OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2016
Founded in 1873
STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher
LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor
BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager
A generation is
lost to drugs
Death rate of young white
adults is eye-popping
D
rug overdoses by young white adults have elevated the death
rate for that age group to a level last seen during the AIDS
epidemic, The New York Times reported Jan. 16. This enterprising
investigation rings true here in the Lower Columbia region.
“The rising death rates for those
young white adults, ages 25 to 34,
maNe them the ¿rst generation
since the Vietnam War years of the
mid-1960s to experience higher
death rates in early adulthood than
the generation that preceded it,”
the Times said.
Among the horrifying ¿ndings
• “In 2014, the overdose death
rate for whites ages 25 to 34 was
¿ve times its level in 1999, and the
rate for 35- to 44-year-old whites
tripled during that period.”
• Even as better healthcare re-
duces deaths from heart disease
and other traditional threats, white
women are especially vulnerable
to premature death from overdoses
of legal and illegal drugs.
• The death rate in recent years in-
creased 23 percent for young whites
without a high school diploma.
All this bad news will strike a
chord with local residents who
have mourned as young people
fall under the evil spell of opi-
oid pills and heroin. Along with
methamphetamine, opioid drugs
have created a noticeable spike in
the number of arrests, accidental
deaths and suicides suffered by
young adults in our communities.
Most recently, grieving mother
Linda Geisler of Knappa sparked
widespread community introspec-
tion with her heartfelt disclosure
of the struggles faced by her late
daughter, Whittney Ferguson. The
pain suffered by addicts and their
families is beyond calculation. In
addition, property crimes and lost
potential exact an enormous toll
on local communities.
Identifying and implement-
ing solutions will require policy
changes and intense efforts on the
part of families, healthcare provid-
ers, law enforcement and others.
Addiction often seems to begin
with pain pills taken for injuries or
stolen from family members with
legitimate prescriptions. As one
starting point, it is logical to more
closely manage these legal drugs
to limit the odds they will be mis-
used. Opioids should, perhaps, be
a last option for pain management
for young people.
Beyond this, drug addiction is for
many a symptom of lack of hope.
Although modern heroin addiction
famously cuts across economic
lines, this new analysis strongly
suggests that dropouts are at great-
er danger. We need to keep kids in
school and try to give all young peo-
ple a fair shot at success in life.
Years of no growth
should be an alarm
With or without armed protesters, federal
government constrains Harney County
R
esidents of Harney County
have been described as the
hostages of the armed protest-
ers who took over the Malheur
National Wildlife Refuge Jan. 2.
By most accounts the protest-
ers, largely out-of-state agitators,
have harassed and generally run
roughshod over the local com-
munity for three weeks and have
worn out their welcome.
But the government land man-
agement policies that at least par-
tially underpin the protest have
constrained the Harney County
economy for 40 years.
Once upon a time, Harney
County’s economy was strong.
Thirty-one percent of the jobs, 768
in all, were in the wood products
industry. But since 1978, that num-
ber has dropped to 6, according to
a recent report from the Oregon
Of¿ce of Economic Analysis.
And while the rest of the state
increased jobs 74 percent since
the late 1970s, the number of jobs
in Harney County dropped by 10
percent. Since 1980, when the
population was 8,314 and the job
losses began, the county has lost
nearly 1,200 people.
“Relative to the late 1970s
— just before the state went into
the severe early ’80s recession
and timber industry restructuring
— the number of jobs today in
Harney County is 10 percent be-
low back then,” Josh Lehner, the
analyst who prepared the report,
said. “Clearly, that is a really long
time with essentially no growth.”
A lot of things have changed
since the 1970s. The timber indus-
try has restructured, and there’s
more automation in the mills. So,
not all of the wood product job
losses can be attributed to federal
logging policies.
But community leaders and res-
idents say that in a county where
more than 70 percent of the land
is controlled by the federal govern-
ment, those policy changes, along
with stricter grazing restrictions,
increased regulation and the ev-
er-present threat of environmental
lawsuits that attend any dealing
with government agencies have
huge impacts.
The partner that once encour-
aged natural resource enterprises
has grown distant and unrespon-
sive. Sooner or later the protesters
will decamp the refuge and life in
Harney County will return to nor-
mal. But there and in a hundred
places across the West, they will
wait for the federal government to
loosen its grip.
Submitted Photo
Nancy Wesson with children in northern Uganda.
9olunteeU ¿nds meaninJ
in the MunJle on the shoUe
Nancy Wesson
recalls two
years of living
dangerously
CANNON BEACH — Nancy
Wesson arrived in Cannon Beach
on Labor Day 2014 with a loaded
30-foot U-Haul and no place to
live.
That might have been daunting
for many new arrivals, but consid-
ering what she had experienced as
a Peace Corps worker in Uganda
for the previous 27 months, this
was traveling in style.
Wesson, a mediator and person-
al productivity consultant in Aus-
tin, Texas, decided to trade it all
in at age 64. “I wanted a venue to
try my skill set somewhere else,”
she said in an interview in her Can-
non Beach home. “I wanted to re-
calibrate,” she said. “I’d tried that
three or four times in my life, but
you always tend to get pulled back.
