A4
East Oregonian
Saturday, September 21, 2019
CHRISTOPHER RUSH
Publisher
KATHRYN B. BROWN
Owner
ANDREW CUTLER
Editor
WYATT HAUPT JR.
News Editor
JADE McDOWELL
Hermiston Editor
Founded October 16, 1875
OUR VIEW
Tip of the hat,
kick in the pants
A
tip of the hat to the Umatilla
County Historical Society,
who needs to do some reno-
vating and wants help from the Pend-
leton Development Commission.
The organization already raised
a lot of the cash needed for its cap-
ital improvement project but asked
the commission last week for $15,803
to help complete repairs at the Heri-
tage Station Museum and Community
Thrift Shop.
Repairs include fixing a leaking
roof, window replacements, new fenc-
ing and other minor upgrades.
Investing money into a community
organization like the historical society
is never a bad idea. In fact, it makes a
great deal of sense.
The commission should carefully
consider the proposal but, in the end,
give the local group a hand up with
their effort. The action will not only
help the group but also facilitate the
ongoing effort to preserve our history
and celebrate our region.
A kick in the pants to the long list
of intoxicated drivers who appeared
in our police log on Tuesday after the
weekend of the Pendleton Round-Up.
We’ve all been taught since our
school years about the dangers of driv-
ing impaired, and we have all seen
the tragic, fatal consequences that
sometimes come with that decision. It
should be a no-brainer to make alter-
nate arrangements for transportation
when you have plans for a night of
drinking, but unfortunately some peo-
ple never learn.
A tip of the hat to Walmart for
their pollinator garden projects. The
company is planting butterfly- and
bee-friendly gardens at select stores
and encouraging others to do the same.
Scientists have sounded the alarm in
recent years about declining bee popu-
lations. More than a honey shortage is
at stake — bees are a vital part of the
pollination process that helps grow our
food.
A handful of pollinator gardens
across the country is a small step, but
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
The Umatilla County Historical Society has requested funds from the Pendleton Develop-
ment Commission for repairs at the Heritage Station Museum and the Community Thrift
Shop.
we hope it inspires others to look at
what they can do to make the world a
more pollinator-friendly place.
A kick in the pants to the possibil-
ity of a strike at Oregon’s seven pub-
lic universities. SEIU 503 represents
4,500 classified staff who have autho-
rized a strike starting Sept. 30 if an
agreement can’t be reached before
then.
The union has been bargaining
with the universities since February.
The main disagreement centers on
cost of living allowances: The union
wants 3% this year and 3.5% next year,
while management has proposed 2%
increases each year. We hope this con-
tract can be settled at the bargaining
table on Sept. 23, to avoid disruptions
in services for over 100,000 public
university students at the beginning of
the school year.
OTHER VIEWS
FROM HERE TO ANYWHERE
CBD products need
immediate oversight
Making the American
dream a reality
Eugene Register-Guard
C
annabidiol, commonly
known as CBD, may be the
wonder drug that its users
and advocates hope and claim it to
be, offering relief for everything
from anxiety and arthritis to Par-
kinson’s disease and other chronic
health problems. But right now too
little is known about its effective-
ness, side effects and interactions
with prescribed drugs. Federal reg-
ulators need to move quickly to
remedy that lack of knowledge,
both for the sake of consumers and
for a booming new industry.
CBD is a naturally occur-
ring, non-psychoactive compound
extracted from hemp and mar-
ijuana. The passage of the 2018
Farm Bill, which legalized hemp,
spurred rapid growth in the indus-
try but didn’t provide a clear frame-
work for overseeing the manu-
facture and marketing of CBD
products. It’s legal in Oregon and
other states that have approved the
sale and use of recreational or medi-
cal marijuana. The remaining states
have adopted a confusing patch-
work of regulations guiding its
availability.
This summer, the Food and Drug
Administration held a hearing and
solicited public comments on how
to best regulate CBD products.
Although it’s staked out regulatory
authority over CBD, the FDA has
done little beyond issue warnings
to companies that make unproven
therapeutic claims, such as cures for
cancer, Alzheimer’s and other dis-
eases. So far, the FDA has approved
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.
only one CBD-derived prescription
drug, Epidiolex, for use by children
with rare forms of epilepsy.
Full regulation of CBD oil and its
various products could take years
to develop, but greater oversight is
needed sooner than that. CBD is
already a billion-dollar industry,
and some experts expect it to reach
$22 billion in just three years. Major
corporations such as Coca-Cola are
poised to introduce CBD products
if and when the federal government
approves using the extract in food.
As The Register-Guard recently
reported, CBD can be found in a
variety of products throughout Ore-
gon, including CBD-infused drinks,
baked goods, snacks, gummies and
tinctures.
