Awareness of opioid threat belongs to all

Another spike in opioid overdoses has public-safety and health officials scrambling to locate the source and sound the alarm.

According to Lowell Fire Chief Jeff Winward, three people died from suspected overdoses last weekend in Greater Lowell. There were 21 overdoses overall last week — almost three times the average.

Officials believe the deadly opioid fentanyl, now present in about 90 percent of overdose cases, is being mixed with heroin and cocaine and sold in pill form.

Winward urged family and friends of opiate users to keep close tabs on their whereabouts, and to call 911 immediately if they detect a suspected overdose.

It’s not the first time that unsuspecting addicts have ingested potentially lethal opioid cocktails.

In July, there was also a startling uptick in opioid-related incidents. Trinity EMS, which serves 13 communities in northern Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire, received 99 opioid-related calls in Lowell alone.

At the time, anecdotal explanations for the unexpected overdose rise included the increased availability of meth (methamphetamine), which mixed with opioids, can create side effects that lead to overdoses.

The deadly common denominator in these fatal and reversible overdoses continues to be fentanyl, an artificial opioid many times more potent than heroin, which actually has taken a back seat to cocaine as the most popular fentanyl mixture.

It’s both sad and frustrating that individuals addicted to these illegal substances place such blind faith in their suppliers, who are either guilty of ignorance or duplicity in this dangerous game of Opioid Roulette.

All we can do is to help get the word out, and urge the loved ones of those in the throes of dependency to do all they can to ensure that family member, relative, or friend gets the help they desperately need.

Young man hits target in snowball fight

You can beat city hall. Just ask Dane Best, a 9-year-old resident of Severance, Colo. He’ll set you straight.

Dane persuaded town officials in this northern Colorado community to overturn a century-old ban on snowball fights. How could it be, Dane must have asked, that a town in the snow belt would prohibit throwing snowballs at each other?

To Dane, it was a simple proposition. “I want to be able to throw a snowball without getting in trouble,” he told the Greeley Tribune newspaper.

Kyle Rietkerk, Severance’s assistant to the town manager, said the original ordinance made it illegal to throw or shoot stones or missiles at people. Somehow that ban snowballed into including what most people in this part of the country consider an inalienable right.

Instead of defending the indefensible, town officials encouraged Dane and other youngsters to do something about it. So, Dane and some of his classmates embraced the cause by writing letters petitioning for the right to throw snowballs.

On Monday, Dane made his case in front of town officials, who unanimously voted to lift the snowball ban.

The immediate effect of that vote? Dane’s 4-year-old brother Dax probably became the first legal recipient of a snowy white projectile.

And town officials may have not seen the last of Dane Best. It seems there’s another ordinance on the books that defines pets as just cats and dogs.

Dane owns a guinea pig. You can imagine what’s next.