The Associated Press

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 23

Time to pass prescription database bill, fight opioid addiction:

Missouri state senators need to do a gut-check, right now. It’s time to decide what’s more important for their constituents: safe streets and keeping people away from highly addictive drugs, or the “liberty” of preventing doctors from checking prescription records to determine whether a patient is trying to feed an addiction.

This gut-check can’t be ducked. A crucial bill awaits Senate approval, and a few conservatives want to block it based on a tea party misconception that the most important thing in life is freedom from government intrusion. The GOP-sponsored House Bill 1892, known as the Narcotics Control Act, would mandate establishment of a statewide database for dangerous prescription medications. Missouri is the only state in the country without such a database.

One of those conservatives is Sen. Rob Schaaf, R-St. Joseph. He’s right that too much government intrusion is a bad thing. But sometimes government intrusion is a good thing and demonstrably saves lives, such as seat-belt requirements and the installation of stop signs at intersections.

We also believe that drug-gang turf battles and frightening intrusions from gun-wielding heroin addicts pose a far greater danger to Missourians’ liberty. The rapid spread of heroin and opioid abuse into middle-class America suggests this is no longer a threat that suburban legislators can ignore. It’s everywhere. So, yes, now’s the time to take a stand.

Opioids are strong painkillers like Vicodin and OxyContin that doctors have prescribed with increasing frequency to address problems ranging from backaches to broken bones. Like heroin, the painkilling ingredient is derived from opium. Patients can become easily addicted. If they don’t, they often leave unused pills in medicine cabinets where others start abusing them.

Once addicted, they start shopping around for doctors who will write more prescriptions. The database idea would give doctors a quick way to determine whether a patient has a real need for opioids or is simply feeding a habit.

“If they’ve gotten five prescriptions in the last month, the physician can say, Look, we need to address your addiction,'” says state Rep. Holly Rehder, R-Sikeston, the sponsor of the Narcotics Control Act.

Schaaf, who is a family physician, feels so strongly about this bill and the database’s potential to violate patient privacy that he is threatening a filibuster to stop it. He wants the entire issue to go before voters in a statewide referendum, which could scuttle any action for months, if not years.

People are dying and families’ lives are being destroyed by this scourge right now. Missouri cannot afford to wait.

The reason Missourians elect representatives to the Legislature is so important work can get done without requiring every measure to pass a vote of the people. This is a time when legislators must demonstrate leadership on behalf of their constituents. They must deny Schaaf the ability to stymie a crucial piece of legislation just to bolster his tea party credentials.

The homicide rate across the country, including St. Louis, is rising in large part because of growing turf wars among drug gangs competing to sell heroin and opioids on the streets. Like the crack epidemic of the 1980s and early ’90s, this is the new, big thing that traffickers are scrambling to exploit.

Schaaf might believe he’s fighting for Americans’ liberty, but the effect of his filibuster threat is to defend the billions of dollars in drug profits flowing to major drug cartels in Mexico and Colombia. Conservatives who contemplate supporting Schaaf must understand that a vote against the drug-monitoring bill puts them on the side of drug lords and street crime. Politically, that’s called bad optics.

According to James P. Shroba, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s St. Louis division, 80 percent of violent crime in the St. Louis area is linked to illicit drugs. A real turf war is in progress among bad actors who will not hesitate to kill each other for a few extra bucks.

They also won’t hesitate to get your son, daughter, husband or wife hooked on heroin as a cheap substitute for expensive opioid pills. It’s happening across this city as well as the affluent suburbs, Shroba said.

“This really is an epidemic,” he added. And it’s spreading because “one doctor doesn’t know what the other is doing” when it comes to keeping tabs on patients’ access to opioids.

When you read the daily crime roundup in this newspaper, it might seem shocking how many shootings carry this kind of profile: “Man found shot, killed inside vehicle,” or “Man found shot on St. Louis sidewalk.” These aren’t random, and they’re not accidental.

The St. Louis area has 240 identifiable neighborhood street gangs with an estimated 7,000 members. “They’re all targeting the same customer base,” Shroba told us.

Many prominent local and national personalities have urged Missouri to get on board with the fight against opioid addiction. They speak from personal experience of having lost a close relative to this problem.

It’s not a Republican or a Democrat thing. It’s a life-saving thing.

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The Kansas City Star, April 24

Mizzou nabs notorious awards for stifling freedom of expression:

The Thomas Jefferson Center every year hands out its Jefferson Muzzle awards, recognizing the worst affronts to free speech. We doubt many winners display them on the mantle or in the trophy case with pride.

Maybe the University of Missouri should start looking for a dark, dusty corner with some empty space because a 2016 “award” is headed its way from the Virginia-based, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.

In addition, Missouri state Sen. Kurt Schaefer, a Columbia Republican, won a dishonorable mention for his attempt to block a University of Missouri student’s dissertation about the effect of a state law mandating a 72-hour waiting period for women seeking abortions.

MU was hardly alone in being cited, because campuses across the nation earned dubious recognitions this year.

“Never in our 25 years of awarding Jefferson Muzzles have we observed such an alarming concentration of anti-speech activity as we saw last year on college campuses across the country,” the Jefferson Center announced.

