Page 4A
OPINION
East Oregonian
Thursday, April 28, 2016
OTHER VIEWS
Founded October 16, 1875
KATHRYN B. BROWN
DANIEL WATTENBURGER
Publisher
Managing Editor
JENNINE PERKINSON
TIM TRAINOR
Advertising Director
Opinion Page Editor
OUR VIEW
Oregon primary
kinda, sorta matters
Bobby Kennedy and Eugene
The Wall Street Journal recently
McCarthy made Oregon appearances
published a list of the remaining
in 1968. McCarthy prevailed.
state primary elections. The WSJ
Now that Ted Cruz and John
failed to include Oregon’s May
Kasich have a strategy that involves
primary. While it was wrong,
Oregon and a few
the omission did
other states, we
relect a certain
Oregon
might see a lot of
truth — that the
Kasich. Cruz has
Oregon Primary
prepares for
decided to stay away
has not mattered in
presidency-
while Kasich has
presidential politics
announced
in quite awhile.
seeking visitors. already
stops in suburban
It is true that
Portland and
Barack Obama
Medford, on his way to California to
spoke in Pendleton in 2008. That
compete for the big pot of delegates
same year former President Bill
Clinton spoke here, too, to boost the down there.
We have not heard word from
fortunes of his wife Hillary.
Donald Trump. Perhaps he would
But one must go back decades
like to skip Portland — where
to ind an Oregon primary that
protests would be guaranteed —
saw candidates criss-crossing the
and speak in more welcoming
state. It is hard to believe, but in
environment? Say a grass inield?
the spring of 1960 Sen. John F.
Kennedy stumped in many locations Would certainly be fun to welcome a
new kind of rodeo to town.
across Oregon. An EO Media
On the Democratic side,
Group publisher saw JFK speak
Bernie Sanders will likely win the
in Pendleton’s Hawthorne Grade
Democratic vote and will try to
School cafeteria on that occasion.
recreate the Portland “put a bird on
The elegant Jacqueline Kennedy
it” magic.
stood in a receiving line in that
When we receive our ballots
humble setting.
in the mail over the weekend, it
“He cared enough to come”
will be a medium thrill. We have
was Nelson Rockefeller’s appeal
presidential races in both parties.
to Oregon Republican voters
It will be fun to have a semblance
in the 1964 primary. It worked,
of the presidential primaries in
with Rocky beating Arizona Sen.
Oregon. So we kinda, sorta matter
Barry Goldwater among Oregon
this time around.
Republicans.
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
Reclassifying marijuana
is long overdue
Corvallis Gazette-Times
T
he federal government says it’s
reviewing marijuana’s status as a
Schedule 1 drug, a move that —
regardless of what you think about the
drug — is long overdue.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency
made the announcement in a memo to
lawmakers and said it hopes to have a
decision ready sometime in the irst half
of this year.
Marijuana has long been classiied
as a Schedule 1 drug,
but the classiication
is as ludicrous today
as it was back in the
day. The Schedule
1 category is for
substances which
are not considered to
have “any currently
accepted medical use
in the U.S., a lack of
accepted safety for
use under medical
supervision and a
high potential for
abuse.” By point of
comparison, heroin also is a Schedule 1
drug.
There’s no reason for marijuana to
be listed as a Schedule 1 drug — and,
besides, that bit of business about not
having any accepted medical use will
come as a surprise to the millions of
medical marijuana users in the United
States.
There’s another reason why the
Schedule 1 listing is vexing: It has
needlessly complicated important
scientiic research, not just into
marijuana, but also into industrial hemp,
potentially a very useful crop. (Industrial
hemp, which can be used for a variety
of purposes, has very low levels of
tetrahydrocannabinol — the substance
that gets pot users high.)
It was almost amusing to watch
Oregon State University oficials tip-toe
around this issue last year before taking
tentative steps to allow researchers there
to work with industrial hemp. (To be
fair, an institution such as OSU will be
careful about working with a Schedule
1 drug, especially since it’s potentially
putting millions of federal research
dollars at risk.)
