Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 15, 2016)
Page 4A OPINION East Oregonian Saturday, October 15, 2016 OTHER VIEWS Founded October 16, 1875 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor MARISSA WILLIAMS Regional Advertising Director MARCY ROSENBERG Circulation Manager JANNA HEIMGARTNER Business Ofice Manager MIKE JENSEN Production Manager 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 OUR VIEW A new reefer republic P In governor’s race, Pierce has the edge board one of the irst oficial stops Democrat Kate Brown and Republican Bud Pierce are squaring of his primary campaign. Although he has never held public ofice, off to become the next governor of he is the intelligent, private-sector Oregon. focused Republican that Eastern Brown has illed the chair since Oregon has been crying out for. John Kitzhaber stepped down less And Pierce steers clear of social than two years ago. The winner of issues that have tripped up previous the November election will only GOP candidates. He serve for the remainder has no harsh views of Kitzhaber’s original issues that aren’t term, and will be back Pierce is the on signiicant to the health up for election in 2018. private-sector of our state, which Brown has done should make him a some good work in her focused viable candidate for short stint at the top post — shepherding Republican Willamette Valley who realize a 9 percent bump to that Eastern voters change is needed. state education funding, Pierce’s worst pushing through a Oregon has moment in the tiered minimum wage been crying campaign came in hike and increasing the enemy territory — the number of registered out for. City Club of Portland voters thanks to her — where he clearly previous work as misspoke about domestic violence. Oregon Secretary of State. It’s clear He was jeered and booed when that she has a soft spot for Eastern he said “A woman that has great Oregon and Pendleton in particular, education, great training, a great which is where she made her irst job, is not susceptible to this kind of out-of-Salem visit as governor and has often been at the top of her mind abuse by men, women or anyone.” It was wrong and he deserved to at debates all around the state. be chided. But unlike the Republican But last session Brown failed to candidate for president (who Pierce wrangle the legislature into passing thankfully disowned, although it a much-needed transportation is unlikely he will be able to run package, her leadership was far enough from) Pierce made a lacking during the creation and straightforward and meaningful initial explanation of Measure 97, apology, listened to women and and she has been unable to make domestic violence professionals, and satisfactorily clear statements emerged from the scandal a more regarding her position on important enlightened and complete candidate. but controversial issues such as His ardent desire for improving the Trans-Paciic Partnership and a Eastern Oregon is clear, his stance possible national monument in the against Measure 97 is in the best Owyhees. interest of the state, and his tax The only real legislative plans and budget show the iscal compromise she reached with responsibility that Oregon needs to Republicans at the capitol was have when the economy is humming signing House Bill 4040, which along. ratiied the decision of ODFW to We’re constantly looking for remove the gray wolf from the state ways to break the single-party rule list of endangered species. It was that currently exists in Salem. A tossing a proverbial bone at the end Republican at the top of it all would of a session where the Democratic certainly do that, and Pierce is a agenda was steamrolled through smart, capable candidate who would both chambers and into law. handle the job and bring some Pierce has long stood out to us, balance to the tilted capitol. having made a visit to our editorial ORTLAND — The budtenders have been 71 deaths attributed to of the Rose City are relentlessly heroin overdose this year. helpful with tips pairing a Heroin is the drug of choice in marijuana strain that is “equal parts small towns in New England and fruity and musky” with a stimulating wide-open rural areas across the Sichuan dish. As Oregon, the place country. Blacks and Latinos use and where empires once clashed over the sell drugs at roughly the same rate as global trade of beaver furs, glides into whites, but 57 percent of the people a second year of legalized recreational Timothy locked up for a drug offense in 2014 pot, the state is determined to show were nonwhite. Egan the world that a certain kind of drug Perhaps because so many addicts Comment prohibition belongs in history’s are white and suburban, or white dumpster. and rural, there is now a Soon, with the likely rare bipartisan consensus passage of legal pot in emerging for wholesale California next month, all reform of the drug laws. of the West Coast — from We can start, nationwide, with