Too much pain medication
Gov. Paul LePage has advocated a controversial change in addiction treatment. Addiction is devastating to individuals, families and society in general; effective treatment is essential. There is insufficient treatment of any kind for those who need and want it. We do not have enough qualified Suboxone prescribers willing to treat all the addicted, even if everyone agreed it was a superior treatment for all addicts, which it is not. Suboxone, methadone, Narcotics Anonymous, mental health care and more are all needed to defeat addiction.
But, more important, we must prevent addiction in the first place. Addiction often is preventable. In the recent past, respected medical professionals made pain the fourth vital sign. Pain relief became a patient right, and inadequate relief of pain was poor patient care. Little wonder addiction became a bigger problem — too many, myself included, did not understand that even when narcotics are used appropriately for treatment of severe traumatic and postoperative pain, some of those exposed will become addicted.
Many still do not understand that narcotics rarely if ever are a good treatment for chronic pain. Prescribing a narcotic really is playing Russian roulette — the odds are known that it will kill or make life a living hell for some individuals and inflict misery on their loved ones and society. We must say no to narcotics, and we must insist on other readily available, affordable and effective treatments for pain. It is that simple. We must do it.
Nelson Meaker
Orono
Reject mining — again
Last year, after extensive study, our Legislature rejected weak metal mining rules because they would not have protected our lakes, streams or groundwater and would have left Maine people paying for cleanup after the mine had been shut down. Foreign corporations are anxious to mine but only with rules that cost them little, so the legislation is back.
During her nearly 30 years as a freshwater biologist with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, my retired friend once was charged with testing the aquatic life of Blood Brook at Katahdin Iron Works near Brownville Junction. Blood Brook is a stream that was devastated by sulfuric acid and toxic metal pollution released by an iron mining operation over 100 years ago. The stream still flows, but present-day testing revealed not one living organism. Such an irreparable legacy of mining impacts can be expected from the type of high sulfur metallic mineral mining the Maine Legislature is considering for our state again.
Zinc and copper were extracted from the Callahan Mine in Brooksville from 1968 to 1972. PCB contamination was so extensive that in 2002 it was declared a Superfund Site by the Environmental Protection Agency. The complete cleanup, which continues today, is expected to cost about $23 million, according to an October 2012 BDN article. The corporation is long gone, leaving taxpayers with the bill and surrounding neighbors unable to drink water from their wells.
Carole Beal
Bar Harbor
Soldiers vs. burger flippers
I am a freshman at the University of Maine. I do not think there should be a raise in minimum wage — at least not yet.
According to glassdoor.com, the average American veteran in the military only makes about $36,000 a year. This is not a good salary, considering the amount of time and effort they put into their positions, often being placed outside their home state or country.
I do not think people getting paid close to or exactly minimum wage should get a raise in wage just for flipping burgers at McDonald’s or cleaning dishes or even bagging groceries. It would not be fair for this kind of labor to make as much money as soldiers and veterans who risk their lives and spend extended periods of time away from home. What do you think?
Christian Guignard
Orono
Woman in National Guard
I guess now that the women of Maine have all grown ” little beards,” we qualify for Gov. Paul LePage’s concern when it comes to the National Guard. Beard or no beard, we are smart enough to see through that hypocrisy.
Bridget Mcintosh
Perham
Higher wages help students
I’m a student at University of Maine at Augusta, Bangor Campus. I go to school full time and I work retail 25 hours a week. Some may think that because I’m a student I can expect to make low wages and that this will all change one day. But I’m working now to make a difference in my future. If things fall apart for me financially, now, so will my hopes for the future.
Luckily for me, my parents are helping with my rent. Otherwise, I couldn’t afford to go to school at all. I could not pay for rent, gas, food and other basic necessities. This is a sacrifice for my parents, which I know and am grateful for.
I see my friends struggling to make it in school, not because they lack a will to learn or succeed but because of poverty rearing its ugly head. The financial pressures my friends face and their inability to make a decent wage is the perfect storm. No one should have to live in poverty despite having a job.
Increasing the minimum wage so students actually could survive while in school without going into a lifetime of debt is one critical step in the direction of reducing the poverty in Maine. Raising the minimum wage isn’t the only answer to Maine’s economic problems, but it’s an important step in the right direction. LD 843 proposes the best way for us to get there.
Carly Cloukey
Bangor
Beware entitlement reform
Whenever I hear or see the words “entitlement reform,” I get angry. It’s never about the truly entitled. The oil companies, the richest in the world ever, pay little or no tax. Often these oil companies get grants and subsidies they put into bonuses for their executives. After all, these are the truly entitled. No one ever wonders what might be fair.
Entitlement reform always means what more can we take away from those who have little or nothing. They never mention yearly gifts to the corporations. They never speak of the trillion dollar bailout of the big bankers. They never mention that it’s fine to tax the very rich at half the rate of most of us. So who is entitled?
James I. Scroggy
Blue Hill