Guest column
A contrary view
Terry Stuhldreher
Joseph Stalin once said, “If you want to make an omelet, you have to crack a few eggs.”
OK, imagine that you really like omelets. You think to yourself, “There must be other people out there that like omelets, too.” So you rent a little storefront, clean and do some decorating and buy a few tables and a stove. Finally, you are ready to hang your sign out – “Uncle Joe’s Omelets.”
Early the next morning, you stand behind your new omelet restaurant, eagerly awaiting your first delivery of eggs. Right on time, a panel truck from Trotsky Egg Farms arrives and backs up to your door. The driver, a cheerful fellow, asks if you are Uncle Joe, and afterwards proceeds to throw up the back gate on the truck. Sure enough, it is filled to the top with eggs.
Hummingbird eggs.
So, being a reasonable man, you think to yourself, “Maybe I should go back and think about this some more. Maybe I should build something first to help me crack all those eggs.” Or, contrary to all human history, you think, “Should I really crack that many eggs?”
This allegory has a point. When the Ohio state government passed the recent law concerning opioids and many other controlled substances they didn’t realize that there would be far more people that would be affected other than addicts or potential addicts.
Addiction costs the state a lot of money. But, though suicide is a cost saving to the state, it is an opportunity to save some state spending and score many political points.
Unless those suicide victims are also taxpayers.
There are people in almost unbearable, even excruciating, pain that now don’t have any access to pain killing drugs, and the doctors are handcuffed with the new law while their patients suffer. “Well, they should seek pain management,” you say. Pain management doctors already had a full patient load when the new law was passed and they are very particular about who they accept as new patients. Maybe the state should have visited medical schools a few years ago and talked to the school administration and students about the coming need for more doctors specializing in pain management. Maybe the state could have even offered some scholarships.
In short, there was no effort by the state to build an infrastructure to safely handle the flood it was about to release.
OK, imagine that you really like omelets. You think to yourself, “There must be other people out there that like omelets, too.” So you rent a little storefront, clean and do some decorating and buy a few tables and a stove. Finally, you are ready to hang your sign out – “Uncle Joe’s Omelets.”
Early the next morning, you stand behind your new omelet restaurant, eagerly awaiting your first delivery of eggs. Right on time, a panel truck from Trotsky Egg Farms arrives and backs up to your door. The driver, a cheerful fellow, asks if you are Uncle Joe, and afterwards proceeds to throw up the back gate on the truck. Sure enough, it is filled to the top with eggs.
Hummingbird eggs.
So, being a reasonable man, you think to yourself, “Maybe I should go back and think about this some more. Maybe I should build something first to help me crack all those eggs.” Or, contrary to all human history, you think, “Should I really crack that many eggs?”
This allegory has a point. When the Ohio state government passed the recent law concerning opioids and many other controlled substances they didn’t realize that there would be far more people that would be affected other than addicts or potential addicts.
Addiction costs the state a lot of money. But, though suicide is a cost saving to the state, it is an opportunity to save some state spending and score many political points.
Unless those suicide victims are also taxpayers.
There are people in almost unbearable, even excruciating, pain that now don’t have any access to pain killing drugs, and the doctors are handcuffed with the new law while their patients suffer. “Well, they should seek pain management,” you say. Pain management doctors already had a full patient load when the new law was passed and they are very particular about who they accept as new patients. Maybe the state should have visited medical schools a few years ago and talked to the school administration and students about the coming need for more doctors specializing in pain management. Maybe the state could have even offered some scholarships.
In short, there was no effort by the state to build an infrastructure to safely handle the flood it was about to release.
