Last week’s editorial touched on how the people of our region have responded to mass killings in our nation, and this week I’ll explain the choice to put a medical column on page 1. The LincolnHealth piece is about another mass killer, addiction.

Addiction goes everywhere other mass killings have happened, a supermarket, a movie theater, a church, nightclub or school. It’s on a person of any age or walk of life, like a tick can be, and, like a tick, the trouble it wreaks can need long-term, even lifelong treatment. 

Our towns are not immune. Addiction creates ambulance calls and sometimes obituaries, inspires crime, pummels productivity and douses the dreams of wonderful people, just as any other serious illness can. And its being an illness is part of the point the column on the front page makes. Ah, there’s the good news.

Dr. Cynthia Dechenes explains in the column, the medical community has come to treat addiction like other chronic diseases that take appointments, followup and support. Well that makes sense. And it’s progress. So is something else the column cites, the resultant lessening of stigma people with addictions face, thanks to treating it like the disease it is.

Last spring, our front page told of Two Bridges Regional Jail’s plan to offer a medication-assisted treatment (MAT) program to help drug-addicted inmates. And as long as our towns’ emergency crews get called to overdoses and crimes of those with addictions, and until this mass killer stops creating obituaries, if it ever will, we will keep bringing you any good news we can get on it.

Week’s positive parting thought: Kudos to organizers and donors of time and more in a Wiscasset first, last Sunday’s Set for Success at Wiscasset Elementary School. And kudos to families for showing up.