Summary of recent Kentucky newspaper editorials:
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Sept. 26
Lexington Herald-Leader on a plan for the opioid epidemic:
From doctor’s offices to the governor’s office, Kentuckians are raising awareness of the opioid epidemic.
What’s lacking is a strategic plan for combating the scourge.
Kentucky was one of the first and hardest-hit victims of misleading prescription-drug marketing and misuse of addictive painkillers, which spawned a deadly upsurge in the use of heroin and synthetics such as fentanyl.
Overdoses claimed a record 1,404 lives in Kentucky last year.
In response, the state has taken some aggressive steps, including a new law that will limit opioid prescriptions for acute pain to three days, launching one of the first electronic systems for monitoring prescriptions and enlightened prison treatment programs.
Lawmakers recently held a daylong hearing into what was called “a public health catastrophe.” Physicians, who devoted their annual meeting to the opioid crisis, are changing their prescribing practices. Gov. Matt Bevin has created a “Don’t Let Them Die” website that provides information about treatment programs by county. And on Sept. 25 350 people gathered in Lexington for a sold-out forum on Kentucky’s substance-use crisis sponsored by the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.
Awareness is at an all-time high. How could it not be when so many Kentuckians have a friend or family member who has abused prescription drugs or used heroin?
Yet no one has pulled together a comprehensive statewide strategy. And Kentucky has no metrics for determining what’s working, what’s not and how to improve.
In Rhode Island, by contrast, the governor in 2015 assigned a task force of stakeholders and experts to develop a comprehensive statewide action plan that’s now tracked on a website that reports trends in such things as opioid prescribing, numbers receiving medically assisted treatment and overdose deaths (down in Rhode Island, unlike Kentucky).
In Connecticut, the governor commissioned experts in medicine and public health at Yale University to help develop a plan with detailed metrics that was released last year. Among its many recommendations: Expand opioid treatment programs and track the wait time to enter them.
One goal that Kentucky should pursue is same-day access to treatment for anyone who has overdosed or is ready to quit using. Also, patients who are treated for addiction should have a long-term recovery plan.
Northern Kentucky has developed a regional strategic plan in response to the heroin epidemic. The state needs one too.
Kentucky received $10.5 million in federal funding in April to combat opioid misuse through the 21st Century Cures Act. The Medicaid expansion has greatly increased funding for treatment, and Bevin made drug treatment a priority in his Medicaid waiver plan, which is awaiting federal approval.
The demand for prevention and treatment is huge, which makes smart planning and ways to measure program effectiveness all the more critical.
Opioids are killing Kentuckians. The Bevin administration and lawmakers should get to work on a battle plan.
Online: https://www.kentucky.com/
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Sept. 27
Daily News of Bowling Green on the Barren River:
This newspaper has consistently stated its belief that the Barren River that flows just a few blocks from downtown Bowling Green is a very underutilized resource and more should be done to draw people to it.
You have to hand it to the elected officials and those working for the city of Bowling Green, because for several years they’ve tried to take advantage of this underutilized resource by applying for grants to bring more activities to do on and around the river. Plans to add to and enhance Mitch McConnell and Weldon Peete parks along the Barren River have been floated for more than a decade now. In 2016, the city applied for a $750,000 grant from the National Park Service for potential projects such as a boat ramp near the current pedestrian bridge, fishing platforms, a bike track, a rock-climbing park, a disc golf course, picnic pavilions, restrooms, parking lots and a greenway linking the two parks.
While the city didn’t get the grant - which is a real shame, as we believe it would’ve been very beneficial - we believe the city should continue to pursue other grants because all of those ideas would have attracted locals and tourists to the river. The city applied to the state for a $350,000 grant to connect Weldon Peete and Riverwalk parks via a one-tenth of a mile path greenway under the Old Louisville Road bridge. Currently, traveling between the two parks requires crossing Louisville Road, which has a daily traffic count of almost 11,000 vehicles.
This type of traffic flow shows a real need for a connector under the bridge for pedestrians and bicyclists. The state is already planning work on erosion mitigation for the area around the Old Louisville Road bridge, so building the pathway would be an obvious companion project.
