Fentanyl's dangers, special-ed students, Israel-Hamas war

Tell students about fentanyl’s dangers

Let’s get to the heart of the matter and the part of Newsday’s editorial where I feel the rubber meets the road [“Fentanyl tragedy continues on LI,” Opinion, July 25]. If there is no demand, the dealers are left without customers. Education equals prevention.

New York State needs to follow California’s lead here. It has mandated education about fentanyl embedded into school curriculum. Children are taught throughout their primary school years about fentanyl and the danger it poses.

— Larry Lamendola, Wantagh

I am stunned at the inadequate 25-year sentence given to convicted murderer Marquis Douglas [“25 years for fatal drugs,” News, July 24]. The Bible says an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. New York State should reinstate capital punishment in cases like this.

Douglas deserves to be executed for admitting to selling fentanyl-laced cocaine to four people who died as a result. This 25-year sentence is a joke. Not only do taxpayers have to pay for his stay in confinement, but is this sentence a deterrent to stop future drug dealers?

Is the law focused more on protecting a convicted killer while a victim and the victim’s families are left to forever suffer hurt and anger? Beverly Samuels, the mother of victim Swainson Brown, said “Four people died, four young people. I have to go to the grave all the time to talk to my son.”

— John Wolf, Levittown

Low expectations impair kids’ paths

Kudos to Philip S. Cicero, retired Lynbrook superintendent of schools, for pointing out how low expectations for Long Island special education students are hampering their ability to earn Regents diplomas [“Special-ed students are still underperforming,” Opinion, July 22]. This is not a new problem.

A generation ago, a 10th-grade Regents biology teacher almost scuttled my mildly learning-disabled son’s plans to earn a Regents diploma by suggesting he switch to the easier general biology class. But my son wasn’t giving up so easily, and neither were his parents, and he is now a veteran National Weather Service meteorologist.

Special-ed students shouldn’t suffer due to misguided assumptions, and teachers and parents should always encourage these students to do their best to challenge themselves. The only thing worse than failure is to never discover what you can achieve if given the opportunity.

— Phyllis Lader, Blue Point

Schools must teach social skills to students in middle school and high school.

These skills are necessary for students to effectively engage, get to know and interact with people as they navigate their career path, whatever it may be. It doesn’t matter whether students attend college or go directly into the job market after high school, they need social skills to network and build supportive relationships in life. As a life-skills educator and coach, I know that cellphones and social media do not accomplish what social skills do.

— Bob Wolf, Rockville Centre

‘Netanyahu bombs’ cartoon not reality

Matt Davies’ political cartoon “Netanyahu bombs” [Opinion, July 25] was not based on facts. It showed an illustration of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking in Congress adjacent to an illustration of enormous bombs raining on Gaza.

The cartoon does not correctly depict the targeted, exacting warfare that Israel employs, using its young soldiers to carefully pick their way through streets with booby-trapped tunnels and being ambushed by cowardly terrorists. Israel tries to spare as many civilians as possible. Meanwhile, Hamas sacrifices its civilians as human shields. Hamas knows that Palestinian casualties will be fodder for the media.

Hamas does this to feed the inflammatory dialogue to the public. If Israel wanted to carpet-bomb Gaza, it would have been a parking lot already. If Israel was committing genocide, a systematic attempt to annihilate a people, they’d be gone.

It was not a bomb of a speech. It was brilliant and powerful, honest and illuminating. Is Davies letting his personal feelings do the talking?

— Shelley Katz, Plainview

The news coverage of the protests during and after Netanyahu’s speech was appalling. No images of the burning of the American flag or the raising of Palestine’s flag. Yes, it was briefly mentioned, but images would have depicted the severity of the situation. I don’t think this is an accurate account of that day’s events.

— Jodi Madonna, Oceanside