Instead of the usual rogues’ gallery of about 10 individuals or institutions worthy of recognition, this year the center is giving Muzzles to 50 colleges and universities across the nation where free speech took it on the chin in 2015.

For instance, Emporia State University in Kansas was recognized for ejecting reporters from a public forum on race relations,

The event that won the University of Missouri such unwanted attention shouldn’t be hard to guess.

In a video that ended up being replayed endlessly last November, an assistant professor of mass media studies was captured asking for “some muscle” to help get a reporter removed from the site of a public protest during last year’s Concerned Student 1950 controversy.

Melissa Click, who was fired by the university system Board of Curators, became the face — fairly or unfairly — of the unwise attempt to shield student protesters from the media, even when they were in public places.

That wasn’t the only incident that won the school notice from the Jefferson Center. The center also cited a short-lived social media policy adopted by the School of Law Student Body Association and an email from campus police asking students to report “incidents of hateful and/or hurtful speech.”

Ironically, Thomas Jefferson’s original tombstone is on the Francis Quadrangle on the Columbia campus just west of the chancellor’s residence. When heirs of the nation’s third president replaced his tombstone at Jefferson’s Monticello estate, they decided to give the original one to the University of Missouri, the first public university in the Louisiana Purchase Territory, which Jefferson is credited with acquiring from France in 1803. The monument arrived at MU in July 1883.

Missourians should demand better from one of their flagship institutions of higher education than succumbing to the “epidemic of anti-speech activity” at American colleges and universities that compelled the academic focus of this year’s Muzzles.

Indeed, the greatest shame of all is that so many schools went so far to suppress free speech. College should offer a time when students are exposed to a wide variety of ideas and expression, learning both to navigate their own thoughts and opinions, and how to respond to countering notions.

On second thought, perhaps MU should display its Muzzle so it remembers that lesson and doesn’t win another.

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Joplin Globe, April 22

Move past religious objections measure:

A Missouri bill that will allow businesses to opt out of providing services for same-sex weddings is doing more harm than good for the state.

The measure still needs House approval, but if passed it will be sent to the voters as an amendment to the state’s constitution, where it will prove every bit as divisive and contentious statewide as it has been in Jefferson City.

Supporters of the measure say it is necessary to shield florists, bakers, photographers and others who have religious objections to same-sex marriage, but where is the hue and cry from these businesses? We don’t see them lining up to support the bill. Instead, hundreds of them, large and small, have formed an organization, Missouri Competes, to fight it. The latest to join the list this week is Anheuser-Busch.

In fact, Dan Mehan, president of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry, recently noted in testimony before lawmakers that it has about 3,000 members, not one of which has indicated support for the measure.

Mehan has other concerns:

— It interferes with the employer/employee relationship, providing, “constitutional protection for employees who refuse to do their job.”

— Economic repercussions from this could be severe. The Missouri chamber cites the example of Indiana, where a public-private tourism group has estimated that Indiana lost $60 million in convention and tourism business, hotel profits, tax revenues and more after that state passed similar legislation.

Mehan wants lawmakers to keep their focus on the fact that Missouri — from 2004-2014 — ranked 42nd in job creation, 43rd in state GDP growth and 37th in personal income growth. And this bill is likely to make that worse.

Lawmakers need to put to rest further debate on the matter and get down to the business of discussing issues that will make a difference for all Missourians.

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St. Joseph News-Press, April 23

Renewables rule the roost:

Opponents of wind turbines are within their rights to press their concerns and seek the best possible resolution for their specific situation, but stopping these projects entirely is less likely in this period in our nation’s history.

No matter whether the United States ever fully embraces the nonbinding Paris agreement on climate change, this will be noted as a time of transition from reliance on fossil fuels, such as coal, to a focus on renewable energy sources and energy efficiency.

Energy policy — not just federal policy, but at the state level — is tilting away from traditional energy sources. And, while the shift is slower, consumers and company shareholders also are expecting something different — “sustainable and cleaner,” in the words of Kansas City Power & Light President and CEO Terry Bassham.

KCP&L recently has said it is excited to be adding 500 megawatts of power from two new wind farms under development in Northwest Missouri near Rock Port and Osborn. This enthusiasm speaks to the utility’s belief in renewable fuels as an important part of its “energy mix,” but more so to what regulators and its investors want.

KCP&L has no choice but to move aggressively to expand its portfolio of renewable energy. The utility also has invested in solar power, hydroelectric and capturing landfill gas. All of these steps contribute to KCP&L meeting the state’s renewable portfolio standards requiring an increasing percentage of its power come from renewable sources.

This latest announcement — equating to enough power for 170,000 homes — meets KCP&L’s interest in adding wind assets close to home. If there is substantial economic benefit derived from the construction and continued operations, this will occur in the utility’s service area. Also, both of the projects will connect to a nearby transmission line that allows for easier delivery of electricity within the region.

Aside from the environmental arguments, cost enters into this equation. The cost of the wind projects “made them very appealing to pursue at this time,” Bassham said.

“While wind turbines cannot yet replace base-load generation, like at KCP&L’s larger power plants, these wind turbines will be a cheaper option to supplement that base-load than purchasing power from other locations.”

Bassham makes the point both projects qualify for a federal tax credit that will allow the utility to pass savings along to its customers, which he says will keep rates lower than otherwise would be possible.