But there’s a lot of research yet to
be done into the medicinal qualities of
marijuana as well, and pulling pot off the
Schedule 1 list would be a substantial
step forward for that work.
A recent interview in The Oregonian
with Dr. Colin Roberts, a pediatric
neurologist and director of the
Doernbecher Childhood Epilepsy
Program at the Oregon
Health and Science
University, illuminated
some of the issues
researchers face.
Roberts is working
with a pharmaceutical
company on a drug
made with pure
cannabidiol that has
shown promise in
treating patients with a
form of epilepsy.
One big problem
with the Schedule 1
designation is that
it requires researchers to undergo a
cumbersome approval process before
working with a drug on the list. In the
case of marijuana, researchers must use
pot grown at a government-run facility
at the University of Mississippi.
Researchers can’t just go out and
buy pot at a dispensary, because there’s
no way to verify precisely what they’re
buying — and remember that different
strains of marijuana have very different
properties. Taking pot off the Schedule
1 list would allow researchers to obtain
the sort of independent veriication that’s
essential for meaningful research.
“What we really need in the medical
community is really good data,” Roberts
told The Oregonian, “because if we
don’t have that we will never understand
the impact of these products good and
bad.”
Pulling marijuana from the Schedule
1 list would be a irst step toward getting
that kind of good data. What’s the
holdup?
There’s no
reason for
marijuana to
continue to
be listed as
a Schedule 1
drug.
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 Managing
Editor Daniel Wattenburger, 211 S.E. Byers Ave. Pendleton, OR 97801 or email
editor@eastoregonian.com.
The cult of sore losers
B
ernie Sanders isn’t losing.
election in the Republican candidate’s
favor.
Just ask many of his backers
All trust, most etiquette and
or listen to some of his own
many rules went out the window.
complaints. He’s being robbed, a
And while Republicans have been
victim of antiquated rules, voter
more audacious than Democrats,
suppression, shady arithmetic and a
the manifold accusations made by
corrupt Democratic establishment. The
Sanders supporters show that the
swindle includes the South’s getting
effort to delegitimize winners is a
inordinate sway and the poor none at
Frank
pan-partisan tic.
all. If Americans really had a voice,
Bruni
Pro-Sanders actor Tim Robbins
they would shout “Bernie! Bernie!
Comment
ired off a tweet this week with the
Bernie!” until too hoarse to shout
charge that “this election is being
anymore.
stolen,” the hashtag #VoterFraud and the
Donald Trump isn’t winning. Just ask
insinuation that The Times and CNN were
Ted Cruz, by whose strange and self-serving
essentially conspiring with Hillary Clinton’s
logic it is “the will of the people” (his actual
campaign.
words) that he and John
The Sanders camp is
Kasich collude to prevent
right to raise questions
Trump from amassing a
about voting irregularities
majority of delegates so
in a few places, including
that some runner-up with
New York, where there’s
less demonstrable support
an investigation underway,
can leapfrog past him to
and about the odd
become the Republican
patchwork of closed and
presidential nominee.
open primaries across the
Democracy in action!
country.
I agree that Trump’s
But all of the candidates
nomination would be
knew about that patchwork
frightening. I disagree that
going in, and Clinton’s successful navigation
Cruz’s would be better. It certainly wouldn’t
of it — she has a multimillion-vote lead over
be more justiied, but such rational thinking
Sanders — is more persuasive than any dark
has gone missing in this year of losing
claims of dastardly tricks.
gracelessly.
On the Republican side, Trump and
And in this era of irresolution. All
Cruz have each bellowed about the other’s
too often, contests don’t yield accepted
supposedly unfair advantages at a volume
conclusions and a grudging acquiescence by
that’s hardly constructive. It’s self-promotion
those who didn’t get their way. They prompt
with a side of cynicism.
accusations of thievery, cries of illegitimacy
The graceless losing of 2016 owes
and a determination to neuter the victor,
something to this election’s particular
nullify the results or reverse them as soon as
characters. When you’re not just a man but a
possible.
