Page 4 - Dinuba Sentinel 2-28-19 E-edition

Opinion
A4 | Thursday, February 28,, 2019
In My Opinion
DHead end for High Speed Rail
ave you ever thought about The F.B.I. and the what would happen if you Justice Department went to the bank for money (along with National
Fred Hall
Security operatives) would succeed inremovingthe President from office.
Overturning the results of an election by an unelected bureaucracy is about as ugly as
Fred Hall - Publisher Rick Curiel - Editor
to build a new home and about half-way through decided you weren’t going to be abletofinishthejob? Doyousuppose the money provider would simply offer absolution—forgive the money you’ve already spent--and allow you to keep the unused money without having to pay it back?
That’s pretty much the position which has been taken by Gavin Newsom with our always controversial High Speed Railproject. NowtheGovernorsays that the government requesting the return of taxpayer money is all about politics. Duh! Isn’teverythingthat California and its Attorney General Xavier Becerra have done over the past two years about resisting anything the President wants to do to make America great again also about politics?
Finishing the High Speed Rail? There is no plan beyond completing the line from Merced to Bakersfield, which is
so dumb as to make one’s head hurt.
It’s moments like this that make us realize that politicians absolutely think we are so stupid as to believe anything. That’s the problem in any political constituency which has become so one sided as to be unilateral in their beliefs. Yes, there are a few Republicans left in California but so few that we do not fill a single seat beyond the handful in the Assembly and Senate. Democrats have what is called a “super majority” and need not even consider any Republican objections to the stupid adventures of state government.
Xavier Becerra, the chief law enforcement officer in the State of California has—during the first two years of the Trump administration—sued
The United States a total of 38 times, according to The Los Angeles Times. If you have the time, it would be a pretty good idea to read through the lawsuit list and examine the levity of the issues about which suits are being brought.
Space here does not permit us to provide a comprehensive list of items over which our political powers feel so strongly as to go to court and spend ourmoney. Westronglybelievethat once you’ve examined the list you’ll find yourself opposing the politicians or evenbelievingtheircauseisfrivolous. It’s absolutely political and more about “resistance” than the common good!
It just seems to me that the time has come for our politicians stop acting like petulant children and do the bidding ofthepeoplewhoelectedthem. I would emphatically point out that I
am not only talking about Democrats but Republicans as well. It seems
that the media continues to mislead
the American public with the full complicity of most Democrats but some Republicans have joined them.
Let’s set aside the malfeasance of California’s Attorney General for a moment and take a look at both the Senate and the House of The United StatesCongress. Republicansshould have done the border wall while they were in leadership of both houses. Donald Trump had been President long enough for the G.O.P. to have passed much more of the agenda upon which theAmericanpeopleelectedhim. The man had members of his own party in “resistance” because they felt—or maybe it was just hope--that Bob Mueller,
Guest Column
A Drug addiction doesn't start at the border
itsgets. Newlyreleasedinformation indicates there were internal discussions involving the aforementioned agencies of attempting to invoke the 25th amendment to remove the President. That’s not in their purview and such discussions alone are enough to warrant jail time.
Now, with Democrats the majority
in the House and Mitch McConnell
as Senate leader, there can be little doubt that there will not be much accomplished. Nancy Pelosi completely ignored Trump’s attempts to strike a deal, which would involve relief for “the Dreamers” and stubbornly stuck by her position of no money for the wall. One has to be politically blind to ignore the fact that there is, indeed, a crisis on our Southern border involving drugs and human trafficking. The President went to the only other option available and that was to declare a national emergency and take money which was available for parallel needs and protect our security.
Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell and Maxine Waters are among the radical instigators for continued investigations to follow the conclusion of The Mueller probe. Ironically all three are from the very same California which continues to file law suit after law suit in their attempt to thwart the actions of a duly elected President.
As sad as it is, that’s the current political climate in The United States, but it’s no excuse for what’s happening right here in California. The High Speed Rail is perhaps one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the California voter. From day one, the entire project made no sense either in terms of need or viability. Now that it has been truncated to a span between Bakersfield and Merced we are told that it represents an economic boon to thegreatCentralValley. That’sastory that is palpably incorrect and yet our politicians think we are stupid enough to buy it.
Taxpayer money has been taken from everywhere to fund this project, which is over budget and far behind schedule. Money was even taken with the false narrative of it helping clean our air! That was based on Californians giving up their automobiles and riding thetrain. Therehasbeenalong- standing love affair between Golden Stateresidentsandtheircars. Weonce had the finest road system that was the envy of everyone. We now rank near the bottom in the maintenance of that system. Fix our roads and scrap the train. I know that common sense is foreign to most of the people we elect but we suggest they act like adults and move toward a solution that benefits people and not their re-election!
But, as always, that’s only one man’s opinion.
Fred Hall is publisher of the Dinuba Sentinel.
Guest Column
In the battle against opioids, Asaving lives needs to come rst
s a New York State Trooper was handcuffing me days, the success rate is still one in at our State Capitol, I told him, “I lost my son. 10. So Cuomo’s action wouldn’t even This is for him.” move the needle.
Jeff was an amazing kid, a chef, who was 28 when he died of a heroin overdose. I was willing to face arrest at an Albany protest because our elected officials know what they can do to save lives like Jeff’s — including providing resources for longer rehabilitation and after-care, freeing doctors to prescribe addiction treatment medications, and setting up safe injection sites in the event of relapse.
