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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (May 16, 2015)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Saturday, May 16, 2015 Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN DANIEL WATTENBURGER Publisher Managing Editor JENNINE PERKINSON TIM TRAINOR Advertising Director Opinion Page Editor EO MEDIA GROUP East Oregonian • The Daily Astorian • Capital Press • Hermiston Herald Blue Mountain Eagle • Wallowa County Chieftain • Chinook Observer • Coast River Business Journal Oregon Coast Today • Coast Weekend • Seaside Signal • Cannon Beach Gazette Eastern Oregon Real Estate Guide • Eastern Oregon Marketplace • Coast Marketplace OnlyAg.com • FarmSeller.com • Seaside-Sun.com • NorthwestOpinions.com • DiscoverOurCoast.com MIKE FORRESTER STEVE FORRESTER Pendleton Chairman of the Board Astoria President TOM BROWN Bigfork, Mont. Director KATHRYN B. BROWN Pendleton Secretary/Treasurer JEFF ROGERS Indianapolis, Ind. Director OUR VIEW Let rural Oregon VSHHGXS¿OOXS Rural Oregon rarely makes it into IRUJHWWR¿OOXSLQ0LVVLRQLW¶VPRUH the Salem spotlight, but two bills than 50 miles to the next station. FXUUHQWO\EHLQJGHEDWHGRQWKHÀRRU If that station cannot afford the have us front and center. labor costs to stay open late, you 7KH¿UVWZRXOGLQFUHDVHVSHHG could be in deep trouble. Therefore limits on select rural highways, it makes sense in some of our most notably the stretch of Interstate most rural places for self-service 84 from Ontario to The Dalles. to be legal when no employees are The second bill present. You heard would allow for that right, from self service gas in a.m. to 5 p.m. We’re in favor 9 many counties with less will still be of increasing than 40,000 people full-service, treat- — that’s most of our speed limits and yo’-self spa stations. neighbors in Eastern But after-hours, allowing for self- when you are can’t Oregon, but not us here in Umatilla around until the service gas after wait County. station opens in the We’re in favor of hours in remote morning, you can both. pump yourself so locations. Increasing the you can get on your speed limit to 70 way. mph from The The only problem Dalles to Ontario, as House Bill arises on the map edges of these 3402 would do, makes good sense. kinds of rules, and Umatilla will be It’s good for the Eastern Oregon ground zero for that. Theoretically, economy, good for our drivers and D¿OOLQJVWDWLRQLQ,UULJRQZRXOG good for travelers coming from have reduced labor costs, which neighboring states with higher speed could help them reduce costs in limits. general, giving them a government- It doesn’t mean that everyone has VDQFWLRQHGDGYDQWDJHRYHUD¿OOLQJ to speed up by 5 mph — but those station down the road in Umatilla. of us who feel more comfortable That’s the case in Milton-Freewater, driving in the mid 70s can do so where less gas stations operate than without fear of being ticketed. usual because the laborious pump- Now, we’ve all rumbled along your-own state of Washington is just in the slow lane gullies between a few blocks away. Pendleton and Hermiston, and But because of the restrictions to speeding up will only cause more when and how self-service will be accidents and more serious ones at allowed, we think again that it’s a that. But 70 mph is still safe and reasonable step. It keeps Oregon’s prudent, and the slight loss in safety ZHLUGEXWEHORYHGV\VWHPRI¿OOLQJ is made up for a slight climb in fuel, but it also might save you one freedom of movement. of these days when you’re driving But everyone knows as speed past Steens Mountain at midnight, goes up, gas mileage goes down. your gauge dangling dangerously And if you are heading east and close to empty. Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board of Publisher Kathryn Brown, Managing Editor Daniel Wattenburger, and Opinion Page Editor Tim Trainor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. OTHER VIEWS Keeping marijuana from minors Albany Democrat-Herald While the Legislature continues to wrestle with crafting regulations regarding the use and sale of recreational marijuana, we expect that one of its primary concerns will be keeping marijuana out of the hands of minors. To that end, we were intrigued by a recent commentary that appeared in the May 4 edition of the journal Pediatrics. And we thought legislators PLJKWEHQH¿WIURPD quick summary of the commentary, which was written by three researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The researchers noted that when marijuana use is legalized for adults, it normalizes the behavior and can make it easier for young people to use the drug. And both proponents and opponents of legalization agree that it’s important to do what we can to discourage marijuana use among minors. Efforts to discourage minors from using alcohol and tobacco products offer some clues about how to proceed, the UHVHDUFKHUVVDLGSRLQWLQJVSHFL¿FDOO\ to research that links weak monitoring efforts and low prices to underage use of alcohol and tobacco. But they said that marijuana offers some unique challenges as well. The researchers offered four overall suggestions to lawmakers working on these issues in Oregon and other states wrestling with how to implement legalization: • First, they suggest that regulators should use tax policy to keep prices high. Research on cigarettes and minors shows minors are particularly price-sensitive: An increase in cigarette prices tends to reduce use more among minors than among adults. The tricky issue for regulators here is that if you set prices too high, that could encourage the black market, which would be counterproductive for the entire legalization effort. • Second, retail availability of marijuana should be tightly regulated, the researchers say, including keeping a close eye on the location of retailers. Lawmakers have some time to work on this issue, since sales of recreational marijuana don’t kick in until next year. • Third, regulators need to pay special attention to issues involving marijuana edibles. The researchers said that regulators need to be aware of how appealing marijuana-laced cookies and candies can be to youths — and also suggested restrictions on the allowable amount of THC (the active ingredient in marijuana) in edibles. Here’s a clear case where policymakers must pay close attention to how this issue has unfolded in Washington and Colorado, the two states that legalized recreational use of marijuana before Oregon. 