Not the Brightest...

Just to flesh out the story: As might be expected, even some local folks don't think the "joke" is all that funny. Net effect is that a fake public health alert over a deadly disease posted by several police departments in various states (2) netted only one meth user with less than a gram of meth. But at what cost?

Now for the real news:

[/span], according to the World Health Organization." (1)

"The World Health Organization says 570 health care workers have been infected during this epidemic, and 324 of them have died. ¶ More than 100 have died in Sierra Leone. That’s a lot for a country that started out with just two physicians for every 100,000 people, and far fewer now by many counts." (3)

"But two good-government advocates said the posts run the risk of degrading trust in law enforcement and public health authorities. ¶ And in the case of Granite Shoals, the local district attorney questioned whether the post might alarm people who don’t use drugs, but might think a deadly virus is present in their community." (1)[/ul]
Those folks not so amused include, of course, the ACLU of Texas:

Not likely amused either are former patients of a Nebraska doctor that traveled to Africa to help the poor and was infected with Ebola like hundreds of other health workers. He returned to the States to be misdiagnosed, sent home, and die because of delayed treatment. (3)

So two great public health issues (meth and Ebola) are combined to form a fake public health alert misleading who-knows-how-many — all to catch one dull-witted woman with less than a gram of meth.

Maybe we're lucky that those poor, black folks of Sierra Leone with nothing close to adequate health care do not have Internet service, either. They might not find Facebook humor all that funny.

Excepts above from:

[/a]
2) Snopes.com
3) NBC News[/ul]

I gotta agree with LoneWolf on this one. Ebola is a real thing, and more than a little scary if/when it shows up here. When you cry wolf, and all.

And I do wish they'd spend more effort on finding illegal drug dealers rather than netting drug users. But I guess it's an easy way to keep the jails full, so be it.

Our local sheriff dept received a call from a woman who saw the Facebook post and asked if she could have her meth tested. She just returned fron Texas, bought some there and brought it home. Sheriff office told her to bring it in. She no showed.

When I was working a hepatic A outbreak in a group of meth users the sheriff wanted me to give him the names of the cases. He was not very happy when we refuse not only to give names of cases but other information that may identify individuals. It was hard enough to get trust by this group if we had cooperated with the Sheriff our investigation and prevention efforts would have been comprised. The line between law enforcement and public health needs to be maintained.

Yeah, but fighter jets are cool.

Drug PSAs taught me drugs aren't cool.

I agree. We could also add a "one day amnesty for illegal firearm registration" just to nap idiots on the other side of the political spectrum as well.