Also on today’s menu:
Amendment Aimed At Helping Poor Communities
Food Aid Compromise Could Increase Spending
The Drawbacks Of CPR Give Pause
Medical marijuana dispensaries helped to scuttle an amendment to a bill that would have legalized the weed for recreational use and put sales under the control of the New Hampshire Liquor Commission. Prime Alternative Treatment Centers of New Hampshire, which operates dispensaries Conway, Dover, Keene, Lebanon, and Plymouth, sent its director of public relations, Matt Simon, to argue, “You are talking about a system where the only entity we can sell cannabis to is the state of New Hampshire and they decide the prices and they decide whether or not to buy the product. That is what we are saying is completely unworkable. That’s not a market.”
The House Commerce and Consumer Affairs Committee killed that amendment but retained House Bill 544 which relates to cannabis sales in order to rework it before bringing it back next year.
Committee Chair John Hunt (R-Ringe) had proposed the legalization plan after discussing it with the Liquor Commission, in hopes of satisfying Governor Chris Sununu, a longtime skeptic of recreational marijuana, who had said he would sign the “right” plan if lawmakers could pass one.
Amendment Aimed At Helping Poor Communities
The Senate Finance Committee approved an amendment by Senate President Jeb Bradley (R-Wolfeboro) that adds $11.5 million to a new education funding program to help communities like Berlin and Claremont that would not receive significant increases in state aid under the new formula, while school districts with large or growing student populations benefited more.
The additional money will be included in the five-year hold-harmless program for those communities. All three funding proposals — from the House, Senate and governor — would provide more than $100 million in new aid to public schools, with the governor’s being the least, at about $109 million, and the Senate the most, at about $170 million.
Bradley said the additional money will make it fairer to property-poor communities as the state transitions to a formula based on student enrollment and the number of students qualifying for free and reduced lunches, special education, and those who are non-English-speaking.
Food Aid Compromise Could Increase Spending
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the compromise worked out between House Republicans and President Joe Biden Jr. on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will add $2.1 billion to federal spending over 10 years, rather than saving money as Republicans intended. That is because, in agreeing to Republicans’ demand for expanding work requirements for those receiving food assistance from the current 18- and 49-year-olds up to age 54, the president asked to drop the work requirements for veterans and the homeless.
The net result of the compromise is to add almost 80,000 people to the monthly rolls, according to CBO estimates.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) said the estimates fail to tell the whole story because “a lot of people are going to get jobs now.”
The Drawbacks Of CPR Give Pause
There is a growing reluctance among medical personnel to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation as they recognize the low survival rates and the potential damage that chest compressions cause.
Fractured or cracked ribs have long been recognized as common complications of CPR, but NPR notes that the procedure also may cause pulmonary hemorrhage, liver lacerations, and broken sternums.
“A rare but particularly awful effect of CPR is called CPR-induced consciousness: chest compressions circulate enough blood to the brain to awaken the patient during cardiac arrest, who may then experience ribs popping, needles entering their skin, a breathing tube passing through their larynx. The traumatic nature of CPR may be why as many as half of patients who survive wish they hadn't received it, even though they lived.”
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