6 April 20–26, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents During the City Hall presentation on vio- lent crime, Dallas police Chief Eddie Garcia didn’t seem to have many answers for why this year’s murder numbers have been high or what can help bring them down soon. He assured the committee, however, that his force would keep searching for answers. “When you look at our murder category,” Gracia said, “it’s something we’ve been chal- lenged with really every year with regards to moving the needle on that and making sure that we have less victims. One victim is too many, and so we’ll continue to work hard. The department’s not gonna quit and we’re continue to provide safety for our commu- nity.” ▼ MEDIA TWITTER BLUES DALLAS NEWS OUTLET KERA IS BOYCOTTING TWITTER. BY KELLY DEARMORE L ast week, Dallas NPR affiliate KERA News told staff it “will be suspending organizational use of Twitter for the time being,” according to an internal email tweeted out by KERA reporter Kailey Broussard. The announcement comes hours after NPR announced it would no longer use any of its more than 50 Twitter accounts after they were labeled “state-affiliated media” prior to being given the current label of “government-funded media.” According to Influence Watch, “Presently, NPR receives funding for less than 1% of its budget di- rectly from the federal government, but re- ceives almost 10% of its budget from federal, state and local governments indirectly.” In NPR’s own reporting of its decision to step away from the Elon Musk-owned social media network, the network’s CEO, John Lansing, defended the move: “By going si- lent on Twitter, NPR’s chief executive says the network is protecting its credibility and its ability to produce journalism without ‘a shadow of negativity.’” In the email to local KERA staff, KERA Audience Producer Carla Jimenez speci- fied that the @keratx and @keranews ac- counts will go silent, but the fates of the Twitter feeds for its music radio stations KXT 91.7 and WRR 101.1 have yet to be de- termined. “There are several reasons for this deci- sion,” Jimenez wrote. “Twitter, under Elon Musk’s leadership, has drastically changed. I’m sure you’ve noticed a marked increase in trolls, abusive behavior and content you did not ask for. Twitter as an organization has also undermined the credibility of many news organizations, from the BBC and NPR and the New York Times and oth- ers. It does not make sense to participate on a platform that has a decided disdain for what we do.” Jimenez went on to clarify that employ- ees were free to share the work they pro- duce for KERA on Twitter, and that for now, there are no plans to add a new social media channel to its efforts. When reached for comment, Jimenez said that the email Broussard tweeted was meant for internal communications and that the outlet would provide a formal announcement regarding its social media plans later. For his part, unsurprisingly, Musk doesn’t seem to be troubled by the first ex- ample of a major American news outlet abandoning his platform. On April 12, Musk tweeted a screenshot of an email from NPR business reporter Bobby Allyn asking for Musk’s reaction to the decision. In response, Musk simply tweeted, “De- fund @NPR.” ▼ DRUGS ‘FIGHT BACK’ MOTHER OF TEEN KILLED BY FENTANYL URGES OTHERS TO COMMUNICATE, SUPPORT. BY KELLY DEARMORE I n a newly released video, local mother Lilia Astudillo gets right to the point. “I never thought something like this could happen to my family,” she says in Spanish as English subtitles scroll across the bottom of the clip. Astudillo’s 14-year-old son, Jose Alberto Perez, died in January from fentanyl poison- ing. In the video she says her son, a student at Long Middle School in Carrollton-Farm- ers Branch ISD, made “one wrong decision,” which resulted in his death. The three-minute video is a part of an ex- panding effort by the school district to spread the word about the dangers of fen- tanyl, something that has become shock- ingly rampant over the past year. In February, authorities made the first of sev- eral arrests they announced were connected to three juvenile deaths and seven overdoses in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD be- tween September 2022 and January of this year. Additional suspected fentanyl overdoses have happened on Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD campuses in the last several weeks. Two weeks ago, a student was re- vived with Narcan, the opioid overdose-re- versing nasal spray, after falling unconscious on school grounds. Neighboring schools in other districts, including Hebron High School in Carroll- ton, have also seen fentanyl infiltrate their student bodies. In February, 16-year-old Plano Senior High School student Sienna Vaughn died after her parents said she took only one pill that she thought was prescrip- tion Percocet, but was a counterfeit pill laced with a fatal amount of fentanyl. The deaths and hospitalizations caused by fentanyl have been mounting across the state, with surges similar to what North Texas has seen playing out in the areas sur- rounding Austin and Houston as well. Gov. Greg Abbott recently announced a $10 mil- lion campaign featuring the tagline “One Pill Kills.” It also looks as though the Texas Legislature will soon move to legalize fen- tanyl test strips, which have been outlawed as drug paraphernalia, through a bipartisan effort. In the new Carrollton video, hopeful images of young Perez smiling behind a birthday cake and posing in a youth foot- ball uniform roll as his mother speaks about her loss and warns other families to have open communication about fentan- yl’s dangers. “We need to support each other, educate each other,” Astudillo says in Spanish as the video nears its end. “And fight back against this epidemic.” ▼ CANNABIS MORE POT PRESCRIPTIONS TEXAS MEDICAL MARIJUANA PROGRAM COULD BE EXTENDED TO MILLIONS. BY JACOB VAUGHN M embers of the Texas House of Rep- resentatives voted to pass a huge expansion of the state’s medical marijuana program. Rep. Stephanie Klick, a Fort Worth Republican, filed House Bill 1805 in January, which would add chronic pain as a qualifying condition for the Texas Compassionate Use Program (TCUP). Daryoush Austin Zamhariri, creator and chief editor of the Fort Worth-based Texas Cannabis Collective news site, said Klick’s bill could expand TCUP, the state’s medical mari- juana program, to include millions of Texans. Under the bill, patients with conditions “that cause chronic pain, for which a physician would otherwise prescribe an opioid” as well as other “debilitating medical conditions” would be eligible for TCUP. The bill has a Sen- ate companion that was filed by Lubbock Re- publican Sen. Charles Perry. Klick’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment. TCUP has become known as one of the most restrictive medical marijuana programs in the country. It has expanded a few times since it was approved in 2015, but it’s still lim- ited. It was initially open only to patients with intractable epilepsy, and medication was lim- ited to 0.5% THC, the psychoactive compo- nent in marijuana that gets users high. In 2019, the program was expanded to in- clude patients with terminal cancer, autism and multiple sclerosis, among other illnesses. In the last legislative session, it was expanded to allow patients with all forms of cancer and PTSD, and the THC cap in medication was increased to 1%. All that THC can come only in the form of edibles or tinctures, as smokable flower is still not allowed in the state’s medical marijuana program. That wouldn’t change under Klick’s bill. U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Bags filled with fentanyl pills taken from a dealer’s home in Flower Mound by Carrollton police in March 2023. Screenshot/Twitter KERA and NPR are leaving Twitter after being labeled “Government-Funded Media.” Unfair Park from p4 >> p8
