Finding solutions to a region's heroin epidemic.

At last week's League of Women Voters debate, incumbent at-large council representative Shirley Baird made an earnest effort to address Southern Indiana's drug problem, but I'm not sure her reference came out as intended. She framed it as a law enforcement issue, and of course that's true, but as most of us realize, it's far more than that.

As this community action plan from Ohio illustrates ...

The Heroin and Opioid Epidemic -- Our Community’s Action Plan

Summary

On Nov. 21, 2013, many of Northern Ohio’s leading institutions gathered for a daylong summit in an effort to find solutions to the region’s heroin epidemic. A Community Action Plan was formulated over the course of several planning meetings and finalized during the summit. The purpose of this document is to serve as a guiding master plan as we move forward as a community. The Action Plan is divided into four specific areas: Prevention and Education, Healthcare Policy, Law Enforcement and Treatment. Inevitably, there is some overlap among each of these areas.

A few disclaimers: this document is a working draft and not written in stone. Some of these items are immediately actionable while others will take more time, research and effort. Some of these items have unanimous support among the planners, others do not. Although certain action items cannot be implemented without new legislation, some of the partnering agencies are forbidden from taking a position on pending or potential legislation. The hope is that this Action Plan will serve as a road map and tie together our various efforts toward the same goals – preventing people from using heroin, helping treat those who have become addicted, choking off both the supply of and demand for heroin in Northern Ohio, and working collaboratively to make our region healthier, safer and stronger ...

Feedback: NA-FC school corp's "goofy 'no test = positive test' bunk."

Since Monday, when the New Albany-Floyd county school board approved a strange, Orwellian take on drug testing, I've seen several good comments, as well as this bad one, from a former local Democratic Party stalwart and elected official.

Hope this works out for the Best as should be imposed by all Schools! Hats off to New Albany Floyd County Schools!!!

Yay for civil liberties!

You're really a Republican, aren't you!

Voted for McCain AND Romney, eh?

Meanwhile, Bluegill writes just what I was thinking.

I've already heard a lot of parents saying they will refuse to allow their kids to be tested, challenging the school corp's goofy "no test = positive test" bunk. I hope they stick to that. A bunch of lug nuts that can't manage to fix a roof are going to fix community drug use problems? Authoritarian hubris knows no bounds.

Of course, Jeff Gahan's solution to drug abuse is for kids to go get wet.

I don't have children, but if I did, I certainly hope I'd react in the same way as this parent.

So, the kid in Texas with a clock, you know, the one that is probably smarter than all the teachers in that school combined, this should be a lesson for those that approve of NA-FC drug testing our kids.

If you have a teacher that wants to fuck with a kid, now they can. I instructed my kids they are not to piss in a cup for no one. They are to call me and I will be there with a ACLU lawyer before you can say unconstitutional.

The thing is, so what if a kid smoked a little before school? That should be handled by the parents. Now the way that it is that kid will be will probably be suspended, have a criminal record and be labeled before they get out of high school. And for what? Doing what half the teacher staff and administration has done themselves at one time or another.

Bull shit I say.

America and its ever-increasing infatuation of becoming a police state is out of control. Some keep saying kids need more discipline but it seems to me adults are the biggest fuckups in this world and the decision of the school board to apply this is proof of it.

NA-FC schools won't test administrators for drugs, but ...

The single best comment I've seen:

I'm interested to see how many students they test and the racial breakdown after a year.

Yep. As thinly veiled as veiled thinly can be.

New Albany-Floyd County students now subject to drug testing, by Jerod Clapp (N and T)

NEW ALBANY — After six months of discussion, students in the New Albany-Floyd County Consolidated School Corp. may undergo drug testing if there’s reasonable suspicion that they’re using illegal substances.

The district’s board of trustees unanimously passed a measure Monday giving administrators different tools and guidelines to implement testing on students. Bill Briscoe, assistant superintendent, stressed that the policy is meant to help students, not punish them.

“This is not about random drug testing, this is about testing when there’s reasonable suspicion,” Briscoe said. “It does define in this policy what reasonable suspicion is, it tells you when it can happen. It can be on school grounds, it can be on events that are off school grounds or traveling to or from school for events.”

Marijuana: "The NFL is trying to nip this, please pardon the expression, in the bud."

As noted earlier today in this stirring account of Their Man Mitch tossing red meat to the mouth breathers, none of us could have foreseen the post-election entertainment spectacle of white bread America's hysterical unraveling. Next up, the national icon of Football tries to come to grips with marijuana legalization, and what it all means is that the varied edifices of social repression are springing too many leaks for the tinpot ayatollahs to plug.

The NFL’s Coming Conflict on Cannabis, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

Bob McNair, owner of the Houston Texans, resembles an outsized caricature of a twenty-first-century pro sports boss. He’s a 75-year-old Republican Party mega-donor, who made his fortune by selling his energy corporation to Enron in 1999 (give him credit for timing.) That’s what’s made Mr. McNair’s comments earlier this week all the more interesting. After saying he would never have a “persistent user of drugs” on his beloved Houston Texans, McNair made a point to add, “I’m not talking about someone who smoked marijuana.”

This might sound about as radical as a Brooklyn Without Limits T-shirt, but for decades the NFL officialdom has discussed marijuana and players who “do pot” like they were bit players from Reefer Madness. In this light, McNair’s statement is more than tacit acceptance of something players have been doing for decades. It’s connected to weed’s recent legal emergence from “the cannabis closet.”