A4
Opinion
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Combating
addiction takes
science, awareness
A
ccording to Dwight
Holton, many modern
tragedies begin with an
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Crime, mental health
breakdowns, even suicide and
homicide can often be traced
back to a pill or a poison —
some brains are just wired
to be susceptible to outside
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systems of care and punishment
our society has in place don’t
do much to get to the root of
the problem, or save people
who are in danger of hurting
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Holton is a former federal
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by the time he got involved
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already been hurt, bad decisions
had been made, lives had been
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In 2014 he took over as
director of Lines for Life, a
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has twin goals of preventing
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wanted to get involved early,
to prevent the bad decisions
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substance abuse and suicide
are different threats, Holton
said they are nearly always
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In the course of his new
work, he quickly realized that
the major source of substance
abuse problems in Oregon
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They kill more Oregonians
— hundreds a year — than
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a major factor may be that
Oregonians think prescription
pills are safer than they
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these things are legal, they
are given to me by my doctor
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What’s the downside?
Addiction can cause people
to do terrible things outside
their own nature – to lie
and cheat and embezzle and
burgle and assault and even
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cycle of depression and broken
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So how can the state reduce
the number of people laid low
by prescription pills? Holton’s
plan is to reduce the number
of prescribed but unnecessary
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such pills are prescribed in
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wants more places where
patients can dispose of unused
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treatment and less-addictive
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There is a lot to talk
through and plenty to think
about, which is why Holton
has taken his crew on the
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Grande to start a discussion
about identifying best
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There is no easy answer to
the problem of prescription
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learn more about addiction,
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medicines to reduce the
likelihood they will be
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to boost awareness of how
dangerous prescription opioids
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necessary, discard them when
you’re through, and if you think
you have a problem get help
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(call the helpline at 1-800-923-
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Blue Mountain
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Grant County should take
lead … and talk about it
perience the high-
est rate of intimate
partner
violence,
The children and teens of to-
almost triple the
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important for us as caring adults,
Victims of sexual
parents and communities to help
assault – includ-
Matt
set young people on the path for a
ing teenagers and
Ipson
healthy future and support them as
young adults – may
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face
long-lasting
April is Sexual Assault Aware- HIIHFWV 6H[XDO YLROHQFH DOVR KDV
ness Month, and this year it is im- a profound impact on a victim’s
portant that we take this time to re- family, friends, neighbors, and the
member that sexual abuse is not just FRPPXQLW\DWODUJH
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By learning and talking about
this month, It’s time ... to talk about healthy adolescent sexuality, adults
it! This campaign encourages indi- are able to support the teens in their
viduals and communities to support OLYHV,W¶VWLPHIRUDGXOWVDQGFRP-
KHDOWK\VH[XDOGHYHORSPHQW
munities to be a resource to teens
Young people face many chal- VRWKH\OHDUQDQGJURZ
OHQJHV GXULQJ DGROHVFHQFH 6WH-
Grant County should take the lead
reotypes and negative messages in in raising awareness and preventing
the media don’t make this process VH[XDOYLROHQFH
HDV\
How can we support teens during
Girls and young women be- this time of change and discovery?
tween the ages of 16 and 24 ex- Young people need age-appropriate
By Matt Ipson
To the Blue Mountain Eagle
Access at risk
information about healthy sexuality
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play a role in modeling healthy be-
haviors, promoting positive skills,
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important to empower the voices of
youth and challenge negative, un-
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To create a vision for a future with-
out sexual violence, every voice can
play a role in a healthier, safer to-
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You can use your voice to start
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the voices of young people, and to-
gether we can amplify our voices for
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It’s time ... to talk about it!
– Matt Ipson is the deputy district
attorney for Grant County.
L ETTERS TO THE E DITOR
To the Editor:
What the government giveth, the
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in mind after you have read the April
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What gave me a chuckle is the
statement by one letter writer that the
Grant County Ordinance 2013-01,
designed to protect our forest access,
was only signed by the three on the
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aware that our entire forest access
can be wiped out with the signature
of one man?
