If Utah’s leaders really want to do something about our community’s skyrocketing suicide rate — one that has left taking one’s own life the leading cause of death for our teenagers — they are going to have to have a much better understanding of the plague they are dealing with.
They will have to understand that putting up a platoon of billboards and launching a fleet of tweets, basically asking people to pretty please not kill themselves, is worse than worthless. It’s cheap, and it’s cruel.
Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox led a covey of state officials, health care providers, business and religious leaders the other day to announce a new $2 million, three-year campaign to use advertising, social media and the like to encourage people who are in need of help to leave behind any social stigma they might feel to seek it out.