Readers respond
Make drug makerspayfor role in opioid crisis Opioid addiction is a growing crisis in our country. The effects are devastatingly personal but also challenge us as a people. Lives are being ruined and entire communities destroyed. Congress continues to grapple with how to fund the treatment of this disease. Recent news reports cite the role of the pharmaceutical industry in promoting the drugs at the heart of this crisis and the misleading information they provided to doctors regarding the addictive nature of these drugs (“HowMaryland measured up in opioid prescribing,” July 8).
While the drugs have an enormous medicinal benefit, we now know they must be prescribed and used far moreresponsibly to avoid the addiction we now see deeply embedded and spreading and across our country. My question is pretty straightforward: Why are we not holding the pharmaceutical industry responsible for a fairly assessed contribution for the treatment of opioid addiction they fostered? As Congress cobbles together a national health care plan to fix or replacethe Affordable Care Act, a tax on the pharmaceutical industry, not a tax break, would appear to be not only a more sensible but alsoamorejust solution.
StanleyMilesky, Severna Park Md. needs grown-ups to settle appointments dispute Regarding the disputesamong Gov. Larry Hogan, members of the General Assembly, AttorneyGeneral Brian Frosh and Comptroller Peter Franchot over paying appointed but not confirmed cabinet secretaries (“Frosh says no to pay for two," July 8), it’s time to put some adults in the room. There are serious intractable public issues to resolve, but this political argument is not one of them.
Francis J. Gorman, Baltimore Safe drinkingwater ought to be available in all schools Thank goodness Baltimore City officials are taking action to provide safe drinking water for the students and staff (“Do drink the water: Baltimore school system aims to makethe fountains safe again,”July 8). Make no mistake, this is a Baltimore County issue too. Numerous schools including Dulaney High, for example, have brown water flowing from the faucet and fountain. According to Baltimore County Public Schools, they've tested the water claiming it's "safe, but not palatable.”
Parent advocates fought and won fresh water coolers as a temporary solution, yet it's amonumental task to provide clean water to over 2,000 people in an antiquated facility.
Again, our Baltimore County leadership must do better. I feel sure the county government buildings provide safe water in their offices, in addition to the local jails.
Jennifer H. Tarr, Cockeysville MTA bus routes are running out customers The cancellation of the Red Line was a disheartening decision. One hoped that the changes proposed in the BaltimoreLink system would result in service enhancements.
I found that the dramatically defective rollout over the first two days was not resolved by the time I returned from vacation (“Some riders in Catonsville and Arbutus decry bus route overhaul,” July 10) The MTA has not only thrown out the baby with the bath water, they strangledand dismembered the bestpartsof the old system.
The old system needed more drivers and equipment and effective monitoring, through technology and/or supervision, of departures and bus progress. The Quick Bus routes were the jewels of the old system. The route that I used most frequently, 40, had many riders, often filling the aisle, made about a half-dozen stops between the county line and the first downtown stop at Greene and Saratoga. The number of stops has now doubled on the Blue Line. The route then made another five or six stops downtown along BaltimoreStreet before reaching President Street and Shot Tower. The Blue Line instead meanders through downtown along a path that may have been designed by an intoxicated goat, again doubling the stops and making a driver change (5 minutes) at Saratoga and Howard. The previous, relativelydirect route was alittle over7milesto the Dunbar/Johns Hopkins area. The new rambling route takes nearlyan hour. On days where weather and my schedule permit, I take a relatively indirect nearly 10-mile route by bicycle and arrive in 45-to-50 minutes, faster than the Blue Line!
Unless the route becomes more direct with fewer stops, those with means will start driving again resulting in greatercongestion in spite of bus lanes, etc. There is an express line, the 150, that makes three runs in the morning and evening — not something flexible enough for most schedules. In the fall, when students who will be obliged to take the Blue Line in order to get to connections to Poly/Western or Digital Harbor and relatively directly to Dunbar or Patterson will have to contend with a far longer commute time than lastyear. Eventually, those who killedthe RedLine will retire to Anne Arundel County or New Mexico blissfully unconcerned with the monster they have imposed on the seemingly voiceless citizens of Baltimore.
