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East Oregonian
NATION/WORLD/OFF PAGE ONE
Royal wedding on schedule for Saturday
By GREGORY KATZ
and MARTIN BENEDYK
Associated Press
WINDSOR, England —
Ending days of specula-
tion, Meghan Markle said
Thursday that her father
will not be able to attend
her wedding to Prince
Harry due to health prob-
lems. The news came as
British military personnel
rehearsed for a gala pro-
cession through Windsor
that will follow Saturday’s
ceremony, which will be
televised live around the
world.
Thomas Markle had
been scheduled to walk his
daughter down the aisle
when she weds her prince
Saturday in St. George’s
Chapel at Windsor Castle.
No replacement for
him as been officially
named but it’s possible that
Doria Ragland, the bride’s
mother, could fill that role
instead. The bride may also
choose to walk down the
aisle by herself.
Harry and Markle, who
have remained out of the
public eye in recent days,
AP Photo/Frank Augstein
A carriage is driven through the streets of Windsor, England, during a rehearsal for
the procession of the upcoming wedding of Britain’s Prince Harry and Meghan Mar-
kle, Thursday. Preparations are being made in the town ahead of the wedding of Brit-
ain’s Prince Harry and Meghan Markle that will take place in Windsor on Saturday.
were spotted being driven
onto the grounds of Wind-
sor Castle on Thursday
afternoon.
On the streets of Wind-
sor, military personnel
rehearsed their procession
through the town, watched
by thousands of enthusias-
tic royal fans.
The wedding day festiv-
ities will include a 25-min-
ute carriage ride outside the
grounds of Windsor Castle
by the newlyweds after the
ceremony. More than 2,600
members of the public have
been invited onto the cas-
tle grounds to watch the
procession.
Thursday’s practice ses-
sion aimed to work out
the precise timings of Sat-
urday’s procession. The
British pride themselves
on carrying off complex
parades with aplomb, and it
would not do for the couple
to arrive at their wedding
reception even a few min-
utes late.
“It’s very important to
have a dress rehearsal, for
everyone involved. It gives
the guys a sense of tim-
ings for the day, how fast
they need to move, how
slow they need to move. It
also helps the horses them-
selves, showing them the
environment,” said Adam
Blackmore-Heale, a mem-
ber of the Household
Cavalry.
A large military contin-
gent is taking part in the
procession, reflecting Har-
ry’s years of military ser-
vice, including tours in
Afghanistan.
The church service will
be conducted by the Rev.
David Conner, the dean of
Windsor. He said Thursday
that Harry and Markle are
deeply committed to each
other.
CLINIC: Facility
PANEL: ‘It’s sorting itself out’
will offer Methadone
and Suboxone drugs
Continued from 1A
Continued from 1A
The new clinic will offer
a way out. Methadone and
Suboxone are two drugs
that help people escape the
grip of opioids.
Owen said methadone
clients will arrive at the
clinic at 118 S.W. 20th
each morning for their daily
doses. As they prove their
commitment and reliabil-
ity, they earn the right to
take doses home instead of
having to return each day.
Dispensing will take place
between 5:30 and 9:30 a.m.
“The idea is to get you
moving in your day and get
to work or school or wher-
ever you need to go,” Owen
said.
The staff will include a
primary care doctor, a doc-
tor of osteopathy, counsel-
ors and nurses.
Clients generally take
two to five years to totally
break away from opioids,
but it depends on the indi-
vidual. Some choose to
stay on a low maintenance
dose for years. Owen gave
the example of a business
owner in Southern Oregon.
“She had a wild hair in
the ’70s and got into her-
oin,” he said. “She has been
on methadone ever since.
She takes medication every
day and she’s not interested
in getting off. We’re not
going to push someone out
of treatment.”
Owen said the Oregon
Health Authority encour-
aged his group to open a
clinic in Pendleton in order
to fill a niche in rural North-
east Oregon. Owen could
see the need — the com-
pany’s Bend clinic often
gets calls from the Pend-
leton vicinity. He said the
closest options for metha-
done treatment are in Bend,
Portland and Boise. Ore-
gon Recovery and Treat-
ment Center will receive
about $1.28 million to
expand opioid treatment in
Pendleton, Klamath Falls
and Newport, along with
the current three locations.
The Targeted Response to
the Opioid Crisis grant cov-
ers such things as train-
ing and outreach efforts.
Financing comes from the
Mental Health Services
Administration.
“In 2015, only seven
counties had at least one
opioid treatment program,
and six of those were on
the I-5 corridor, despite a
high need for services in
rural Oregon,” said Saerom
England,
spokeswoman
for the Oregon Health
Authority.
Owen said the location
in a strip mall near Walmart
is ideal because of proxim-
ity to a Kayak Public Trans-
portation stop, Interstate
84 and ample parking. The
building is one-story and
ADA accessible.
Pendleton has one other
facility geared to helping
people kick opioids. Psy-
chiatrist Joel Rice, who runs
the Grande Ronde Recov-
ery Center, prescribes Sub-
oxone, with active ingre-
dients buprenorphine and
naloxone, to help addicts
break free. Though Sub-
oxone is also addictive,
addicts’ brains clear and
they can start getting their
lives in order as they wean
off the drug.
