As small government proponents, we have long advocated for an approach to addressing society’s ills that favors educating the public in order to arm individuals and communities with the information they need to create the kind of change they desire. We believe that type of change is more meaningful and effective than forcing “progress” through new laws or regulations.
When we learned earlier this year that the Prevention Management Organization of Wyoming was consolidating the substance abuse and suicide prevention efforts in Crook and Weston counties under one local manager, we feared that it meant the entity created and funded by the Wyoming Department of Health to help address these types of issues statewide was going to even more significantly reduce the resources available to our communities to identify and combat the problems facing us. For more than a decade, those resources have largely been used in Weston County to educate citizens in an effort to help them understand the dangers posed by certain choices and behaviors, and to provide information that enabled people to access additional resources or professional assistance for those individuals who have a problem and want or need help.
PMO’s consolidation of prevention efforts in Crook and Weston counties did produce the anticipated decrease in the budget available to provide this kind of information to the people of those counties moving forward, but that is simply a continuation of a trend that has diverted resources from communities and into PMO’s central operation since the entity’s inception. What is even more alarming is PMO’s admission that it is focused on a strategy of “policy, environment or systems change” as opposed to “one-time programs or individual interventions.” While that may sound nice on the surface, we want to make sure residents of Weston County know exactly what it means. Environmental change is, quite simply, a change made to the physical environment to promote better choices and behaviors, but we have been hearing for more than a year that Wyoming doesn’t have money to build these types of enhancements.
Realistically, that leaves us with policy or systems change, both of which mean adoption of new rules and regulations. Government entities have long argued that such an approach is more sustainable and economically feasible than arming individuals with the information they need to make responsible decisions for themselves, but we would note that the same approach has produced things like soft drink bans and the absurd regulations that now govern school lunches.
PMO will even admit that their pursuit of such an approach is driven by a desire to please its “federal partners.” That may be the most alarming admission of all, and the clearest indication that prevention efforts in Wyoming have become nothing more than an excuse to preserve and grow yet another bureacracy in state government. We would much rather see those resources used to provide real solutions (like greater access to mental health care), but ask that you judge PMO for yourself before jumping on our bandwagon.
Simply go to the organization’s website (www.pmowyo.org) and read what they have to say about themselves. If you find any of the information there valuable (or can even understand half of it) then we encourage you to join PMO’s effort. But if you think every word of it is nothing more than bureaucratic double-speak, please contact a legislator and urge them to find another use for the state’s resources.