Protect our Earth
Protect our Earth
We only can hope that people wake up to our responsibilities to this beautiful planet Earth. Whether you are Christian, Muslim, Jew or any other faith, the command by the highest, whatever name we use, was to take care of the planet, of Mother Nature, not abuse or deplete our resources. An important cause of global warming is taking down the rain forests, trees are transforming carbon dioxide to oxygen, which we humans need. Many of our desserts were rain forests or just forests in former times.
Our oceans are full of plastic bottles, other plastics, there is a whole island of plastic swimming in the ocean, and oil spills have killed so much ocean life already, as now we destroy more ocean life and eventually ourselves by continuously disposing water contaminated by radiation into the oceans.
When will we wake up not destroy nature that nourishes and supports us?
Do we comprehend that there comes a time where nature can’t restore itself because we have more of half of the resources, trees, plants and animal life destroyed? Nature is a living being like we humans, there is a point were we have done so much damage to our body so that the body can’t heal itself anymore, and all medicine will be useless?
Mankind, wake up and protect and take care of our beautiful planet.
Gisela Hetherington
Kailua-Kona
Most patients use pills responsibly
“I’m not smart but I think I can see when someone’s pulling the wool over me …” Dylan.
Such is the case in Hawaii lawmakers crusade against opioids. Of course no one wants anybody to die from an overdose but in order to solve this problem you need to deal in truth. The truth is that Hawaii physicians prescribe less opioids to patients than any other state.
Additionally, the addiction rate for physician prescribed opioids is around 10 percent, meaning that fully 90 percent of patients use their prescriptions as directed with no complications. Even for heroin, the addiction rate is only 25 percent. The number of “opioid deaths” is also tweaked — 50 percent of opioid deaths are from heroin. The other 50 percent is from synthetic opioids, meaning pills.
Most of those pills are imported knock-off drugs, including Fentanyl, a much more potent and deadly synthetic opioid. Of the deaths related to pills most also included another drug such as Xanax and/or alcohol. It is actually the inability of some addicts to obtain safe legal drugs that leads to their death as they are forced into the illegal market of knock-off synthetics.
This is what happened to Prince. No matter what government does, an addict will always find his/her drug of choice and make a drug dealer rich in the process. I support any rational effort to deal with addiction and accidental ODs. But to punish legitimate patients who use their medications in a responsible manner for pain is not part of that equation.
Believe me, we are all just one slip and fall away from chronic back pain. Our lawmakers need to stop pandering to the “Just Say No” crowd, start dealing in truth and consider the impact on patients suffering chronic pain.
Joseph Appleton
Waimea