The new clinic will
also offer Suboxone as
an alternative to metha-
done. Which medication
is prescribed, Owen said,
depends on the client, the
depth of his or her addic-
tion and other factors.
Sometimes people simply
feel more comfortable with
one therapy than another.
Methadone clinics have
gotten a reputation as mag-
nets for crime, but several
studies, such as one con-
ducted by the Johns Hop-
kins Bloomberg School of
Public Health, suggest the
reputation is undeserved.
Owen said he anticipates
“reduced criminality in the
community.”
He and program direc-
tor Amber Latham met
with some community
health leaders in Novem-
ber to introduce the com-
ing treatment center. Uma-
tilla County Public Health
Administrator Jim Setzer
attended the session and
got a good vibe.
“I am glad to see them
coming to Pendleton and
Umatilla County,” Setzer
said. “We currently have
an acute shortage of treat-
ment facilities and options
for the large number of
people in our county who
could benefit greatly from
the kind of therapy and
treatment this facility will
offer.”
Owen said he can’t pre-
dict the number of clients
the new clinic will attract.
It’s not a simple matter of
an area’s population.
“We’ve learned you
don’t really know until the
doors open,” Owen said.
“Springfield opened April
23 and has about 80 cli-
ents. Bend (which opened
several years ago) hov-
ers between 260 and 285.
Grants Pass (open for a
year and a half) has well
over 300 and is still grow-
ing even though it is the
smallest community.”
———
Contact Kathy Aney at
541-966-0810.
Roberts has long warned
that overproduction of legal
marijuana would fuel the
black market instead of hin-
der it, but Krenzler took a
more optimistic view.
Krenzler cautioned that
some of that 1 million pounds
were trimmings and stems
used for extraction for other
marijuana products rather
than smoking, but he antic-
ipated the lower prices that
resulted from oversupply
would be “the new normal.”
He acknowledged that
some farms were prone to
selling their surplus on the
black market, but predicted
that more professional grow
operations would eventually
replace the offending farms
once their licenses were
revoked.
Lower marijuana prices
haven’t caused Kind Leaf
to shrink its operations.
Purchase said Kind Leaf
employs 19 full-time posi-
tions, three part-time posi-
tions and is short-staffed by
about two to three people.
Roberts spoke about how
the cannabis market has
affected public safety.
He said it was difficult to
quantify the effect, but he
noted a few general trends.
Roberts said police have
found more marijuana para-
phernalia at the elementary
school level and cannabis
edibles in the middle school
and high schools.
There is no objective way
to accurately determine if
someone is driving under
the influence of marijuana,
but Roberts said that city law
enforcement has seen an 11
percent increase in the num-
ber of drivers who answer
affirmatively when police
ask them if they’ve con-
sumed marijuana in the past
24 hours. But he also added
that smoking marijuana in
the past day doesn’t mean
their driving is affected by it.
Roberts said they also
deal with people who are
smoking marijuana in pub-
lic, which is prohibited by
Oregon law.
Purchase said the state
could solve that prob-
lem by legalizing mari-
juana lounges, indoor pub-
lic spaces where people can
smoke marijuana in a social
setting.
Kind Leaf frequently
advises customers that they
can’t smoke cannabis pub-
licly, Purchase said, but peo-
ple who shop at Kind Leaf
from outside the area often
don’t have a place to con-
sume what they buy.
Not wanting to get high
before they drive, Purchase
said some of these customers
go down to the nearby levee
to smoke their joint.
Marijuana lounges would
give these customers a place
to smoke the cannabis they
purchased, with Krenzler
adding that ventilation and
filtration systems prevent
these business from becom-
ing dense with marijuana
smoke.
Cress, the city planner,
said Pendleton zoning rules
for marijuana businesses
would need to change if the
state incorporated lounges
into the mix.
Cress has only been on
the job for a few months, but
he was working for the city
of Forest Grove when it went
through its own legalization
process.
Although public hearings
about marijuana businesses
can get contentious, Cress
said there doesn’t appear to
be a need to limit the number
of dispensaries in town.
Pendleton has three can-
nabis retailers (the city plan-
ning commission approved
a fourth store, but it has yet
to open), and Cress said they
don’t have any other applica-
tions coming down the pike.
“It’s sorting itself out,” he
said.
Cress didn’t know of any
businesses that have moved
out of town because of the
marijuana industry, and even
if they did, they wouldn’t
have very many places to go.
Oregon already has 151
cannabis retailers across the
state, and marijuana sales
are also legal in Washington,
California and other western
states.
Cress said the mayor of
Forest Grove used to tell
him that marijuana got more
votes than he did when they
were on the ballot together,
meaning it was an issue cit-
ies needed to deal with.
It’s not a straight compar-
ison, but a similar event hap-
pened in Pendleton.
While Pendleton Mayor
John Turner was elected
during the lower turnout pri-
mary election in May rather
than the general election
November, both 2016 ballot
measures to legalize medi-
cal and recreational mari-
juana sales received more
votes in 2016 than Turner
did for mayor, even as he ran
unopposed.
