Finally, an elected body had the courage to stand up to the loony tunes and do what was obviously right for Jefferson County and its residents.
Members of the County Health Department Board of Trustees, acting like the responsible adults and professionals that they are, passed an ordinance to form its own prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP), in effect nullifying the recent 4-to-3 vote of the Jefferson County Council against joining one.
As you may have heard, Missouri is the only state in the nation that does not have a PDMP. St. Louis County, tired of waiting for the state to establish one, formed its own PDMP and invited other Missouri cities and counties to join.
The program sets up an information-sharing program between doctors and pharmacies so that people with drug dependencies cannot “doctor shop” and get multiple prescriptions to feed their drug habits.
Jefferson County’s new PDMP will join forces with the group started by St. Louis County, the same one rejected by the County Council.
The issue has become high profile in the wake of sharp increases in opioid overdoses and deaths in the last decade.
Members of the lunatic right have seen this effort as an affront to their liberty and privacy. Some believed it to be an Obama-hatched scheme to seize their guns.
This is big fun and throws giant chunks of red meat at their howling base of fellow crazies, but in addressing a theoretical and highly unproven conspiracy, it also derails efforts to halt a real-life health crisis – 69 overdose deaths last year in Jefferson County alone.
If words like lunatic, crazies and loonies seem harsh in describing the opponents, well, tough. Forty-nine other states have done this. Case closed.
The County Council stalled, debated, offered a ridiculous “alternative” PDMP by the usually ridiculous District 3 Councilman Bob Boyer, brought in a commissioner from Yahoo County to warn against the gun grab, stalled some more and finally voted 4 to 3 not to join the regional program.
It’s been reported before, but it should be repeated every time this comes up, that the Four Horsemen of the Conspiracy Apocalypse were Boyer, Council chair and District 2 Councilwoman Renee Reuter, District 4’s Charles Groeteke and the amiable and always entertaining Don Bickowski from District 1.
The sane people were Jim Kasten of District 5, Dan Stallman of District 6 and Jim Terry of District 7, and County Executive Ken Waller, who does not get to vote.
The Health Department and its executive director Kelley Vollmar had been leading the lobbying charge to get the County Council to join the PDMP, along with Comtrea president and CEO Sue Curfman. When the council voted no, the trustees acted.
The Health Department is an independent political entity. Voters elect its trustees and the department operates with its own tax levy and fees. Unlike other important departments, such as Planning and Zoning or Economic Development, board members are not appointed by the county executive or the County Council and are not subject to political pressure or retribution.
They are truly independent and answerable only to voters – in theory.
In this case, it will be interesting to monitor the employment future of Health Department Trustee Tim Pigg, who happens to earn his living as director of the Jefferson County Parks and Recreation Department, an appointed job.
In the past, running for Health Department trustee has been about as high profile as running to be a subdivision trustee. Sometimes there are contested races, but it’s not a glamorous job. It mostly involves trying to provide health services for middle- and low-income residents on a shoestring budget.
Pigg, Amber Henry, John Scullin, Dennis Diehl and Dr. Vernon Cherry do that thankless public service. Scullin, who spent his career in emergency medical service, and Diehl, who served as director of the Health Department before Vollmar, have firsthand, street-level experience dealing with opioid issues.
That will cut no ice with the paranoid majority members of the Jefferson County anti-government government, also known as the County Council. They are smarter than all the entities in Missouri that have joined the regional PDMP, and they are smarter than all of the other 49 state legislatures. Just ask them.
We’ll see now if they recruit a few of their people in tinfoil hats to run against the insurgents on the Health Department board. Everything else is politicized today – why not flu shots and blood pressure tests?
In the anti-government government, posturing and far-out philosophy win out over minor things like being proactive to help people not die.
The families of those teetering on the edge of opioid disaster ought to be glad there are responsible adults on the board of the Health Department.
