7A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JANUARY 5, 2018
Joshua Bessex/The Daily Astorian
Prosecutor Ron Brown makes an argument during a
court hearing in 2015.
Brown: Marquis
has offered his
endorsement
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Continued from Page 1A
Grant Osborn replaces a jar of marijuana to the display case at Sweet Relief in Astoria.
Warning: ‘I think Brown and Oregon
won’t be able to be so casual with this’
Continued from Page 1A
Sessions said he would
let federal prosecutors in
each state decide where they
would focus their enforce-
ment actions, but states that
have legalized marijuana are
not exempt from federal drug
laws.
However, it’s not clear that
the announcement will lead
to drastic changes in the way
that federal officials in Ore-
gon handle pot.
Billy Williams, the U.S.
attorney for Oregon, released
a statement saying he and
his peers have been directed
to use reasoned discretion in
prosecuting marijuana-related
crimes.
“We will continue working
with our federal, state, local
and tribal law enforcement
partners to pursue shared pub-
lic safety objectives, with an
emphasis on stemming the
overproduction of marijuana
and the diversion of mari-
juana out of state, disman-
tling criminal organizations
and thwarting violent crime
in our communities,” he said.
Oregon Attorney General
Ellen Rosenblum said the
state Department of Justice
would “continue to make sure
Oregon’s marijuana industry
thrives under our carefully
considered state regulatory
requirements.”
Rosenblum, who char-
acterized Sessions’ decision
as overreach, made no indi-
cation of specific next steps
other than she “valued her
working relationship” with
Williams and looked forward
to working with him.
“This is an industry that
Oregonians have chosen —
and one I will do everything
in my legal authority to pro-
tect,” Rosenblum said.
The Oregon State Police
a year ago released an anal-
ysis of the state’s compliance
with the Cole memo in light
of legalization. The analy-
sis concluded that supply
vastly outstrips demand, and
that Oregon supplies much of
the black market marijuana
around the U.S.
While consumers and peo-
ple selling recreational mar-
ijuana likely don’t need to
worry about federal author-
ities knocking down their
doors, the report bears some
looking at, Marquis said.
“I think Brown and Ore-
gon won’t be able to be so
casual with this,” he said.
Oregon’s congressional
delegation and state polit-
ical leaders were swift in
their condemnation of Ses-
sion’s announcement, argu-
ing the Trump administra-
tion is being hypocritical on
a common Republican refrain
of states’ rights and threaten-
ing to disrupt a burgeoning
industry.
Oregon collected more
than $108 million in taxes
from marijuana sales between
January 2016 and August. In
May, the state Employment
Department estimated more
than 3,500 people employed
in marijuana-related busi-
nesses, with wages near-
ing $23 million. The Oregon
Health Authority estimated
that dispensaries in 2016 had
$79.4 million in sales to med-
ical marijuana cardholders
and $215.3 million to recre-
ational customers.
Withycombe reported from
the Capital Bureau in Salem.
Kits: ‘Agencies are having overdoses left and right’
untary medical oversight of
its program and permission
to obtain naloxone through
an agreement with Dr. Regina
Mysliwiec, an emergency
medical physician at Colum-
bia Memorial.
“When there’s a police
officer around, they’re the
first responder,” she said. “It’s
as useful as teaching officers
CPR, and I think it’s equiva-
lent in that way.”
Continued from Page 1A
Warrenton Police Chief
Mathew Workman said he
has been trying to get the kits
since a young man was found
dead on a friend’s couch in
Warrenton in April after swal-
lowing a pill form of the syn-
thetic opiate U-47700, nick-
named Pink. The overdose
was the county’s first death
from the synthetic opioid.
The kits and training are
part of an effort to create
a safer culture among offi-
cers, such as wearing protec-
tive equipment when search-
ing people and property rather
than reaching in with bare
hands, Workman said.
“We do that a lot when
we’re patting someone down
and we get them in cuffs,
and then we just start reach-
ing,” Workman said. “We
need to take that extra sec-
ond. They’re in cuffs. Put
your gloves on, whatever your
(protective equipment) is. The
scary thing is you almost want
to double- or triple-glove now
because it’s so potent.”