That signature is attached to 300-
plus pages of indecipherable docu-
ments compiled by a staff of which
90 percent are not from this area and
are lacking knowledge and under-
standing of our unique forest, histo-
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The “kiss and make up” approach
to a solution comes much too late,
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of Grant County” that the writer
fears may make decisions affecting
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are called the Blue Mountains Forest
Partners whose leadership originated
out of state and from Oregon’s met-
ropolitan areas, following the dollar
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Congress has messed with our
Constitution so much that nothing
is clear anymore, except for the fact
that we, the people, are not part of
their agenda that continues to smell
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Bob Kerr
Canyon City
The movie math
To the Editor:
Some time in the last few days,
someone put an entry on Facebook
about how they missed the theaters
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They told how they enjoyed going to
the theaters on the weekends with all
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Well, folks, it wasn’t our dru-
thers to close the theaters – walk-in
and drive-in – but it got to the point
where we just couldn’t keep the
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some time since we were in opera-
tion, and people are still telling us
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But what it came down to is, that
there was not enough business to
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have had 15,000 people to draw
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A handful of patrons coming to the
theater a couple times a year just
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We survived television, home
movies, DVDs and all that, but we
couldn’t overcome Dish and Direct
and any other satellite company that
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up a dish anywhere in the county and
stay home with a bunch of friends
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So when you are taking in $20 dol-
lars and spending $50 to stay open,
well ask any mathematician, it can’t
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We could not have stayed in busi-
ness anyway when the movie indus-
try forced every theater to change
to digital projectors to the tune of
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of a lot of small theaters, and those
that were able to survive did so with
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Dean and Betty Elliott
Canyon City
Perils of pot?
To the Editor:
Last October Josephine County
Circuit Court Judge Wolkes ruled
that neither Oregon law pertaining to
so called medical marijuana prohib-
its cities from prohibiting medical
marijuana dispensaries in their juris-
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The term “medical marijuana”
LV D VFDP DQG VXEWHUIXJH$V D
year former resident of Burns I con-
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so why has he seemed not only to
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communities but has introduced
legislation to speed it up? To the
senator’s credit he did attempt to in-
troduce legislation prohibiting pack-
aging of so-called medical marijuana
products directed towards children,
which was strongly and unbeliev-
ably rejected by the Democrats, led
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many people are on welfare even
when jobs become available? Be-
cause many are addicted to marijua-
na which is more important to them
then their spouses, their children
or getting clean so they can pass a
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responsible employer is going to risk
the liability and hire marijuana-laced
employees to operate equipment or
interact with customers? Of course
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The politicians may not under-
stand the terrible long-term conse-
quences of their actions; they may
have been bought and paid for, as
history has shown to occur numer-
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What other reasons could there be
for these stands? Because two or
three large-population drug-infested
ultra-liberal counties voted for (mar-
ijuana legalization) … really, give us
a break!
The families of Grant County, as
all Oregonians, expect their children
to go to school without being intro-
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of drugs into the communities, chil-
dren will steal their addicted parent’s
marijuana and bring it to school to
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ways ends up in the hands of the
children – always!
Frank C. Gardner
Fernley, Nev.
W HERE TO WRITE
Washington, D.C.
The White House, 1600 Pennsyl-
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20500; Phone-comments: 202-456-
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Suite 1250, Portland, OR 97204;
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etters policy: Letters to the Editor is a forum for Blue Mountain Eagle readers to express themselves on local, state, national or world issues. Brevity
is good, but longer letters will be asked to be contained to 350 words. No personal attacks; challenge the opinion, not the person. No thank-you letters.
Submissions to this page become property of the Eagle. The Eagle reserves the right to edit letters for length and for content. Letters must be original and
signed by the writer. Anonymous letters will not be printed. Writers should include a telephone number so they can be reached for questions. Deadline is 5
p.m. Friday. Send letters to editor@bmeagle.com, or Blue Mountain Eagle, 195 N. Canyon Blvd., John Day, OR 97845; or fax to 541-575-1244.
