollars spent on the opioid crisis, or should the Shelby County mayor?
Should the state attorney general or various district attorneys general or each county and city sue drug companies or pharmacies or physicians or the Food and Drug Administration?
Should medical facilities or health care plans or regular families sue to recover damages for the devastation that has killed tens of thousands, hurt millions and cost us billions?
None of that matters to families whose lives are being devastated each and every day by the plague of opioid addiction and overdose deaths.
“We can’t wait for the lawsuits to work their way through the courts,” said Dr. Alisa Haushalter, director of the Shelby County Health Department. “People are dying. We have to act now.”
Thankfully, we are.
Weeks ago, city, county and state leaders put aside their legal and political differences to announce a united and comprehensive plan to quell the rising number of opioid-related law enforcement responses, emergency room visits and funeral notices.
By July 1, the Shelby County Opioid Response Plan will begin providing “wrap-around services” to opioid addicts and overdose survivors.
Police officers, firefighters, EMS and other first responders will have naloxone, the drug that can bring opioid overdose victims back from the brink.
The health department, local physicians, clinics and hospitals will coordinate and provide treatment, counseling, peer support and other medically assisted treatment.
To that end, we are blessed to have in our midst the new Addiction Science Center at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. It’s the nation’s first center of excellence in addiction medicine.
Police, prosecutors, jailers and other court officers will coordinate efforts to identify and attack illegal sources of opioids, and to connect addicts and overdose victims to treatment.
The plan includes education and public awareness campaigns aimed at safe storage and disposal of pain meds, changing prescribing patterns and pain management techniques, and how to get help.
Much credit goes to county Mayor Mark Luttrell, who hired and assigned Haushalter to address the problem; county commission chair Heidi Shafer, who formed the task force that came up with the plan; and Dr. David Stern, UTHSC vice chancellor who launched the addiction science center.
Who will pay for the opioid response plan?
County government is putting up $2.4 million to cover first-year startup costs. Officials will seek state and federal funds as well as grants and insurance claims.
At some point, they plan to recover from Big Pharma some portion of the tax dollars that have been and will be used to battle the opioid plague.
At this point, who sues whom is much less important and urgent than who saves whom.
Online: https://www.commercialappeal.com
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May 22
The Chattanooga Free Press on public records:
Despite a law passed two years ago that demands otherwise, many Tennessee government entities still are making it difficult for people to have access to public records.
An audit of 306 entities by the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government between October 2017 and March 2018 found that 15 percent of agencies contacted would not or did not email a copy of their public records policy once it had been requested.
The law required that every government entity in the state establish a written public records policy by July 2017. The policy was to include how citizens can make a public records request, the title or name of the person who could help get them get records, and contact information for that person.
While larger counties have entire staffs that deal with public records, even smaller counties should have had the time and employees to create something so simple.
The public, after all, not only should know how to access various records but is the very group that pays the salaries of the individuals who run the offices from which they are requesting information. It seems the least the governmental entity could do to serve those who pay them.
Unfortunately, not only did some government entities not have or not report such a policy, but others make it more difficult than is actual state policy to obtain such records.
Many policies, for example, require a Tennessee driver’s license or other state identification to prove state residency as a condition to inspect records or get copies of them, but state law does not require such.
The audit also showed that despite a recommendation by the state Office of Open Records Counsel that fees be waived under certain circumstances, 59 percent of open records policies did not waive fees for copies of records if they fell under a certain amount.
Indeed, in what sounds to us about the way government functions too often, the cost of handling and processing payments by the government entity for such records often exceeded the fee that the entity received for generating the records.
The audit also found that almost half (48 percent) of the entities would not allow the use of cameras on phones and apps to take copies of documents, and more than four in 10 (41 percent) made no mention whether the use of such devices was feasible. Only 5 percent of government entities allow it.
Clearly, while it is gratifying that many agencies (84 percent) have fulfilled the law, many government entities still have work to do. Since transparency was the goal for the state law, and since more and more citizens demand transparency, we hope those entities still not in compliance will rectify their policies with haste.
Online: http://www.timesfreepress.com
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May 19
The Johnson City Press says lawmakers should protect children from secondhand smoke:
We believe the question of whether to allow smoking in a vehicle in which a child is present is one of personal liberty - the child’s liberty to enjoy pollutant-free air and a life free of negative health effects.
Unfortunately, Tennessee’s representatives in the House did not feel the same way this year. After being snuffed out, resurrected, then passed by senators, a bill that would have banned smoking in cars and trucks in the presence of children younger than 14 was unceremoniously gutted, then extinguished for good when House lawmakers referred it to the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee on the last day of the legislative session.
The proposed punishments for violating the ban weren’t very harsh - less than a slap on the wrist, even.
A first offense, which couldn’t have been the primary reason for a law enforcement officer to pull someone over, would have brought the smoker a warning citation. A second offense would have come with a Class D misdemeanor charge punishable by a $20 fine and no more than $10 in court costs. Third and subsequent offenses would be Class C misdemeanors with $50 fines and court costs limited to $10.
For about the cost of a carton of Marlboro Reds, you could pay off a third conviction for what some health experts say equates to child abuse.
Legislators were told as much during deliberation on the bill. One of their own, Republican Sen. Joey Hensley from Hohenwald, a family medicine practitioner, described the impacts of secondhand smoke on the children he’s examined as abuse, and he’s right.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, children exposed to secondhand smoke get sick more often. Their lungs grow less than children who breathe clean air, and they suffer more frequently from bronchitis, pneumonia, wheezing and coughing. Secondhand smoke can trigger asthma attacks in children, and it can cause them to have more frequent and more severe attacks, potentially threatening their lives with each attack. Then there are ear infections, which are more frequent in children exposed to secondhand smoke and are more likely to need operations to insert drainage tubes.
But our state representatives, who so often express the need to defend the rights of unborn children, were unconcerned with the rights of thousands of children in the state who have no choice but to inhale daily the hundreds of toxic chemicals and carcinogens rolled into a single cigarette and burned in a confined vehicle.
Preventing a lifetime of health problems for unsuspecting children isn’t an attack on personal freedoms or parental authority. It’s a commonsense solution to a problem that has plagued the state for decades.
We urge our lawmakers to take the lead in the next General Assembly to enact a ban on smoking in vehicles with minors present.
Then we can all breathe easy knowing our children are safe.
Online: http://www.johnsoncitypress.com
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