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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (March 24, 2018)
Page 4A East Oregonian Saturday, March 24, 2018 KATHRYN B. BROWN Publisher DANIEL WATTENBURGER Managing Editor TIM TRAINOR Opinion Page Editor Founded October 16, 1875 OUR VIEW Defeating the devil We can’t legislate our way out of it. We can’t shame our way out of it. We can’t prescribe our way out of it. We can’t execute our way out of it. We can’t wish our way out of it. The opioid epidemic is not a simple riddle with an “aha” answer waiting to be discovered. It is a problem as old as mankind. The human brain was designed to protect us from danger by sending pain signals as a warning. But with the advent of modern medicine we’ve lost our tolerance for pain, and by discovering new ways to block it we’ve crossed another wire that’s triggering unintended consequences. As Dr. Joel Rice explained at the Eastern Oregon Forum on opioid addiction Tuesday, the cognitive part of the brain is hijacked by a dopamine-seeking cells he dubbed the “rat brain,” which will do whatever it takes to acquire the pleasure stimuli it has become accustomed to. It’s the same process that creates addiction to alcohol, nicotine, gambling or sex, but with opioids the dopamine hit is so strong that it very quickly escalates into a life-or-death problem. The angel and demon on opposite shoulders might be the best way to understand it, but instead of each getting equal chance to make a case the devil has a hardwired ability to override the angel’s protests. While we scientifically understand more about addiction and withdrawal than ever before, as a society we still struggle with addicts. Our patience runs out quickly, even those in the psychiatric field, as Dr. Rice explained. Kicking a habit is seen as a moral victory, so we treat failure to do so as a moral failure, and we assign the actions and words of the addicted brain to the person suffering from the ailment. And for lack of treatment, someone in this country dies every 20 minutes from a prescription opioid overdose. Drug overdose is the leading cause of accidental death in the U.S., and 40 percent are from prescription pain relievers while another 20 percent is due to heroin, a substitute illegal opioid often obtained when a legitimate source AP file photo An arrangement of pills of the opioid oxycodone-acetaminophe. of the drug runs out. It’s not a somewhere else problem. Dr. Rice gets a flood of people from all walks of life who have been hooked on pain relievers and want desperately to be off. Two members of the forum panel who now work in health care spoke about their own past addictions, and police chief Stuart Roberts spoke about the daily interaction his officers have with addicts in the midst of criminal activity to feed the habit. There is hope, though. Doctors who once wrote extended prescriptions for oxycodone or hydrocodone are being more careful with the notepad, Dr. Rice said, and addiction specialists have begun offering Suboxone, which is more easily tapered off. The first step of cutting off the source for this particular addiction is being addressed. Law enforcement are also receiving Narcan kits, medication that stops an overdose in its tracks. It’s protection for officers, who are at risk of fatal contact with fentanyl in particular, but also for an addict in the middle of an overdose. The drug quite frankly can save a life, and provide another chance to beat the addiction. U.S. Rep. Greg Walden has also championed the cause, hosting roundtables in his rural district and returning to Washington with the promise of freeing up more federal funding to address the problem. This week Congress passed a $4 billion spending bill to fund prevention, treatment and enforcement, which included $130 million for the Rural Communities Opioid Response program and $1 billion in new grants available to the states and Indian tribes. There is no magic pill to defeat this pill-popping problem. But a combination of education, legislation and real dollars can make a sizable dent on the age-old battle. OTHER VIEWS Speaking as a white male ... H OTHER VIEWS Walden must work to legalize marijuana By KRIS CRAIG For the East Oregonian G eorge Washington, William Shakespeare and Carl Sagan may be some of history’s greatest minds and most celebrated figures, but they’d all probably be in prison today if they were still alive. What would make these unlikely cell mates so dangerous that they’d have to be kept off the streets? Was Shakespeare a serial arsonist? Did Carl Sagan fly into a homicidal rage whenever somebody claimed to have invented a perpetual motion machine? No, the threat these historical icons posed to the public is much worse: They all smoked marijuana. The idea that cannabis is a dangerous substance that should be avoided at all cost is a relatively modern invention. In fact, historians now believe that Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II regularly used marijuana, possibly to relieve eye pain. But if cannabis has indeed been in use for millennia, why has there has never been a single recorded instance of a person dying of a marijuana overdose? Think about that for a moment: In thousands of years of recorded history, not one person has ever died of THC poisoning, yet the federal government maintains that marijuana is among the most dangerous substances in existence. People die each year from overdosing on prescription pain killers, alcohol, tobacco and even water. Nevertheless, a plant that has never directly killed anyone is far more dangerous than all those things, according to the feds. Just how dangerous is it? In order to die of a marijuana overdose, a person would have to consume at least 1,500 pounds of cannabis within 15 minutes. Newer studies suggest it’d take even more Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the East Oregonian editorial board. Other columns, letters and cartoons on this page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the East Oregonian. than that. Unfortunately, the alcohol, drug, and tobacco industries are spending millions of dollars to make sure Congress continues to treat marijuana as the world’s deadliest poison so they don’t have to compete with a new industry. Let’s examine how your member of Congress is holding up in the face of all this dirty money flying around. Congressman Greg Walden has taken more than $215,000 in campaign contributions from these companies, more than most members of Congress. Walden has accepted more money from the drug companies and more