The bottom line is that more access under the bridge, without having to cross the busy road, will simply lead to more people using the connector and the trails already down there, which is something we should all welcome.
Also in the works are building an outdoor rock-climbing facility and dual-slalom bike course in Weldon Peete Park, although those projects are still in the fundraising stage. The nonprofit Bowling Green Riverfront Foundation is raising funds for the rock-climbing facility and the Southwest Kentucky Mountain Bike Association is spearheading the effort to raise funds for the bike course, which is expected to cost $20,000 to $25,000.
These are all very exciting ideas that hopefully will one day come to fruition. We believe the connector will do a lot to spur growth and get more people involved in doing more to develop around this most underutilized resource that has the potential, if done right, to bring a lot of tourism dollars to our city.
We certainly hope that will be the case one day.
Online: https://www.bgdailynews.com/
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Sept. 29
Lexington Herald-Leader on gun restrictions for domestic abusers:
Kentucky has risen on one national ranking: women killed by men.
Kentucky ranked eighth in 2015, the first time since 2004 that we have been among the 10 states with the highest rates of women killed by men, reports the Violence Policy Center in its annual analysis of FBI homicide data.
In about two-thirds of the cases, intimate partners - husbands, boyfriends, exes - did the killing, in Kentucky and nationally.
More than half of the time - 76 percent in Kentucky - a gun was used to kill the woman.
That part isn’t news. It’s long been known that the presence of a firearm in a domestic violence situation increases the risk of homicide for women - by 500 percent, according to research published in the American Journal of Public Health.
To prevent intimate-partner violence from escalating into murder, seven states this year have restricted access to guns by domestic abusers. But not Kentucky.
Altogether 27 states have laws curtailing access to guns by domestic abusers. Of those, 17 states require them to surrender guns.
Federal law has long made gun possession or gun purchases a crime for someone who has been convicted of domestic violence or is subject to a domestic violence protective order. But without state or local backup, the federal laws are a toothless honor system that saves no lives.
Lives are saved when guns are relinquished. Intimate partner homicide rates are almost 10 percent lower in states where domestic abusers who fall under the federal restrictions are required to relinquish firearms, a recent Boston University study found.
In Kentucky, judges have the option of requiring the surrender of firearms when issuing emergency protective or domestic violence orders, but practices vary.
In Lexington-Fayette County, deputies oversee the surrender of firearms when they serve protective orders. Family court judges require it and Sheriff Kathy Witt reports no problems enforcing it.
Like protective orders, gun restrictions are not perfect. But both are effective, according to the data. They prevent the escalation of violence, saving families heartbreak and saving taxpayers medical, incarceration and foster care costs.
Kentucky lawmakers should address the rising death toll in next year’s session by enacting the same sensible restrictions as other states. Sadly, our legislature would rather worship guns while proclaiming reverence for life.
Local jurisdictions can, and should, step up. Prosecutors, judges, law enforcement, victim’s advocates should use their authority and resources to deescalate domestic violence situations by removing firearms.
If anything, domestic violence killings are understated in the annual study, which is in its 20th year. Only cases in which one man kills one woman are analyzed, excluding multiple-victim cases. Fanning fears of a lone male attacking a vulnerable female promotes gun ownership by women, even though in Kentucky in 2015 just one of the reported homicides was a woman killed by a stranger. In fact, females living with a gun in the home are nearly three times more likely to be murdered than females with no gun in the home, according to a 2003 study.
The analysis identified 36 females murdered by males in Kentucky in 2015 in single-victim, single-offender incidents - a rate of 1.60 per 100,000 women compared with a national rate of 1.12 per 100,000. Nationally, there were 1,686 females murdered by males in single-victim, single-offender incidents that were submitted to the FBI for its Supplementary Homicide Report. Excluded from that report were Florida and Alabama; only partial data is included for Illinois.
The study found that black women are disproportionately impacted by lethal domestic violence. In 2015, black females were killed by men at a rate of 2.43 per 100,000, more than twice the rate of 0.96 per 100,000 for white women slain by men.
Errors in documenting domestic violence also affect the data. Kentucky lacks a reliable reporting system for domestic violence deaths. The legislature should at least create an accurate data base - the cost would be small - and review the death toll annually.
Online: https://www.kentucky.com/
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