While the drugs have an enormous medicinal benefit, we now know they must be prescribed and used far moreresponsibly to avoid the addiction we now see deeply embedded and spreading and across our country. My question is pretty straightforward: Why are we not holding the pharmaceutical industry responsible for a fairly assessed contribution for the treatment of opioid addiction they fostered? As Congress cobbles together a national health care plan to fix or replacethe Affordable Care Act, a tax on the pharmaceutical industry, not a tax break, would appear to be not only a more sensible but alsoamorejust solution.
StanleyMilesky, Severna Park Md. needs grown-ups to settle appointments dispute Regarding the disputesamong Gov. Larry Hogan, members of the General Assembly, AttorneyGeneral Brian Frosh and Comptroller Peter Franchot over paying appointed but not confirmed cabinet secretaries (“Frosh says no to pay for two," July 8), it’s time to put some adults in the room. There are serious intractable public issues to resolve, but this political argument is not one of them.
Francis J. Gorman, Baltimore Safe drinkingwater ought to be available in all schools Thank goodness Baltimore City officials are taking action to provide safe drinking water for the students and staff (“Do drink the water: Baltimore school system aims to makethe fountains safe again,”July 8). Make no mistake, this is a Baltimore County issue too. Numerous schools including Dulaney High, for example, have brown water flowing from the faucet and fountain. According to Baltimore County Public Schools, they've tested the water claiming it's "safe, but not palatable.”
Parent advocates fought and won fresh water coolers as a temporary solution, yet it's amonumental task to provide clean water to over 2,000 people in an antiquated facility.
Again, our Baltimore County leadership must do better. I feel sure the county government buildings provide safe water in their offices, in addition to the local jails.
Jennifer H. Tarr, Cockeysville MTA bus routes are running out customers The cancellation of the Red Line was a disheartening decision. One hoped that the changes proposed in the BaltimoreLink system would result in service enhancements.
I found that the dramatically defective rollout over the first two days was not resolved by the time I returned from vacation (“Some riders in Catonsville and Arbutus decry bus route overhaul,” July 10) The MTA has not only thrown out the baby with the bath water, they strangledand dismembered the bestpartsof the old system.
The old system needed more drivers and equipment and effective monitoring, through technology and/or supervision, of departures and bus progress. The Quick Bus routes were the jewels of the old system. The route that I used most frequently, 40, had many riders, often filling the aisle, made about a half-dozen stops between the county line and the first downtown stop at Greene and Saratoga. The number of stops has now doubled on the Blue Line. The route then made another five or six stops downtown along BaltimoreStreet before reaching President Street and Shot Tower. The Blue Line instead meanders through downtown along a path that may have been designed by an intoxicated goat, again doubling the stops and making a driver change (5 minutes) at Saratoga and Howard. The previous, relativelydirect route was alittle over7milesto the Dunbar/Johns Hopkins area. The new rambling route takes nearlyan hour. On days where weather and my schedule permit, I take a relatively indirect nearly 10-mile route by bicycle and arrive in 45-to-50 minutes, faster than the Blue Line!
Unless the route becomes more direct with fewer stops, those with means will start driving again resulting in greatercongestion in spite of bus lanes, etc. There is an express line, the 150, that makes three runs in the morning and evening — not something flexible enough for most schedules. In the fall, when students who will be obliged to take the Blue Line in order to get to connections to Poly/Western or Digital Harbor and relatively directly to Dunbar or Patterson will have to contend with a far longer commute time than lastyear. Eventually, those who killedthe RedLine will retire to Anne Arundel County or New Mexico blissfully unconcerned with the monster they have imposed on the seemingly voiceless citizens of Baltimore.
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