Editorial voices from elsewhere
Editorial voices from newspapers around the United States as compiled by the Associated Press:
West Virginian Jessie Grubb fought a long battle against opioid addiction. She nearly won. But the 30-year-old woman fell through one of the many cracks in how we Americans handle substance abuse, and it killed her.
During a town hall meeting on substance abuse last fall in Charleston, W.Va., President Barack Obama heard Grubb’s story from her father. For seven years, the Charleston man explained, his daughter battled addiction to opioids. By last fall, she seemed to have made dramatic progress.
But then, earlier this year while living in Michigan, she suffered an injury. A doctor, unaware of her history of struggling with opioids, wrote her a prescription for 50 pills to help her with the pain. They were oxycodone, an opioid.
Jessie Grubb died of an oxycodone overdose.
At the end of April, U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Shelley Capito, R-W.Va., related Grubb’s story in announcing they have introduced a bill, “Jessie’s Law,” that may save lives.
If enacted, the measure would require that if patients consent, their medical records would display prominent notices of their substance abuse histories.
All too frequently, cracks such as this in how we handle substance abuse are discovered. Often they are simple things, correctible with relative ease.
“Jessie’s Law” ought to be enacted. We need to close that crack – then be diligent in looking for others to be sealed.
When we read recently that a woman was suing Starbucks because her cold coffee drink had too much ice in it, we wondered for a moment if we’d inadvertently clicked to the website of The Onion, the satirical newspaper with fictional stories.
But no, it was MSNBC.com which reported an Illinois woman, Stacy Pincus, filed suit in Northern Illinois Federal Court against Starbucks for $5 million over the amount of ice used in its drinks.
Pincus’ suit says because of the amount of ice Starbucks uses in its iced beverages, customers often end up with half of the amount of drink that is listed on Starbucks’ menus in fluid ounces.
The suit alleges Starbucks is purposefully tricking customers into paying for more product than what they are provided with.
This has all the indicators of a lawsuit intended to do nothing more than get money out of a multibillion-dollar corporation, either through a jury’s verdict or an out-of-court settlement.
If this is found to be a frivolous lawsuit, as we suspect, Pincus should be ordered to pay all legal costs.
About 3.3 million students are expected to graduate from U.S. high schools this year. One of President Barack Obama’s daughters is among them. The White House announced Malia will not go directly to college. She is taking a so-called “gap year” after graduation and will attend Harvard University in the fall of 2017.
Her decision sparked fresh discussion about the idea of young people taking a hiatus from formal education after high school. About 30 percent of students who started college in the fall of 2013 did not return to any U.S. college in the fall of 2014, according to the most recent data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The millions of Americans who start college but don’t finish may be worse off than those who never attended.
They may have fallen behind their peers in obtaining work experience. Potential employers may perceive them as unable to finish what they start. Worst of all, they may perceive themselves as failures.
Not attending college immediately may be exactly what some young people need. Working 40 hours a week in a minimum-wage job can do wonders to help someone understand the value of higher education. It buys extra time for their brain to develop. It may improve their chances of staying in school and earning a degree. And isn’t that the point?