A4 BAKER CITY HERALD • SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 2022
BAKER CITY
Opinion
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Baker City, Oregon
EDITORIAL
Shedding light
on new drug law
C
anceled. Canceled. Canceled. Canceled. Can-
celed. Canceled.
That’s what the meeting schedule looks like
for a committee that is supposed to decide how to
distribute state money for drug addiction treatment
under Measure 110.
It means that there’s another aspect of Measure 110
implementation that is not working. You could add
“yet” to that sentence. We didn’t because we’re not sure
it’s going to get there, yet.
Oregon voters approved Measure 110 on Nov. 3, 2020.
It changed two main things about how the state deals
with illegal drugs. First, much drug possession was de-
criminalized. Not legalized, decriminalized.
For instance, possession of what is defined under
the measure as personal amounts of meth, heroin,
LSD and more became a new level of crime. It was
a criminal misdemeanor, now it’s a Class E misde-
meanor. A Class E misdemeanor is punishable by
a $100 fine. Instead of that fine, a person can seek
treatment at an addiction recovery center.
The second thing Measure 110 did was to channel
money from marijuana revenue sales and from the an-
ticipated savings in enforcement of criminal drug pos-
session into addiction recovery and treatment.
The whole idea was to shift Oregon from criminal-
izing addiction to treating addiction. An appealing
message. We’d guess that’s why Oregonians voted to
change the law.
One problem has been thoroughly reported and dis-
cussed by the Legislature. The measure hasn’t been shift-
ing people into treatment. There’s a lack of teeth. People
who get charged with Class E violations just don’t show
up for court or make efforts to begin treatment. The
measure said there would be no additional charges for
not showing up for court or not paying the fine.
Treatment options must also ramp up across the state
if people with addictions are going to get help. Oregon
had ranked nearly last in the availability of such treat-
ment. Grant money has gone out to kick start that.
Since February, it’s been up to the state Measure 110
Oversight and Accountability Council to decide how to
distribute grant funding. That council has a subcom-
mittee called the Behavioral Health Resource Network
Subcommittee. That committee is supposed to make
recommendations to the full committee.
This is a new thing, though. It’s new for the com-
mittee members and new for the Oregon Health Au-
thority. There’s been confusion — you could call it a
learning curve — about how decisions will be made.
The last meeting of the subcommittee on March 21
actually seemed to go well, from our limited perspec-
tive. Recommendations seemed to be made about or-
ganizations that should receive money in Baker, Mor-
row and Umatilla counties.
But after that meeting, the next six scheduled meet-
ings of the subcommittee were canceled. Main coun-
cil meetings were also canceled. There are apparently
some 300 applications for addiction recovery pro-
grams to go through and make decisions on.
We asked the Oregon Health Authority what was
going on, how many more applications need to be
evaluated, how much money has been sent out and
more. The OHA told us there would be an executive
session on April 6 and the questions would be an-
swered in that meeting.
The notice for the meeting says it is to “discuss attor-
ney-client privileged legal advice and discuss documents
that are confidential with the Oregon Department of
Justice.” We don’t know what that’s about. When we do
know, we won’t be able to tell you. That’s because mem-
bers of the media are allowed to attend executive ses-
sions but not report directly on what happens.
From what we have seen in the public meetings and
the language of the notice, we would guess the executive
session may be about procedure, to clearly outline what
are valid reasons to approve or reject grant applications,
or to discuss conflicts of interest. Who knows. Probably
not a good idea to guess.
Oregonians deserve to know where, if anywhere,
Measure 110 is going right and where it is going wrong.
The Oregon Health Authority and the Measure 110
Oversight and Accountability Council need to be open
with Oregonians about it.
Unsigned editorials are the opinion of the Baker City
Herald. Columns, letters and cartoons on this page express
the opinions of the authors and not necessarily that of the
Baker City Herald.
YOUR VIEWS
Enough is enough: Time to change
country’s direction
our country every day and that will soon
increase to 18,000 a day.