7KH¿QDOSRLQW7KHUHVHDUFKHUV advised that marketing of marijuana be limited. Studies have shown that exposure to tobacco and alcohol advertising is associated with increases in youth use. Overall, researchers urged regulators WREHÀH[LEOHDQGIDVWRQWKHLUIHHW noting that marijuana presents issues that aren’t at play with tobacco and alcohol — for example, users have the ability to grow their own pot, which raises fresh headaches for regulators. Retail availability of marijuana should be tightly regulated. OTHER VIEWS Wow, Jeb Bush is awful L et’s discuss Jeb Bush’s terrible you have done it, rather than knowing week. what we know now. And knowing I’m really troubled by his what we know now, you know, clearly awful performances, and I’m generally there were mistakes.” a person who takes bad news about He still didn’t claim that he’d politicians pretty well. For instance, have done anything different than a friend just sent me a story about his brother had done. (“That’s a the Texas agriculture commissioner’s hypothetical.”) But he was really vow to bring deep-fried foods back nailing down that business about Gail to school cafeterias. (“It’s not about Collins mistakes. French fries; it’s about freedom.”) I Then Bush was off to Nevada, Comment would classify this as interesting yet campaigning in his own special way. somehow not a shocking surprise. (“I’m running for president in 2016, But today we’re talking about Jeb Bush. As and the focus is going to be about how we, a presidential hopeful, Bush’s most attractive if I run, how do you create high sustained feature was an aura of competence. Extremely economic growth.”) boring competence, perhaps. He also announced that Still, an apparent ability to hypothetical questions were get through the day without a “disservice” to the U.S. demonstrating truly scary troops and their families. ineptitude. What is going on here? Then, about a week It’s not actually about ago, The Washington Post foreign policy. Jeb Bush reported that during a clearly knows nothing private meeting with rich whatsoever about foreign 0DQKDWWDQ¿QDQFLHUV policy, but then neither Bush announced that his do the majority of other PRVWLQÀXHQWLDODGYLVHURQ Republican presidential Middle Eastern matters was hopefuls. his brother George. The bottom line is that so This was a surprise far he seems to be a terrible on many fronts. For one candidate. He couldn’t keep thing, Jeb had apparently his “I’m-my-own-man” missed the memo on how mantra going through the everything you say to spring. He over-babbled potential donors at private at a private gathering. He meetings can wind up on an didn’t know how to answer endless YouTube loop for all eternity. the Iraq question, which should have been the Also, he had begun his all-but-announced ¿UVWWKLQJKHWDFNOHGRQWKH¿UVWGD\KHHYHU campaign for the presidency with an “I’m my considered that he might someday think for own man” sales pitch. Now he was saying, in even a minute about running for president. effect, “Well, I can always ask my brother.” This is obviously a problem for the Bush Then, on Monday, Fox News aired an camp, but it’s a big one for the nation’s interview in which host Megyn Kelly asked army of concerned citizens, too. There are Jeb whether “knowing what we know now” lots of Americans who are not going to vote he would have authorized the invasion of Iraq. Republican next year but who nevertheless “I would have, and so would have Hillary have found some comfort in the idea that Clinton, just to remind everybody,” Bush Jeb Bush would almost certainly be the replied. Republican nominee. Now no one, including Hillary Clinton’s They might disagree with him on a lot of worst enemy in the entire world, thinks that if issues, but at least he wasn’t Ted Cruz. “I’m she could go back in time to 2002, knowing a fan of Jeb Bush,” Cruz said cruelly, when that the invasion of Iraq was going to be a asked about the Iraq incident. “I’ll give him total disaster and that she would lose the credit for candor and consistency.” presidential nomination in 2008 to a guy If the version of Jeb Bush we’ve been who ran on that very issue, she would still seeing lately is the one we’re going to be have voted to authorize the use of force. So, stuck with, then one of the other Republican obviously, Bush misheard the question, right? contenders is going to win. Maybe the guy Apparently not. He then went on: “I mean, who thinks Obamacare is the worst thing VRMXVWIRUWKHQHZVÀDVKWRWKHZRUOGLI since slavery. Or the guy who once linked WKH\¶UHWU\LQJWR¿QGSODFHVZKHUHWKHUH¶VELJ vaccines to children with mental disorders. space between me and my brother, this might The guy who used to peddle a “Diabetes not be one of those.” 6ROXWLRQ.LW´7KHJX\ZLWKWKHEULGJHWUDI¿F We had now learned that: 1) Jeb Bush still jam! thinks invading Iraq was a good idea; and 2) Right now, you know, it’s all hypothetical. he has inherited more of the family syntax Ŷ issues than we knew. Gail Collins joined The New York Times Fast-forward one day: “I interpreted the in 1995 as a member of the editorial board question wrong, I guess,” Bush told Sean and later as an Op-Ed columnist. In 2001 she Hannity in a radio interview. “I was talking EHFDPHWKH¿UVWZRPDQHYHUDSSRLQWHGHGLWRU about given what people knew then, would of the Times’s editorial page. Jeb Bush clearly knows nothing whatsoever about foreign policy, but then neither do the majority of other Republican presidential hopefuls. LETTERS POLICY The East Oregonian welcomes original letters of 400 words or less on public issues and public policies for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold letters that address concerns about individual services and products or letters that infringe on the rights of private citizens. Submitted letters must be signed by the author and include the city of residence and a daytime phone number. The phone number will not be published. Unsigned letters will not be published. Send letters to 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email editor@eastoregonian.com.