marijuana. the tundra of Alaska to Though legalization is not the sun-washed suburbs without its problems — a of San Diego — will be spike in emergency room a confederacy of state- visits attributed to edible regulated marijuana use. pot, persistent black market Across the Paciic, a dealers — it’s mostly been completely a different no big deal. Across the view of drug use is playing legalized West, consumers out in the horror of the Philippines. That country is ruled by Rodrigo frequent their corner pot shop to talk varietals Duterte, a crude and brutal strongman known and buzz strength. Homegrown gardeners pass on suggestions to avoid bud rot as as the Donald Trump of the Philippines. harvest nears. Tax revenue from sales — Under his watch, more than 3,500 suspected though not a panacea — lows to schools and drug users and dealers have been killed. Many of those murders are “extrajudicial,” as roads and treatment programs. It all works, for the most part. And when the State Department calls them. California, now the world’s sixth largest Comparing his vigilante campaign to economy, passes its legal pot measure in Hitler’s Holocaust, the Philippine president November as expected, it will truly be game recently said “I’d be happy to slaughter” over for this absurd form of prohibition. 3 million drug users. By killing that many So why are nearly 600,000 people arrested of his own people, Duterte said he would in the United States for simple possession of “inish the problem of my country and marijuana every year? And why is pot still save the next generation from perdition.” illegal on the federal level? People in the loop This is a Category 5 human rights disaster of this policing circle know it is an absurd in the making, and should be universally and Sisyphean use of law enforcement. condemned. The opioid crisis is a tougher problem. The world has always been bipolar Some years ago, at the height of the crack when it comes to our fellow humans prone scare, I was given an assignment to go to the to addiction and chemical diversion. One worst drug dens in urban America. I ran into impulse is hysterical — the sweeping, lock- my share of scary and sketchy dudes, yes. ’em-up tragedy of the United States after the But where I expected to see “super-predators” crack epidemic, the numerous executions in places like Iran and the Philippines. The other and lifetime addled “crack babies,” I instead is historical, at least by modern standards: the found a fascinating variety of people attempt by states in the American West (and a struggling with an ancient afliction. Many of them could not get into treatment. ballot measure in Maine this year) to call out A clear majority of Americans now favor the drug war for the farce that it is. pot legalization. The problem is the federal Throughout these swings, little has government, which still classiies marijuana changed among a vulnerable cohort of as a Schedule 1 drug, alongside heroin and humanity. And until a way is found to LSD. If pot was legalized nationwide, with permanently balance dopamine levels, a tax on every sale designated for treatment, we will always have small but signiicant it would free up the police to get at serious portion of the population prone to addiction. crimes, while ensuring that no addict would Benjamin Franklin abused laudanum, an be denied treatment for lack of funds. As with opium and alcohol mixture, for his bodily most social reforms, it only seems impossible pains. And Sigmund Freud was more than a until it’s obvious. casual user of cocaine. ■ The current opioid epidemic in places not Timothy Egan worked for 18 years as a usually associated with drug dens and dirty writer for The New York Times, irst as the needles shows that addiction is not conined Paciic Northwest correspondent, then as a to ZIP codes of economic despair. On Staten national enterprise reporter. Island, home to many a New York cop, there Soon all of the West Coast will be a confederacy of state-regulated marijuana use. 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. U.S. Senators Ron Wyden Washington ofice: 221 Dirksen Building Washington, DC 20510 202-224-5244 La Grande ofice: 541-962-7691 Jeff Merkley Washington ofice: 313 Hart Building Washington, DC 20510 202-224-3753 Pendleton ofice: 541-278-1129 CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES Washington, DC 20515 Senator 202-225-6730 U.S. Representative Greg Walden Washington ofice: 185 Rayburn House Ofice Building La Grande ofice: 541-624-2400 Governor Kate Brown 160 State Capitol 900 Court Street Salem, OR 97301-4047 503-378-4582 Bill Hansell, District 29 900 Court St. NE, S-423 Salem, OR 97301 503-986-1729 Sen.BillHansell@state.or.us Representatives Greg Barreto, District 58 900 Court St. NE, H-38 Salem, OR 97301 503-986-1458 Rep.GregBarreto@state.or.us Greg Smith, District 57 900 Court St. NE, H-482 Salem, OR 97301 503-986-1457 Rep.GregSmith@state.or.us