When a president, a commander in
I try to keep up with what happens in
chief, on his first day in office, tells the
the legislature. One thing that caught my
world in effect to come on in and there
eye was an item that said in their last short will be no consequences, that in my opin-
session that the legislature appropriated
ion can only be described as treason. The
12 million dollars to provide lawyers for
open borders has been a godsend for the
the 108,000 illegal aliens in Oregon to
cartels, drugs come in by the ton and over
hire lawyers to fight deportation. I went
100,000 Americans have been killed by
to see state senator Finldley when he was
fentanyl that the Chinese send over to the
in Baker City. He said that it was $15 mil- cartels which use our gangs to distribute
lion. Oregon being a sanctuary blue state
it as subcontractors. They shoot up the
has even passed a law that makes it illegal inner cities and of course the Democrats
to report illegals to ICE. I forget which
call that gun violence instead of gang vi-
county, maybe Yamhill, where the district olence and push to disarm Americans
attorney wrote a letter saying that he had
while understanding that Ukraine needs
three felons that the judge had to release
weapons to fight a dictator. Being short on
because there was no public defender. This history the replay of history and the fall of
has been a problem for some time, a lack
the Roman empire by barbarian invasions
of public defenders. I wonder how long it across the Rhine is now replayed on our
has to go before we say enough is enough. Rio Grande.
If there is money for illegals defense there
I don’t look for much action from Con-
gress. The Democrats want to change
should be money for our justice system.
America by importing future Democratic
We have 7,500 per day illegals invading
voters and Republicans like that cheap la-
bor, more taxpayers, customers, consum-
ers and soldiers for the empire. But things
are changing. The war in Ukraine means
that one-third of the world’s wheat prob-
ably won’t get planted. The possibility of
food shortages because of that is on the
news but that might be looked at as short
term. I won’t use the word global warming
but drought is closer to home. Most can
see empty reservoirs locally. This drought
is not local. It means the West and Mid-
west. It appears that it is permanent and
that means less food. Numbers do mat-
ter. It is not the time to add millions more
people but that is exactly what uncle Joe
Gaffe is doing. At the same rate of inva-
sion there will be 10 million more mouths
to feed when his term is done. This fall it
looks like there could be a blood bath for
Democrats at the polls. Let’s hope so. Goo-
gle Gallup poll: “likelihood of another civil
war.” Time to change direction.
Steve Culley
La Grande
COLUMN
Why Sen. Merkley cares what you flush
I
’m as worried as the next guy about
clogged sewer pipes.
Which apparently is not nearly wor-
ried enough.
Not according to Sen. Jeff Merkley, any-
way.
Lest you be laboring under the mis-
taken belief that there exists a topic which
is either too inane or too distasteful for
lawmakers to stick their noses into, figu-
ratively speaking, I submit, as evidence of
your error, the WIPPES Act.
(This is equally compelling proof that
there also is no topic for which legislators
will not stoop, so to speak, to mangling
our language to contrive a snappy acro-
nym to insert at the top of a bill.)
It’s not that I dismiss sewer blockages as
irrelevant.
They can be quite troublesome.
Especially if you’re on the upstream
side when the flow is interrupted and a
formerly smooth stream becomes an un-
pleasant and fetid pond.
Or worse, a fountain.
But I had also thought of clogs as a
strictly local matter, best handled by the
city or utility district or other agency re-
sponsible for such necessary, but not espe-
cially complicated, systems.
It did not occur to me that, like Russian
invasions and Supreme Court confirma-
tions, this issue might fall under congres-
sional purview.
But then I received an email from
Merkley’s office that set me straight.
Merkley, Oregon’s junior senator, is
joining with Sen. Susan Collins of Maine
to sponsor the Wastewater Infrastructure
Pollution Prevention and Environmental
Safety Act.
Like most legislation, this sounds pretty
vital — at least if you ignore that sopho-
moric, and slightly scatological, acronym.
But the pollution in this case isn’t a car-
cinogenic compound that can also cause
you to sprout new appendages even if you
manage to avoid cancer.
It’s wet wipes.
You know the kind I mean — nicely
Jayson
Jacoby
moistened (pre-moistened, that is) tissues
that you might employ when plain old toi-
let paper isn’t quite up to the task.
These products are particularly popular
with parents whose children are in dia-
pers, the moisture making for a smoother
glide and, as with a new squeegee on a
windshield, a more thorough cleaning.
The problem, as Merkley’s emailed press
release explains in considerable detail, is
that these wipes frequently are flushed
even though the types made of plastic or
other synthetic fibers aren’t intended to be
treated like toilet paper.
It happens that I’ve had a few conversa-
tions over the years about this topic — the
flushability factor, I suppose you could
call it — with officials from the Baker City
Public Works Department.
(Nothing enlivens an ordinary day quite
like a discussion about the myriad items
that make the journey from the toilet bowl
to the sewer system. This is a longer list
than you might expect it to be.)