But they don’t. Instead, they stick to old-fashioned rehabilitation models that aren’t working.
When Jeff was alive, no one told us how hard it is to beat an opioid addiction. No one offered us Suboxone or other proven treatments. No one told us about Naloxone, which can reverse an overdose. Give him “tough love,” treatment providers told us, so we did.
Doctors are able to prescribe unlimited amounts of opioid pills for pain, but few of them understand the addiction this creates, nor offer help for it. And none are allowed to prescribe Suboxone or Methadone, which help overcome opioid dependence, without a specialized waiver.
Addiction is an illness. Any patient should be able to say, “I have an addiction,” and hear a doctor say, “I have medicine that can help you.” It should be that simple.
After much struggle, Jeff finally got inpatient treatment, but our private insurance tried to send him home after two weeks. He begged to stay. When he got another week, I naively thought that was all he needed. But with less than four weeks of treatment, only one in 10 avoids relapse. No one told me that.
Jeff was heroin-free for 20 months — more than a year and a half — before he died. I had stopped worrying. Looking back, I can see he tried to tell me he needed a lot more support than three weeks of rehabilitation. He had real knowledge to share, and we should have listened.
If I could have my son back and give him a safe place to use without dying, I would certainly do it.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo touts addressing the opioid epidemic aggressively. One of his recent boasts was a proposal to have insurance companies provide 21 days of care — up from 14 days currently. But under 28
Alexis Pleus
Cuomo could take real action
to save lives, to end this “raging grassfire” as he likes to call it. He could open safer consumption sites, increase harm reduction funding, and expand access to the medicines that treat addiction. Instead he continues to support failing old- school styles of treatment, most of
which require abstinence from all substances.
That isn’t possible for everyone. Keeping people healthy and alive needs to be our priority. They cannot recover six
feet under.
As another member of our group was being walked
out in cuffs, the state trooper guiding her spoke in her ear. “My family has really been impacted by addiction,” the trooper said. “I feel for you all, and I appreciate what you’re doing.”
The opioid crisis affects us all. These are our family and friends. We need to change systems if we want to save their lives.
Small steps like the ones Cuomo takes, and other half- measures all around the country, aren’t enough. Overdose deaths continue to rise as elected officials try to sway public perception that things are getting better. It’s not better.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy.”
This is such a time. We can’t be concerned if a tactic
that saves lives is controversial, or because the message is uncomfortable. We have to prioritize saving lives. We must move forward with courage.
Alexis Pleus is the founder of TruthPharm, a nonprofit that raises awareness and reduces the stigma associated with substance use disorders. Her story appeared first at OurFuture.org. Distributed by OtherWords.org.
s the sister of a brother lost to an opioid When just getting through everyday overdose, Trump’s claim that we need a border life hurts so very much, drugs present wall in order to keep drugs out is offensive to a welcome relief. I don’t think I’m a
me on multiple levels. Fact checkers also report that his claims are not true — a border wall would not keep drugs out of our country.
After the death of my brother a decade ago, I went looking for answers about drugs and addiction. Gabor Mate, a medical doctor who treated addicts in Vancouver, found that his patients had all suffered severe trauma before succumbing to addiction. He wrote a book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, explaining how trauma makes the brain more susceptible to addiction.
That was also the finding of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study. The study surveyed patients about whether they experienced 10 different types of stressful or traumatic experiences (called ACEs for short) in childhood: various types of abuse, parents divorcing, aparentgoingtoprison,oraparentsufferingaddiction or mental illness. Then it correlated their scores with a number of illnesses. The higher your ACE score, the more likely you are to suffer alcoholism, drug addiction, or a host of other health problems.
My brother and I both experienced childhood trauma.
I ended up suffering anxiety, depression, and chronic migraines. He developed panic attacks and coped with his pain by binge eating and using drugs. I’m told the day he overdosed was only the third time he’d ever used heroin. He was alone in his apartment, age 23.
Through random chance, I was luckier than he was. Life dealt us both severe pain, but for me the pain took a form that was less deadly and more conducive to getting help. His death was my catalyst to get therapy. It’s taken a decade, but I finally feel like my life has turned around.
Jill Richardson
better person than he was; I was just luckier. Trauma left him susceptible to addiction, and for some reason it just landed me with 20 years of migraines.
The U.S. has tried to solve its drug problem by cutting off the supply of drugs coming through its borders since at least the 1980s. It hasn’t
worked. Neither has prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. In fact, these approaches have only made the problem worse, and created many others besides.
If we want to cut down on our drug problem, we need to cut down on the factors that cause addiction in the first place. We must work on reducing the amount of trauma, poverty, and despair Americans experience and offer help tothosewho’vesufferedsotheycanovercomeit. We should also reduce demand for illegal drugs by offering safe, legal, and regulated drugs when they can provide health benefits, as medical marijuana has done for me.
Even if a border wall were a cost effective and feasible way to keep drugs from coming over the border (which according to virtually every expert, it isn’t), it would do nothing to address the root causes of addiction in America.
When people are in pain, they’ll find a way to get drugs. So long as there’s a market for illegal drugs, traffickers will find ways to produce them here or bring them in. The real answer to the illegal drug trade is addressing the root causes of addiction.
Jill Richardson is pursuing a PhD in sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. OtherWords.org
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