ELECTION: Voter turnout higher in Pendleton
Continued from 1A
“I did go door-to-door in
Pendleton and Hermiston,”
he said. “I felt those were
the two areas I was probably
weakest.”
He said he knew more peo-
ple in the northern part of the
county, both in his hometown
and in the Milton-Freewater
area. But he said he did not
have the name recognition of
a three-term commissioner.
He noted that while Herm-
iston — where Givens got
more votes — is a larger city,
the voter turnout is lower
there than in Pendleton.
He said now that he’s been
elected, the work begins.
“I need to work 10 times
harder as a commissioner
than I did as a candidate,” he
said. “I want them to get to
know me and trust me. Once
I have your trust, I want to
keep your trust.”
Givens said he also
hadn’t looked at the precinct
results yet, but that his cam-
paign message was the same
countywide.
He said Pendleton resi-
dents may have perceived
that they weren’t getting as
much benefit at the county
level as those on the west
side, but didn’t have further
comment on the breakdown
of votes by precinct.
He said he felt the loss
was reflective of a statewide
desire for change rather than
dissatisfaction with a specific
candidate.
“We had a number of
incumbents unseated, myself
included,” he said. “It tended
to be all about change. The
voice was saying, ‘We want
change, we don’t care what
kind of change. We just want
change.’”
He said he noticed that
Shafer had criticized him
for his involvement in state-
wide and federal organiza-
tions, such as the Associa-
tion of Oregon Counties and
the National Association of
Counties.
“Incumbent commission-
ers across the state had the
commonality that they had
all been heavily involved
in those kinds of issues,” he
said, wondering if the loss of
many of those incumbents
had to do with a distrust of
government at the state and
federal level.
In the three-way race for
County Commissioner Posi-
tion 1, incumbent George
Murdock did not command
the 50 percent of votes nec-
essary to avoid a runoff in
November. Murdock, who
received 45.5 percent of the
vote, will face challenger
Rick Pullen, who earned
30.5 percent of the vote, in
the November election. Tom
Bailor came in third with 23.8
percent.
Though the race is not
over, the primary was less
competitive in voter distribu-
tion than for Position 2. Mur-
dock won all but four of the
county’s 45 precincts. Pullen
took four precincts, all from
various corners of the county.
In some precincts, Bailor
was able to garner more
votes than Pullen, but didn’t
approach Murdock’s lead.
Murdock’s largest lead
was in West Hermiston, with
134 votes over Pullen in one
precinct.
Friday, May 18, 2018
BRIEFLY
‘Major, major
game-changer’:
Ebola spreads to
big Congo city
KINSHASA, Congo
(AP) — Congo’s Ebola
outbreak has spread to a
crossroads city of more
than 1 million people
in a troubling turn that
marks the first time the
vast, impoverished coun-
try has encountered the
lethal virus in an urban
area.
“This is a major, major
game-changer in the out-
break,” Dr. Peter Salama,
the World Health Orga-
nization’s deputy direc-
tor-general of emer-
gency preparedness and
response, warned on
Thursday.
A single case of Ebola
was confirmed in Mban-
daka, a densely popu-
lated provincial capi-
tal on the Congo River,
Congo’s Health Minis-
ter Oly Ilunga said late
Wednesday. The city is
about 150 kilometers (93
miles) from Bikoro, the
rural area where the out-
break was announced last
week.
Late Thursday, Con-
go’s Ministry of Health
announced 11 new con-
firmed Ebola cases and
two deaths tied to cases
in the country’s north-
west, including one in a
suburb of Mbandaka.
A total of 45 cases of
Ebola have now been
reported in Congo in this
outbreak: 14 confirmed,
21 probable and 10 sus-
pected, the ministry said,
after results from lab tests
returned Thursday.
Trump
President Trump
defends ‘animals’
remark, says he’ll
always use it
WASHINGTON (AP)
— President Donald
Trump on Thursday
defended his use of
the word “animals”
to describe some
immigrants who enter the
country illegally, saying
he would continue to
use the term to refer to
violent gang members in
spite of a sharp rebuke
from Democratic leaders.
Answering a reporter’s
question during a meeting
with NATO Secretary-
General Jens Stoltenberg,
Trump said his comment
a day earlier had clearly
been directed at members
of the MS-13 gang.
“MS-13, these are
animals coming onto our
country,” Trump said,
repeating his language
from Wednesday. He
added: “When the MS-13
comes in, when the other
gang members come
into our country, I refer
to them as animals. And
guess what? I always
will.”
Trump has been under
fire for comments he
made Wednesday while
railing against California
for its so-called sanctuary
immigration policies.
Trump was speaking
at a roundtable with
local California officials
when he responded to
a comment that had
referenced MS-13.
“We have people
coming into the country,
or trying to come in —
and we’re stopping a lot
of them,” Trump said
after Fresno County
Sheriff Margaret Mims
complained about state
restrictions that limit
cooperation with federal
immigration authorities.
“You wouldn’t believe
how bad these people
are. These aren’t people.
These are animals.”