Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Walk The Walk
The Wahey Boys applauded Mayor Sue Kay not too long ago when she promptly backed up her promise to get tough on drugs and the Weymouth Police conducted a sweep through Weymouth High School finding a quantity of marijuana in a student’s car. After all, we can’t be critical on the one hand, as we were when she and her Substance Abuse Coordinator tried to pass a policy restricting student fundraising as a way of preventing underage alcohol abuse, and not recognize when their efforts actually do end in a positive result. Substance abuse education and enforcement of existing drug laws, particularly among young people goes a long way in the battle to stop the drug epidemic in this country. But drug and alcohol abuse is far from just a youth problem and focusing all the attention there is not the only way to get results. Concentrating all the policy on young people is the easy sell because they don’t have a voice. As the saying goes, you can’t just “talk the talk”; you must “walk the walk”.
Presently, Tom Menino, Mayor of Boston, is “walking the walk” by coming out for random drug testing of all public safety personnel. He’s in for a battle. That’s not just Boston, that’s all of Massachusetts. “Random drug and alcohol testing should be mandatory for public safety and for public trust”, is the quote from his office. It will be a hard sell to our legislators, and police and fire unions will rail against it, but the time has come to make a real stand against drugs. What better message could be sent to today’s youth than by stating that drug enforcement starts with our public employees.
Wouldn’t it be refreshing to hear Mayor Sue Kay, Representative James Murphy and Senator Bob Hedlund publicly reinforce Mayor Menino’s hard line stance against drug and alcohol abuse? Last year, Mayor Kay was pivotal in having the Weymouth Police Chief resign amidst allegations of sexual harassment. Is there a possibility there was alcohol abuse in the allegations also? She later tried to have the Chief’s job removed from Civil Service so that she could have more control. The Wahey Boys didn’t agree with that but we do feel Tom Menino is presenting an opportunity for Mayor Kay to REALLY get tough.
POSTED BY STAN at June 2, 2009
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