In Oregon, CBD products sold
through dispensaries are tested for
potency and pesticides. Those sold
at gas stations and other venues,
however, are not.
“There should be required test-
ing of pesticides, additives, potency,
heavy metals for all CBD products,”
Emma Chasen, a Portland-based
cannabis educator and industry con-
sultant, told The Register-Guard.
“The analytical testing laboratories
should be required to receive fed-
eral accreditation with universal
operating procedures.”
In concert with FDA oversight,
the federal government should fund
more scientific research of CBD
and other marijuana and hemp com-
pounds. Several studies point to
genuine therapeutic benefits, but
more work, including clinical tri-
als, is needed. In 2017, the National
Institutes of Health supported 300
pot-related research projects, includ-
ing $15 million on CBD.
A
stand that no chief had the authority to
nother Round-Up is behind us —
demand this of his people. In his culture,
a week of beautiful September
weather with a dream coming true for everyone must make up their own mind
about the right thing to do. Mahto Nunpa
20-year-old Pendleton High School gradu-
ate Calgary Smith, who took the team roping offered himself and his son as hostages
championship with his roping partner, Jason
while they negotiated further, but the offer
Stewart.
was declined and he returned to his
“When he was just a kid,” Annie
village.
Of course we know the attacks of
Fowler and Brent Kane reported in
Sept. 2001 were not the first attacks
the East Oregonian, “Calgary Smith
on American soil. People tried to
watched the cowboys compete at the
flee, but hundreds were killed at
Pendleton Round-Up, and dreamed
White Stone Hill, many trapped in
of being in their boots.”
a ravine while soldiers fired down
We were also remembering
upon them. Parents strapped babies
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the
B ette
to small travois and urged the dogs
World Trade Center and the Pen-
H usted
tagon that happened 18 years ago
pulling them to run. After dark, sur-
COMMENT
vivors crept away, leaving behind
during another Round-Up week.
hundreds of tipi lodges, parfleche
Would people forget? Some wor-
ried. After all, younger people have no mem- bags of tools and supplies, and the win-
ory of where they were that day or how it felt. ter’s meat supply — all of which the soldiers
The rest of us do, though, and enough time
would burn.
has passed that many wanted to share their
Mahto Nunpa, Powers says, was admired
experiences.
for his eloquence and calm, “that imperturb-
able grace the Buddhists call ‘equanimity.’”
One story I found especially moving was
Looking at his portrait 10 years after Sept.
by Yanktonai Dakota author Susan Power.
11, 2001, she has another vision — “a turn-
On August 31, 2001, she recorded a vivid
ing in his gaze,” like the wheeling of a dog
dream in her journal — four jets on a run-
way, waiting. A group of foreign men who
chasing its tail in circles. She takes it as a
hate us so much they want to bring about
warning.
“our complete economic collapse.”
“I see us like that mesmerized dog, declar-
Power wrote about this dream in “Vision,” ing we’re learned something, we’re changed
by the hard lessons of each generation, only
an essay published in the journal Granta on
to forget and spin back on ourselves.”
the 10th anniversary of the attacks. At the
The day our Round-Up visitors left for
time of her dream, she says, her vision was
home marked another anniversary — the
smaller — she thought stocks might plunge
KKK’s 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Bap-
in value. “Then,” she writes, “the full story
tist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, on
washed over me, like everyone else, and
Youth Sunday, a terrorist attack that killed
I was mortified by the tiny splinter I was
four young girls. I remember that day, too.
shown and believed to be the entire piece.”
“We must be concerned not merely about
Power goes on to describe another
who murdered them,” Martin Luther King Jr.
September attack, this one on her
great-great-grandfather, Chief Mahto Nunpa, told their grieving community, “but about the
system, the way of life, the philosophy which
or Two Bear, and his people. On Sept. 3,
produced the murderers. Their deaths say to
1863, they were drying buffalo meat for the
us that we must work passionately and unre-
coming winter when he learned that soldiers
were approaching. He quickly put on his cer- lentingly for the realization of the American
emonial clothes and with one of his grown
dream.”
To make that dream reality, it seems more
sons walked out to meet them. He had heard
about the uprising of another group of distant clear than ever that we must work together.
relatives, the Dakotas who had been starving Team roping might not be such a bad
metaphor.
in Minnesota, so he may not have been sur-
prised when the general demanded the sur-
———
render of the non-involved Dakotas gathered
Bette Husted is a writer and a student of
on the prairie.
T’ai Chi and the natural world. She lives in
Pendleton.
But he couldn’t make the general under-
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for publication in the newspaper and on our website. The newspaper reserves the right to withhold
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Pendleton, OR 97801