If you’re reading this, congratulations: You haven’t been struck by lightning! But then again, the summer is young, and many more sudden thunderstorms are waiting to ruin your shoes/hair/day.
Darts & Laurels
Although people around the U.S. continue to criticize the lack of readily available mental-health resources (especially in the wake of mass shootings), little has actually been done. Florida, however, is now in the forefront of changes to make mental health resources more easily available: This week, news broke that Florida will be the first state to offer a Medicaid health plan designed for people with serious mental illnesses.
The change simply makes sense, the Florida Medicaid director said. Many Medicaid programs have contracted with third-party companies to provide mental health care coverage, according to Kaiser Health News, making coordination more difficult. The new Medicaid option will make mental health care easier to access for its beneficiaries, who are more likely to have mental illnesses than the general population. We’re giving Florida Medicaid a kudos-for-setting-a-precedent LAUREL this week.
Earlier this week, the Alligator reported that a recent Bank of America Corp. study found that 47 percent of Americans “couldn’t last more than one day without their smartphone.”
Not to sound like a crotchety old person bemoaning the “old days” before cell phones, but that’s an insane statistic. Smartphones have paradoxically made us both more and less social: On one hand, you can send a text message or tweet in seconds and reach more people than ever. On the other hand, these small actions cause us to lose actual human, physical contact. Look around any bus or on-campus food place, and you’ll realize that nearly every person has his or her head bent over a phone. Call us old-fashioned and unoriginal, but we’d welcome a few days without the constant pings of texts and emails. We’re tossing a DART at all the city-slicker lame-os who can’t do without their phones for a day.
According to the Tallahassee Democrat, a new poll has revealed that an unlikely voter bloc in Florida is for the legalization of medical marijuana: People aged 65 and over.
It’s not surprising. After all, what do we want more in this world than to spend our golden years hitting a fat blunt to ease the rheumatoid arthritis pain in-between rounds of shuffleboard and walks along the beach?
Hilarious images aside, older voters have reason to support Amendment 2. Elderly citizens quoted in the Tallahassee Democrat article described long struggles with prescription pain meds that caused debilitating side effects such as nausea. More and more, they’re seeing that marijuana isn’t a horrible gateway drug, they’re seeing it as a welcome relief to the aches and pains of old age. We’re giving our final LAUREL of the week to the Florida seniors who’ve come out in favor medical marijuana.
Have a great weekend, Gators!
[A version of this editorial ran on page 6 on 7/10/2014 under the headline "Darts & Laurels"]
