Time for state to deliver help to heavy drinkers
Colorado lawmaker silence is deafening in response to the 60% rise in alcohol deaths in our state, along with record-high domestic violence fatalities, in which 44% of perpetrators had indications of alcohol abuse. Those numbers rose over the same time period as the expansion of alcohol takeout and delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic.
When fentanyl deaths went up, legislators mobilized in force. However, with alcohol deaths up, they are ready to give more incentives to alcohol businesses with Senate Bill 20 by making alcohol takeout and delivery permanent with permit fees of only $11/year with no mention of, much less compensation or funding for, addiction health care and victim services. Why not raise that to $111/year, which could mean about $250,000 for services?
We can celebrate our state’s successful alcohol industry and enjoy home delivery of it while also acknowledging and addressing the fallout of that success. At some point, surely our lawmakers will have to reconcile their alcohol love vs. more prison beds for drug users vs. alcohol deaths and drug overdose deaths. Whether legal or illegal, Colorado has a self-medicating problem. People are losing their lives. Make it make sense.
Krystyn Hartman, Grand Junction
Thank you for standing up
Re: “Current, former GOP election officials decry support for Peters,” Feb. 8 commentary
In a world driven by fanatic partisanship and the lies that support it, it was refreshing to see that so many Republican officeholders, past and present, come forward in the interest of truth. Thank you, all.
Bruce Vezina, Thornton
Teaching children decency in an indecent climate
This has to be a horrible time to be a teacher or anyone charged with instructing young people in decency, honesty, and some semblance of morality. It’s essentially like salmon wanting to swim upstream but with no stream.
In the “political” world around them, children will hear name-calling and bullying. Donald Trump, the favorite for the Republican nomination, speaks daily of others as birdbrains, vermin, and scum and closed his Christmas message with the hope that his opponents might rot in hell.
Teachers at this point might use this behavior and language as instructive to students as lessons in what not to do or say. But, alas, adults by the millions adore this “tell it like it is” approach and deem Trump worthy of another chance at the presidency.
And, so, what of the children? Parents who follow Trump ought to have a chat with their children and reveal their hypocrisy and honestly explain to their children that the early childhood lessons about kindness and decency were phony and not applicable to real “adult” life.
They might also explain to their children that they now believe that Trump is a new messenger from God, but not the gentle, kind version like Jesus. And that this grotesque version of a Second Coming is a self-absorbed, hateful, and seriously flawed man. Plus, unlike George Washington, who, in the fable, said that he couldn’t tell a lie, Trump, in fact, cannot tell the truth.
Ed Tyrrell, Arvada
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