Fighting Fentanyl
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Naloxone or Narcan is a medication that quickly treats a
patient for opioid overdose.
Overdose deaths
Between 2014 and 2016,
779 people died of over-
doses in Oregon, a signifi-
cant jump from the 257 who
died between 1999 and 2001,
according to the Oregon
Health Authority. Dr. JoAnn
Giuliani, the county’s medical
examiner, reported six acci-
dental overdose deaths in the
county in 2016 and three last
year.
“The numbers were much
higher when methadone and
pills were more generously
prescribed,” she said in an
email. “That has slowed,
thankfully.”
During the North Coast
Opioid Summit in Sea-
side in 2016, Workman was
approached about possible
grant funding for the nalox-
one kits through High Inten-
sity Drug Trafficking Area,
a drug prohibition enforce-
ment program run by the U.S.
Office of National Drug Con-
trol Policy. But adoption was
slowed by the requirements
The kits carried by Warrenton officers will also include
supplies to enhance their safety while treating patients
for opioid overdose.
that come with carrying over-
dose kits.
“Oregon’s rules … said
you have to have a medi-
cal physician to oversee your
program, and you also have
to have a medical physi-
cian give you a prescription
for the naloxone,” Workman
said. “So I approached several
local doctors. All were inter-
ested. None of them could do
it because their malpractice
insurance would not bring us
on into their program.”
Individuals were already
allowed to carry naloxone. In
October, the Oregon Health
Authority lifted the require-
ment that police agencies have
clinical oversight of naloxone
programs, instead allowing
officers to go through train-
ing. Warrenton opted for vol-
This week, Workman
brought in about 70 officers
from throughout the region
for Fighting Fentanyl, a edu-
cational program on the rise
of synthetic opioids run by
Matt Griffin, a former drug
task force and undercover
officer from New Hampshire.
“This is cutting edge for
Midwest and West Coast
agencies,” Griffin said of
Warrenton’s overdose kits.
“This is what I’ve been trying
to get in agencies for the last
year and a half that I’ve been
doing this training.”
Fentanyl, a synthetic opi-
ate exponentially stronger
than morphine, is a com-
mon ingredient in painkillers
and increasingly consumed
by drug users. Police started
noticing fentanyl about two
years ago, Griffin said. He
created the educational course
to inform law enforcement
about the dangers.
“It’s a game-changer for
us,” he said. “It’s transder-
mal. You can pick it up. Think
about what cops do. They
search people 24/7. They
search cars 24/7.”
Griffin was exposed to
fentanyl in July and said he
became dizzy and started
throwing up. After raiding a
home in Pittsburgh, Pennsyl-
vania, 18 SWAT team mem-
bers were hospitalized for
exposure to an unknown air-
borne chemical. The U.S.
attorney’s office believes the
substance was fentanyl. The
U.S. attorney’s office believes
the substance was fentanyl.
“Agencies upon agencies
are having overdoses left and
right,” Griffin said.
More than a decade later,
Brown may finally have his
chance. He will file to run in
the May election for district
attorney following Marquis’
announcement he will not
seek another term.
“I feel like I want to con-
tinue on with a lot of things
that Josh has done, and I
want to add to a lot of things
that Josh has already done,”
Brown said. “He and I see
eye to eye on virtually — just
about — anything I can think
of. There’s just a little bit of
work that I’d like to try to do
on my own and to take on the
challenge.”
Marquis has also offered
Brown his endorsement.
“He has the respect and
admiration of the office
because of his toughness at
trial and his deep commit-
ment to victims,” Marquis
wrote in a guest column for
The Daily Astorian.
The resumes of Marquis,
65, and Brown, 63, often
intersect. Both studied law
at the University of Oregon
in the late 1970s and dab-
bled in criminal defense law
between prosecutorial stints
in Lincoln, Deschutes and
Lane counties.