contributions even from the slimy tobacco companies than any other member of the Oregon congressional delegation. Seeing as how these special interests are determined to use the power of government to prevent legitimate competition from cannabis from cutting into their profits, it stands to reason that all the money they’ve lavished upon your member of Congress came with the expectation that they were purchasing his vote against any legalization bill. Not since prohibition has the federal government pursued a policy so rooted in deliberate misinformation and outright hypocrisy. It is truly embarrassing that we, as a society, have for so long allowed ourselves to be manipulated into conflating the consumption of a relatively harmless plant with a lack of morality. It’s time to end the stupidity and stop wasting taxpayer money on filling our prisons with people who have absolutely no business being there. That’s why I urge you to call Congressman Walden at 202-225-6730 and tell him to either legalize cannabis federally or make room for someone who will. ■ Kris Craig is a writer. He lives in College Place. ow much are you in control you read discussions of op-ed of your own opinions? I ask writers you see that we’re often not this sincerely because, as thought of as individual thinkers, you’ll see, I’m trying to think this but as spokesmen who are here to through and I’m not sure how. represent a point of view. People If you go back to the get upset when a certain group is intellectuals of the 1950s, you get not represented on the page. the impression that they thought I’m searching for a line individuals could very much here, a distinction. Under what David determine their own beliefs. People Brooks circumstances should we embrace like Hannah Arendt and Irving the idea that collective identity Comment Howe believed that if you stood shapes our thinking? Under what alone and researched carefully circumstances should we resist and hard, you could transcend your own collective identity and insist on the background and render independent and primacy of individual discretion, and our objective judgments about society. common humanity? Writers like George Orwell believed On the one hand, the drive to bring that experience was more important than in formerly marginalized groups identity, that if you put yourself in other has obviously been one of the great people’s shoes, you could feel what other achievements of our era. When you put groups were feeling and communicate that together a panel discussion or a work team, experience. Lionel Trilling put great faith even on a subject like oncology, you don’t in imagination, certain that Shakespeare want to have a bunch of white males sitting could capture the experience of being a up there. We know that something valuable woman, though he was not a woman. will be lost. Busy fighting communism and fascism, Wider inclusion has vastly improved people back then emphasized individual public debate. For example, in the 1990s, reason and were deeply allergic to African-Americans strongly supported groupthink. tougher criminal justice laws. Now We don’t think this way anymore, and opinion has shifted and a majority of in fact thinking this way can get you into African-Americans strongly oppose them. trouble. I guess the first step was the rise That shift, born out of a direct and unique of perspectivism. This is the belief, often experience, reveals that, say, mandatory traced back to Nietzsche, that what you minimum sentencing laws have had harsh believe is determined by where you stand: unintended effects. Our opinions are not guided by objective But other times, group identity seems truth, because there is no such thing; they irrelevant to many issues. How does being are guided by our own spot in society. gay shape your view of U.S.-Russian Then came Michel Foucault and relations or breaking up big tech? How critical race theorists and the rest, and does being Latina influence how you read a the argument that society is structured by black writer like St. Augustine? elites to preserve their privilege. Beliefs And there are other times when and culture are part of the structure elites collective thinking seems positively corrupting. Why are people’s views of use to preserve that inequality. This led, in global warming, genetically modified the common parlance, to the assumption foods and other scientific issues strongly that your beliefs are determined by your determined by political label? That seems group’s privilege or lack of privilege, by ridiculous. where your group is within the power I’m a columnist and I’m supposed to structure. come to a conclusion, but I’m confused. Now we are at a place where it is Our whole education system is based commonly assumed that your perceptions on the idea that we train individuals to are something that come to you through be critical thinkers. Our political system your group, through your demographic is based on the idea that persuasion and identity. How many times have we all deliberation lead to compromise and heard somebody rise up in conversation toward truth. The basis of human dignity and say, “Speaking as a Latina. ...” or is our capacity to make up our own minds. “Speaking as a queer person. ...” or One of the things I’ve learned in a lifetime “Speaking as a Jew. ...”? Now, when somebody says that I always in journalism is that people are always more unpredictable than their categories. wonder, What does that mean? After But the notion that group membership you’ve stated your group identity, what is determines opinion undermines all that. If the therefore that follows? it’s just group against group, deliberation We’ve shifted from an emphasis on is a sham, beliefs are just masks groups individual judgment toward a greater use to preserve power structures, and emphasis on collective experience. I democracy is a fraud. The epistemological notice that even in my own line of work. foundation of our system is in surprisingly When I started, it was very important radical flux. for opinion writers to never think ■ of themselves as a Republican or a David Brooks has been a senior editor at Democrat. We were individual inquirers, The Weekly Standard, a contributing editor not polemicists for some political team. at Newsweek and the Atlantic Monthly, Over the years, many people stopped and he is currently a commentator on “The making that distinction. Newshour with Jim Lehrer.” Today, group labels matter a lot. When 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. 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.