Joe Biden is having major success in reducing overdose deaths

We grew from small farms
No government interference in farms means no subsidies

Joe Biden is having huge success in reducing overdose deaths

NPR reported that U.S. public health data show a dramatic decline in drug overdose deaths for the first time in decades. Between April 2023 and April 2024, drug deaths dropped 10.6%, with some researchers saying the decline will be even more pronounced once federal research is updated.

With more than 70,000 Americans dying from opioid overdoses in 2020, the final year of the Trump administration, the Biden-Harris administration has prioritized disrupting the supply of illicit fentanyl and other synthetic drugs. They intercepted drugs at ports of entry (most drugs enter legal ports of entry), imposed sanctions on over 300 foreign individuals and agencies involved in the global illicit drug trade, and arrested and prosecuted dozens of high-level Mexican drug traffickers, human traffickers, and traffickers. money laundering.

In March 2023, the Biden-Harris administration made naloxone, a drug that can prevent fatal opioid overdoses, available over the counter. The administration has invested more than $82 billion in treatment and has worked to make treatment available to first responders and family members.

Addressing opioid-related deaths meant careful, coordinated policy, not something that Republican chaos could achieve.

Ann Heitland, Ankeny

We grew from small farms

While this is not the most critical issue of today, I still want to correct the discussion about the disappearance of small farms, first started by Brian Reisinger in his September 15 essay and then continued in Michael Montross’ letter from Winterset.

Of course, small farms are disappearing in Iowa. If you go to the Iowa State Fair and look at the farm equipment, it’s easy to see why. Both my mother and father grew up on farms, very small by today’s standards, and even at that size they needed hired workers to operate them. Today, my younger brother owns both the “family” farms and, along with other land, farms of nearly 1,000 acres. And this is typical for a sole proprietorship.

The 120-acre farm, the size Montross mentioned, is a hobby farm. The owners grow chokeberries or another specialty crop. (I have a son who lives in Washington state, so it occurs to me how much money could be made if we removed all government restrictions as he suggested.)

The loss of small farms is as worth mourning as the loss of one-room schools. This is simply not the world we live in. Farms that remain in the family in one way or another are the rule, not the exception. They are family owned and occupied, although they may have corporate or other legal structures.

Mary Hoyer, Salem

No government interference in farms means no subsidies

When I read the letter “Allow Resident Farmers to Farm Without Government Interference,” in which Michael Montross advocated “allowing a farm owner who lives exclusively on his 120-acre farm to be exempt from all government regulations, and thus exempt from taxes, ” One basic question came to my mind.

If the farmer were exempt from all government regulation, would Montross be suggesting that these farmers be exempt from the numerous government subsidies they currently benefit from, or would he suggest that they would still be eligible to receive their share of the tens of billions to be included in future farm bills agricultural and have no regulations, while paying no taxes?

John Beisner, Ames