“Even when I was a
young criminal defense law-
yer, in a lot of cases, I felt
strongly toward the prosecu-
tion side of things,” Brown
said. “A lot of times my job
was not to get my client off,
because my client was dead
in the water. It was to try to
get him the best plea bargain
I could get, and that was not
a very satisfying thing just to
get the best deal for you on
your DUII or whatever type
of case.”
Despite the district attor-
ney’s office’s tough-on-
crime reputation in recent
decades, it seeks only the just
— not the maximum — sen-
tences, Brown said.
“When I was younger, it
seems like you’re more inter-
ested in your batting average
in terms of how many wins
and how many losses that
you have in terms of cases
and how much you’re crush-
ing the other side in court,”
he said. “The older I’ve got-
ten, I’ve seen it’s not nearly
as black and white as that.
I just like to make a differ-
ence on a personal level, and
I think I’m getting more sat-
isfaction out of that than I
ever have.”
Near-death
experience
One near-death expe-
rience in 2002 may have
shifted Brown’s thinking.
As a chief deputy in Crook
County, Brown, his wife
Tiffany — now the Clatsop
County emergency manager
— and their three young
children had to flee their
home one morning. A man
Brown had prosecuted for
several misdemeanors had
attempted to burn his house
down.
“That was a king-size
bummer,” Brown said. “We
were all having a tough time
sleeping for a long time.”
Nathan Wayne Galloway
— 19 at the time of the fire
— was convicted of arson,
attempted aggravated mur-
der and first-degree burglary
and sentenced to roughly 20
years in prison.
The ordeal allowed
Brown, who carries a hand-
gun after receiving death
threats in a separate case, to
view prosecution from the
victim’s point of view.
“His commitment to vic-
tims in homicide and sexual
assault cases makes him a
‘working DA,’ the kind vot-
ers in this county have every
right to expect,” Marquis
said.
Brown has not, though,
experienced the worst type
of crime for victims who live
to see a court case unfold.
“There’s probably no
more messed up thing in
your life than to be sexually
abused,” Brown said. “Your
victims in murder abuse
cases are people you never
meet. You have to work with
a live victim, obviously,
and you develop a real rap-
port with certain kinds of
victims.”
The district attorney’s
office may see some expan-
sion in that area. Brown has
proposed adding a mentor
program to the victim’s ser-
vices unit that would con-
nect past survivors with cur-
rent ones during and after
court cases.
“Actual victims can
maybe even relate better
to what a victim is going
through than the family
members,” Brown said.
Brown’s plans may
also include advocacy for
expanded specialty courts.
The Circuit Court already
conducts mental health and
drug court hearings, but
Brown suggested adding
treatment for veterans as
well.
“I don’t know whether
we’ve got enough veter-
ans in the area to warrant
a whole court for them,
because there’s only so many
specialty courts that we have
time for or room for, but I’d
be open to that.”
Experience
In his campaign, Brown
will likely stress experience
as his key selling point.
“I live here. I’m familiar
with all of the issues in the
community as far as the big-
gest types of crime, the big-
gest things that we need to
try to educate people about,
and I’m the most qualified
right now,” Brown said. “If
you want somebody to take
a case in and try it, I’m the
most experienced person
around.”
Among the new district
attorney’s largest challenges,
Marquis said, will be the
state’s move toward divert-
ing money away from incar-
ceration and a high release
rate at the overcrowded
county jail.
“The state is being dom-
inated by people who do
not believe people should
go to prison,” Marquis said.
“I think that’s going to be a
challenge for the new DA
that I didn’t have to deal
with.”
David Rogers, the exec-
utive director of the Ameri-
can Civil Liberties Union of
Oregon, is hopeful that lead-
ership turnover will lead to
reforms.
“This is an opportu-
nity to not only get to know
where the candidates stand,
but this is also an opportu-
nity to see improvement and
change within the criminal
justice system,” Rogers said.
“There’s a lot riding on this.”
Should he be elected, the
job would “absolutely” be
his last, Brown said.
“I just think it’s time,” he
said. “It’s time for me, and
it’s time for the office.”