Elections don’t settle disputes, not even for revolution (Sanders), you can never quit the
ight or lee the front.
some leeting honeymoon. They accelerate
When you’re the Don Quixote of extreme
them, because there’s a pernicious insistence
conservatism (Cruz), you can never ditch
that they’re not referendums on the public
your armor. And it’s easy to tell yourself —
mood but elaborate board games in which
because it’s easy for all of us to tell ourselves
the triumphant player used the wickedest
— that surrendering to Trump is surrendering
skulduggery.
your patriotism.
When you honestly believe or
But there’s more at work. The refusal to
disingenuously assert that you’ve been
grant victors legitimacy bundles together so
outmaneuvered rather than outvoted, why
much about America today: the coarseness
declare a truce, let alone cooperate, in the
of our discourse; the blind tribalism coloring
aftermath?
our debates; the elevation of individualism
The process has never been smooth and
far above common purpose; the ethos that
the defeated seldom docile. To pluck just one
everybody should and can feel like a winner
example from the annals of acrimony, Teddy
on every day.
Roosevelt formed the Progressive Party in
Our system for electing presidents is
1912 as a revolt against the Republicans’
indeed a mess. It estranges voters and is ripe
nomination of the incumbent president,
for reform. I explored that last week.
William Howard Taft, rather than him.
But pushing for change is different from
But an epoch of unrelieved mutual
rejecting any unwelcome outcome as the
suspicion between competitors — and
bastard fruit of a poisoned tree. If grievances
especially between Republicans and
are never retired, then progress has no chance.
Democrats — took hold somewhere on a
If everything is rigged, then all is fair, not
timeline that runs through Watergate; the
just in love and war but on the banks of the
conirmation hearings of Robert Bork and
Clarence Thomas; the serial investigations into Potomac, where we can look forward to four
more years of inertia and ugliness.
the Clintons; and Mitch McConnell’s vow to
■
thwart President Barack Obama at every turn.
Frank Bruni, an Op-Ed columnist since
In the midst of that came Bush v. Gore, in
June 2011, joined the New York Times in
which a majority of Republican appointees
1995.
on the Supreme Court decided a presidential
The election
process has never
been smooth
and the defeated
seldom docile.
YOUR VIEWS
A vote for Morehouse is a vote
for Pendleton council change
If we didn’t know who the elite and
the “good-old-boys” club want for the
city council, we do now. My opponent
Scott Fairley has been endorsed by Mayor
Houk, Councilor Chuck Wood and the East
Oregonian.
I did not expect to be endorsed by anyone
tied to the present administration. I knew it
would be a long shot for the EO to endorse
anyone outside of government. The EO has
been critical of the present city administration
and council in the last two years. Why would
they endorse someone who is part of this
administration? If you want change this is the
wrong way to achieve it.
I will leave it up to the voters to decide,
families who are buying a home, paying taxes,
raising children, trying to save a little money
for kids’ college and their own retirement,
retired people like myself and the many
residents who live in apartments. Can we
afford another four years like the last two
years?
It may be many years until we have
another chance to make a big change in
our city government. If elected I will work
with whoever the voters choose. I am a
conservative but am willing to listen to any
idea that will help Pendleton move forward.
We have had enough bad ideas already.
If you want change, vote for me. If you like
the status quo, vote for the other guy.
Rex J. Morehouse, Ward 2 candidate
Pendleton
Wolves appreciate tasty
humans
I have heard that some of your readers
believe that our pack won’t attack and eat
them. Human lesh isn’t our irst choice
because it doesn’t have the same kick as
a wild animal, but our human kills have
been reported. My Canadian cousins killed
a youngster on Sept. 24, 1963. In another
attack a 32-year-old teacher, Candice Burner,
was killed March 8, 2010. These kills were
documented by the authorities.
My point is that we don’t want people who
love us and vote for non-lethal control to get
on our case. Certainly bears and cougars are
bad actors and should be eliminated, but if you
are out skipping along in your new spandex
gnawing on some delicious fried chicken, we
may have to surround you for sharing time. Be
aware cause we are there.
Alfa Wolf, Eastern Oregon packmaster
(As told to Mike Mehren, wolf -listening docent)
Hermiston