Vermont can do more to help addicts

Vermont’s proposal to provide safe sites to shoot up drugs obtained illegally is like giving a bank robbers a safe place to launder their money. This proposal requires testing for lethal doses. The rest of the free world that employs this practice provides prescribed heroin for the addict to safely shoot up without overdosing. Countries that do this have minimal OD problems and reduced crime and hustling.

The US has the equivalent of a packed University of Michigan football stadium, accommodating over 100,000 people, dying accidentally each year using street drugs. If we are to treat addiction as an illness, supplying heroin should be a medically driven method for saving lives. One only needs to check YouTube to see Switzerland’s successful program, which has incorporated prescription shoot-up sites for the past 20 years. Much like the USA’s 50 million cigarette smokers, many addicts cannot immediately stop using. And many prescribed users cut down on how often they shoot up, and hold jobs.

John Earl

Bethel

A gun violence gratuity

Growing up during World War II, I learned that many recruits upon entering the armed services purchased a government-sponsored $10,000 term life insurance policy. Between 1940 and 1951 over 22 million servicemen signed up for it. Time and inflation have changed the amount of the payment and now it comes free with the job. Currently referred to as a “death gratuity,” $100,000 is paid by the last military command of the deceased to the person or persons designated by the service member. Thus, the family, following an active duty death, may have enough to pay upcoming taxes, credit card bills, mortgage, tuition and car payments, etc.

This history shows we have, as a nation, decided about how much to pay for the loss of a human life. I find this helpful as I learn about how many people have lost their lives in the mass shootings of civilians that have occurred since World War II. It is a large number each year. Each one just happened to be a foot soldier on the wrong spot at the wrong time, on duty doing their job in school, in church, in the grocery store, in the office or factory when they were shot down. Each one of them has left behind costs, which someone has had to pay. We need to fix this.

The US should pay the same gratuity for each person killed in a mass shooting event that we pay for others who have given their lives for the country while in the service: $100,000.

The question arises about where the funds should come from. I suggest that the most logical source is from the legislative budget, since it is apparent that legislation offers the most likely means for reducing the number of mass casualties. The gratuity should be paid from a separate account set up within the budget for the House and Senate and charged in equal amounts to each of the legislative offices from each state of the union. Perhaps this will lead to constructive debate on how to keep the total amount needed for payments of the gratuity as low as possible.

O. Ross McIntyre

Lyme

Support for Mary Layton

Mary Layton, currently the Norwich Selectboard vice chairwoman, is running for another 3-year term. And Norwich would be so fortunate if she succeeds. I don’t know the two other candidates, but I do know Mary. I know that she is very smart but thoughtful. I know that she can be persistent about finding solutions to the most difficult issues. And she knows how to listen.

Sue Schiller

Norwich