School security official positive | Sept. 7
Serious concerns about safety
I just read that, unlike other school districts in Florida, Hillsborough is using armed guards who are not trained law enforcement officers. Even worse, the guards are not employees of a professionally trained third-party guard service, but employees of the school district. I have also learned some practices used by the Hillsborough school security system are "questionable" in terms of free clothing and other perks for administrative personnel. And they are using cars with red and blue lights as well as sirens. How is that even legal?
Perhaps this helps to explain why, when I recently attended a Hillsborough elementary school to visit with a grandchild, unlike in the past, I was not asked for identification and I did not need to sign in. Doors were open to people coming and going all around the school property. My immediate thought was, there is no actual security at this school, at all. We all need to wonder about the potential liability issues this brings to the Hillsborough County School Board.
I have serious concerns about the safety of my two grandchildren, both of whom attend school in Hillsborough County. All parents and grandparents in Hillsborough should challenge our school board about these issues before we must do so in an after-action situation.
Jerry Rosen, Tampa
Overstep on painkillers? | Sept. 2
Doctors must cooperate
It's ironic that the same physician who helped lead the fight against prescription drug abuse in Florida is now complaining that pharmacists are calling him and asking questions about the drugs he's prescribing.
Dr. Rafael Miguel suggests that his signature and DEA number on a prescription should place him above a pharmacist's inquiry, but it was that exact attitude by pain clinic physicians that led to Florida becoming a leader in the storefront pill mill industry a few years back.
If physicians in the pain industry want the mess they created cleaned up, pharmacists can't do it alone. The doctors are going to have to help, even if that means answering the phone now and then to respond to a few questions from the pharmacy.
Norma Fraser, Clearwater
Our intolerable cruelties Sept. 5, commentary
Put child safety first
This columnist refers to posts by a Washington Post colleague in which he talks about the "criminalization of parenthood." They suggest that people who encounter a child in a locked car or playing alone in a park shouldn't call the police but "wait by the car or ask after the child alone in the park to make sure their parents come back." Seriously?
A child's body overheats three to five times faster than an adult's. Cracking a window doesn't overcome the "greenhouse effect" of an enclosed car, so the child can go from hyperthermia to heat exhaustion and heat stroke (convulsions, coma, death) in minutes.
Wouldn't you want someone to intervene for your child when minutes make a vital difference?
Celeste Stucchio, R.N., Spring Hill
Fast-food protests produce arrests | Sept. 5
Higher wages, higher prices
Fast-food workers staged a one-day strike for a wage hike to $15 per hour. Regardless of which side of the argument you are on, it is time we touched on a little slice of reality.
A Heritage Foundation study estimates that a wage increase of that magnitude would cause fast-food establishments to raise their prices by 38 percent just to break even. Here is what a trip to your favorite fast-food joint would look like: A Big Mac meal that now costs $5.69 would be $7.82; a Whopper meal that is $6.35 would be $8.46; and a Subway turkey breast foot-long would go from $6.50 to $8.74. This would drive away customers, and reduced sales translate into reduced workers.
James S. Woodrow, Bradenton
Pot's potty-mouth advocate gets it right Sept. 5, Sue Carlton column
Marijuana's slippery slope
I will not be voting in favor of medical marijuana. As a social libertarian, if the initiative had asked should pot be legal, I would have voted yes. But "medical pot" is a slippery slope and a sham. As a doctor, I have seen it abused in other states where, eventually, any ache or pain generates a prescription for the drug.
John Morgan's alcohol-fueled tirade notwithstanding, I would submit he is wrong. There already exists a legal form of the active medical marijuana ingredient, THC, available by prescription. It is called Marinol. As for his argument that marijuana is "natural," I would submit that so is strychnine, hemlock, arsenic and mercury. But these natural products can lead to serious illness and death.
If the issue is compassion and empathy for the ill, as Sue Carlton opines, then doctors can already prescribe relief in the form of Marinol.
David Mokotoff, M.D., St. Petersburg
PSC to review Duke's bill fixes | Sept. 5
It should have been simple
If, as Duke Energy claims, its change in billing was for the purpose of efficiency only, there are two ways they could have lessened the impact on customers.
The first would have been to implement this decision during the lower-usage months of November through February.
The second would have been to deduct the extra days instead of adding them, as was done on some accounts. In other words, instead of adding 12 days to the billing cycle, deduct 18 days. This would have given one smaller bill followed by a standard 30-day bill.
Claudia Allbright, Belleair
Eric Cantor joins Wall Street | Sept. 3
Rapid rewards
Yes, former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost his Republican primary election, but he was rewarded for all the favors he gave to the business community — especially Wall Street.
What a message he is sending to his former associates in Congress: It doesn't matter if you lose an election, there is still an entitlement waiting for you in the business community when you leave office.
And it's only going to get worse as we witness the damage that will come from the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court.
Jack Levine, Palm Harbor