And I chose the Peace Corps.”
Seeking the “immersion experi-
ence,” she surfed the Peace Corps
website in the middle of the night
and said, “Let’s see what comes my
way.”
That began an 18-month process
that landed her in the landlocked
east African nation of Uganda.
“I’m not sure if I would have
chosen that,” she said. “I knew Idi
Amin. I knew Entebbe. ‘Rescue at
Entebbe.’”
After packing her allotted 80
pounds — including a good set
of knives and leggings so her legs
wouldn’t be seen — Wesson ar-
rived at Entebbe at midnight.
After two weeks of training, she
made her way to the northern city
of Gulu, where the primary lan-
guage was Acholi. “It’s a tonal lan-
guage, the language of the north,”
she said. “There’s a lot of emphasis
of vowel strength and length. The
mispronunciation of a vowel can
get you into a lot of difficult cir-
cumstances.”
The region had been ravaged by
20 years of war, she said, leaving
a legacy of tribal hatred, orphaned
children and thousands more ill or
dying from AIDS and malaria.
After rejecting her first hous-
ing quarters in Gulu, located over
a dump where they burned tires
and plastics throughout the day,
Wesson found a “reasonably safe”
home, furnished with two tables
and a chair.
For safety, she never went out at
night.
“That’s when all the weird stuff
happens to volunteers,” Wesson
said. “It’s kind of OK to go out in
a group, but you’re cautioned not
to. The traffic is ridiculous. No
lighting, roads hideous, potholes
the size of Volkswagen Bugs, drop-
offs on either side ... They drive
lickety-split, animals, potholes —
it’s scary.”
An emotional shift
Three Peace Corps groups op-
erated from Gulu, Uganda educa-
tion, economic development and
health. Wesson worked with the
education group in literacy and ba-
sic education.
“When I got there, they had no
filing or organizational system, so
that’s the first thing I did,” she said.
“Looking at systems and processes
to see if I could fine-tune things
so they could get better use of
Submitted Photo
A writing slate is used to teach literacy skills.
SOUTHERN
EXPOSURE
B Y
R.J.
M ARX
band to make all of the decisions.’
Or ‘Now that I know how to count
money, I can go to the market and
sell my tomatoes without being
cheated.’ These are huge success
stories.”
In a society ruled by supersti-
tions came unexpected challenges.
“Witchcraft still exists there,” she
said. “We were called ‘muzungus,’
which means foreigners. One of the
beliefs that surrounds muzungus is
that blue eyes are the devil. One day,
I was sitting in the truck, and hun-
dreds of kids were surrounding the
truck. I always took a jar of bubbles
to blow, and they’re motioning me
for me to remove my sunglasses.
When I did, the whole group jumped
back in horror at my blue eyes. I
smiled and blew bubbles, and they
learned to accept that.”
Ocean bound
R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian
After the harsh extremes of Ugan-
da, Nancy Wesson enjoys life in
Cannon Beach.
their tiny resources. Dealing with
the primitive environment led to a
“huge emotional shift around time
and productivity,” Wesson said.
For a woman who used to help
high-powered Austin business-
women compete in the market-
place, Wesson quickly learned,
“Nothing is going to happen on
time or quickly. Delivery of ser-
vices is so fraught « nobody has
any communications. There’s no
money to fix anything that breaks,
and family comes first, so if any-
thing is happening with a family,
everything else stops.”
Trainings took place in the deep
bush, aided by interpreters who
could speak the local language,
Acholi, and English.
“It’s a very successful program,
but success is determined differ-
ently,” Wesson said. “ Some of the
success stories would be ‘Now
that I know how to write my name,
I don’t have to wait for my hus-
After a little more than two
years, Wesson returned to the Unit-
ed States. In selecting a climate,
she sought the opposite of Ugan-
da’s clouds of dust.
“All I could think of was get-
ting to the shore,”she said. “I’ve
dreamed of the ocean in all my life.”
With a son working as a ski in-
structor at Mount Hood, she was
drawn to Cannon Beach. She found
a rental and unloaded the U-Haul.
In her time here, she’s made herself
known around town, working with
the Visitor Center part time and
with the Haystack Rock Awareness
Program.
Now, she reflects on her time
with the Peace Corps.
“I’m really glad I did it,” Wesson
said. “People ask, ‘Was it fun?’ No,
it wasn’t fun, but I did good work,
made good friends and think I made
a lasting difference. I have this in-
credible sense of gratitude, every
single day,” Wesson added. “Every
waking moment in Uganda was
a constant act of gratitude. I was
thanked by people I’d never seen
before on a daily basis. They knew
if you were a foreigner, you were
there to help, if you were waiting
for a light, they’d take my hand and
say, ‘Thank you for your service.’
“To say that this country should
close its door to immigrants — we
were those immigrants originally,”
she added. “Every time you help
someone, whether in this country
or another, if you help lift them up,
then you change the community in
which that person functions. That’s
what the Peace Corps does.”
R.J. Marx is The Daily Astori-
an’s South County reporter and
editor of the Seaside Signal and
Cannon Beach Gazette.