I'm sure state Sen. Bart Hester of Cave Springs must have had his political justifications for his motion last month to the Arkansas Legislative Council not to approve a proposal to review the state's smoking "Quitline" contract that in 2014-15 alone helped some 3,800 citizens to stop smoking tobacco. The council adopted Hester's motion.
Hester questioned the need for such a hot line and was quoted in a news account by John Lyon of the Arkansas News Bureau saying he objected to the $1.8 million cost of the program with an out-of-state vendor, even though National Jewish Health has reportedly the second-largest tobacco-cessation program in the U.S.
I respectfully disagree that any public assistance hot line with 11,874 smoking Arkansans registering for services in 2014-15 while helping nearly 4,000 to stop is unneeded or is not cost-effective.
Dr. Gary Wheeler, chief medical officer for the Arkansas Department of Health, said we use the respected Colorado service because Arkansas had no local applicants with similar programs. Cessation services consist of phone counseling as well as replacing lozenges and nicotine patches. When I imagine how many lower-income Arkansans smoke and don't know how to quit or can't afford the personal and chemical assistance to stop, I find it difficult to imagine this clearly useful and productive hot line is ineffective, underutilized or relatively expensive for the significant benefits it provides.
Wheeler said annual health-care costs related to smoking in our state total $3 billion, and every dollar spent to help folks stop smoking saves Arkansas $28. The benefit of maintaining the Quitline contract is obvious to me. Wheeler also said if this contract isn't renewed, the Natural State, formerly known as the Land of Opportunity, with one of the highest percentage of smokers nationally, would become the only state without a stop-smoking hot line. Another item I read said there would be two states without such assistance. Either way, that would be flat embarrassing.
I believe this beneficial program badly needs to be revisited. When roughly a third of Arkansans who contact the Quitline each year wind up off of tobacco and disconnected from the related catastrophic health problems it causes, and when it's reported that some 23,000 Arkansans have stopped smoking through the Quitline since 2010, it's apparent this service deserves the strongest possible consideration, both in the public interest and economically.
In case you're wondering, I don't smoke and I don't chew and don't bear joy for those who do.
Using fear politically
Former Democratic Gov. Jim Guy Tucker recently told those gathered at the Political Animals Club of Northwest Arkansas that fear is pervading much our political system and our lives today. He told the audience that fear-induced antagonism as well as the refusal to work across party lines are making compromise very difficult to achieve, according to a story by political reporter Doug Thompson.
In essence, he was saying our primal instinct for self-protection and survival creates political and personal divides that range from political views to race, gender and religious beliefs.
Tucker is right that fear is a prime mover in much of the divisive infection spreading across society. And it's true that fear is the greatest debilitator of the human spirit, which is why it's used so successfully in politics and elsewhere across society today.
Are the vast majority of African Americans and Hispanics in America truly fearful of white Americans and vice versa, or is this anxiety being inflamed by calculated political maneuverings (fanned by national media collaboration) to further political agendas?
The shrieking, clown-like, rabble-rousing "Rev." Al Sharpton of 1987 Tawana Brawley notoriety sound familiar?
Return the medals
Incidentally, I join the unanimous Pine Bluff City Council in agreeing the police officers who received the city's medals of valor for their roles in shooting 107-year-old Monroe Isadore to death during a September 2013 standoff must return the medals.
I suspect that while the fragile fella was in a bad frame of mind and had fired a pistol into a closed door after refusing to be moved to an apartment, there likely was a better way to subdue the man other than "courageously" shooting him.
No, I wasn't here at the time and, yes, I realize I'm second-guessing and armchair-quarterbacking and such here, but I believe anything from a tear-gas canister to negotiation to simply waiting the old man out as he sat alone on the bed in his room certainly were worth consideration.
These news-making medals were an ill-conceived idea from the beginning, one that sounded more like someone with medal-granting authority trying to curry favor with the local police department.
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.
Editorial on 07/17/2016