Michelle Owen, the city’s public works
director, told me in 2020 that wipes —
some of which are branded as “flushable”
— have made up significant chunks of
clogs that have blocked sewer pipes in
town.
Although she also said that wipes are
more likely to plug the smaller-diame-
ter pipes that connect homes to the city’s
sewer mains — and those smaller pipes
are the homeowner’s responsibility, not
the city’s.
Merkley and Collins aren’t pioneers in
the legislative campaign to combat the
threat posed by disposable wipes.
On June 8, 2021, Oregon Gov. Kate
Brown signed into law House Bill 2344. It
made Oregon the second state — Wash-
ington is the true innovator, with a law
passed in 2020 — to require packages of
wipes to include a “do not flush” label.
This seems to me reasonable, even
though I generally disdain the creation
of new laws that deal with issues which
hardly constitute an existential threat to
the public.
I wonder, though, whether a public
awareness campaign — you can imagine
the possibilities with billboards, although
you might not want to — wouldn’t be at
least as effective as a labeling law.
And probably more effective. Food
packages are already festooned with fed-
erally mandated labels showing the egre-
gious tallies of calories, after all, yet those
blatant reminders haven’t made a dent in
our nation’s collective corpulence.
(Of course it’s also possible to grab a
handful of chips with your eyes closed, so
as to avoid seeing those shameful mea-
surements of saturated fat and milligrams
of salt.)
Merkley and Collins’ bill includes both
labeling and publicity — the latter includ-
ing $5 million in grants “to support and
expand education and outreach activities”
with the basic message, as I understand it,
of telling people to quit flushing wipes.
(Not that federal officials could ever
be satisfied with such straightforward
advice.)
I’m not so sanguine, though, about
Congress mucking around in this matter
after reading, again from Merkley’s press
release, about what the bill calls for.
Specifically, the legislation “directs the
Federal Trade Commission, in consulta-
tion with the Environmental Protection
Agency to issue regulations on “Do Not
Flush” labeling requirements.”
I can scarcely conceive of the piles of
paperwork, and the terabytes of data, that
will be generated when two massive fed-
eral agencies get together to hash out any-
thing. I daresay the environmental effects
from the paper alone would offset any
benefits to be derived from keeping wet
wipes out of our nation’s sewer pipes.
Jayson Jacoby is editor of the
Baker City Herald.
CONTACT YOUR PUBLIC OFFICIALS
President Joe Biden: The White House, 1600
Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C. 20500; 202-456-
1111; to send comments, go to www.whitehouse.gov.
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley: D.C. office: 313 Hart Senate
Office Building, U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C., 20510;
202-224-3753; fax 202-228-3997. Portland office: One
World Trade Center, 121 S.W. Salmon St. Suite 1250,
Portland, OR 97204; 503-326-3386; fax 503-326-2900.
Baker City office, 1705 Main St., Suite 504, 541-278-
1129; merkley.senate.gov.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden: D.C. office: 221 Dirksen Senate
Office Building, Washington, D.C., 20510; 202-224-5244;
fax 202-228-2717. La Grande office: 105 Fir St., No. 210,
La Grande, OR 97850; 541-962-7691; fax, 541-963-0885;
wyden.senate.gov.
treasurer@ost.state.or.us; 350 Winter St. NE, Suite 100,
Salem OR 97301-3896; 503-378-4000.
U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz (2nd District): D.C. office: 1239
Longworth House Office Building, Washington, D.C.,
20515, 202-225-6730; fax 202-225-5774. Medford
office: 14 N. Central Avenue Suite 112, Medford, OR
97850; Phone: 541-776-4646; fax: 541-779-0204;
Ontario office: 2430 S.W. Fourth Ave., No. 2, Ontario, OR
97914; Phone: 541-709-2040. bentz.house.gov.
Oregon Attorney General Ellen F. Rosenblum:
Justice Building, Salem, OR 97301-4096; 503-378-4400.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown: 254 State Capitol, Salem,
OR 97310; 503-378-3111; www.governor.oregon.gov.
Oregon State Treasurer Tobias Read: oregon.
Oregon Legislature: Legislative documents and
information are available online at www.leg.state.or.us.
State Sen. Lynn Findley (R-Ontario): Salem office:
900 Court St. N.E., S-403, Salem, OR 97301; 503-986-
1730. Email: Sen.LynnFindley@oregonlegislature.gov
State Rep. Mark Owens (R-Crane): Salem office: 900
Court St. N.E., H-475, Salem, OR 97301; 503-986-1460.
Email: Rep.MarkOwens@oregonlegislature.gov