Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. April 7, 2022.
Editorial: Lessons for Pennsylvania drug laws from Oregon, Portugal
Fourteen Pennsylvania counties are currently part of the Law Enforcement Treatment Initiative (LETI), a program launched by Attorney General Josh Shapiro that empowers law enforcement to guide drug offenders toward treatment for their addiction, rather than into the criminal justice system.
It’s a common-sense policy that increases the tools available to law enforcement, keeps some people struggling with addiction out of the dysfunctional criminal justice system, and saves that system money that can be diverted to treatment.
LETI is on a continuum of state drug policies that run from continuing to aggressively prosecute the war on drugs to Oregon’s decriminalization of all hard drugs.
Oregon’s Ballot Measure 110 created a new Class E “violation,” meaning that possession of hard drugs like heroin, LSD and others is no longer a misdemeanor or felony. The resulting $100 fine can even be waived if the person calls a hotline that opens the door to counseling and other health services.
The policy is based on a 2000 law in Portugal, a country that had jailed drug offenders at more than three times the rate of its European neighbors, which resulted in major drops in drug usage, deaths and incarceration. There are differences between the Oregon and Portugal measures, however, and the devil may be in the details.
The first several months of data from Oregon is in, and they’re not encouraging: From January to August last year, Oregon recorded 473 opioid overdose deaths, more than occurred in all 12 months of 2020. Only 1% of people who received citations rang the hotline and requested resources or treatment, about 20 people.
However, these numbers don’t tell the whole story.
The money saved from reductions in arrests, jail time and probation supervision is providing millions of additional dollars for treatment. According to the Oregon Council for Behavioral Health, 30% of jobs in the addiction and recovery workforce are still unfilled, which leads to long wait times for treatment. The new funding is helping address that gap and improve treatment options.
The spike in deaths, according to the Oregon Health Authority, is likely due to the increased availability of fentanyl, which is a nationwide scourge. The social isolation and dysfunction created by the COVID pandemic also played a role.
Still, it’s clear that simple decriminalization is not a cure-all. What about Portugal’s success, though? The Iberian country’s drug program includes “dissuasion commissions” that are much more aggressive about guiding offenders into treatment, including imposing fines, prohibitions on visiting certain venues or traveling, seizure of personal property and community service.
In Portugal, it wasn’t just about the removal of punishments, but the creation of a hybrid system that understands that when people are in the grips of addiction, asking nicely is usually not enough.
Here in Pennsylvania, LETI is clearly a step in the right direction, and we encourage other counties to join the program: In the southwest, only Fayette and Somerset are in. But the state should be cautious about going too far, too fast toward decriminalization. The lessons from Oregon and Portugal are that there’s no simple solution, and that the threat of punishment will always have a role to play.
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. April 9, 2022.
Editorial: Avian flu precautions protect Pennsylvania economy
There is a pretty good chance that a chicken or egg eaten somewhere in the U.S. came from Pennsylvania.
The Keystone State is the fourth largest producer of poultry in America. The U.S. Department of Agriculture puts the number of chickens alone at 201 million, and that doesn’t count other farmed fowl such as turkeys and ducks. Poultry makes up more than 20% of the economic value of agriculture, the state’s largest industry.
Avian flu can be a huge threat. For 40 years, the periodic outbreaks have largely skipped Pennsylvania flocks, but that doesn’t make the potential impact any less scary.
It can be particularly alarming in the wake of covid-19. For decades, we were told another pandemic like the 1918 influenza outbreak could happen again, but as years came and went and it didn’t happen, it was easy to think it never would. Now we know for sure those threats can come to pass.
And it’s hard to get a mask on a chicken.
No, really, when it comes to avian flu, the idea of prevention is taken seriously because birds refuse to socially distance. That means one infected bird can result in culling the flock to prevent spread. More than 22 million U.S. birds have been killed in 2022, making it the worst outbreak in seven years.
That was the year the Department of Agriculture advised strict protocols for biosecurity that mirrored covid quarantines. If you went to a county fair in 2015, you probably didn’t see chickens. Many FFA and 4H groups competed with pictures or cutouts of their fowl because they weren’t allowed to bring them for fear of spreading disease.
There is no threat to human health from avian flu. The danger for people is all economic.
For farmers — especially small, independent ones — the idea of destroying a flock is like burning down a restaurant or store. It’s the destruction of livelihood, but it’s also the only way to preserve the potential to continue. That is why poultry farmers don’t pull punches when it comes to protecting their flocks.
The other impact is for consumers. If you think eggs and wings are expensive now with inflation spiking food prices, farmers forced to put down more and more birds will only drive the cost of a dozen eggs at the grocery store or a dozen wings at the bar all the higher.
That Pennsylvania hasn’t been hit by the flu yet is not a reason for the state to ignore precautions. It’s a reason to embrace them for the good of our largest industry and our individual grocery bills.
Scranton Times-Tribune. April 8, 2022.
Editorial: High price of profiling
For the second time in five years, state police have settled a lawsuit alleging racial profiling in traffic stops and unlawful immigration enforcement.
This week, the PSP agreed to an $865,000 settlement regarding 10 traffic stops of Latino drivers for alleged traffic infractions, in which troopers then attempted to enforce civil immigration laws without jurisdiction.
In 2017, the PSP entered a $150,000 settlement with a Latino man who had filed a similar complaint.
The agency admitted no wrongdoing in the recent settlement but agreed to a policy precluding troopers from acting as immigration officers. The settlement is instructive because, for all of the common discourse about “illegal” immigrants, immigration most often is a matter of civil, rather than criminal, law.
Both settlements flowed from the PSP decision in 2012 to stop collecting racial profiling data. An independent study of pre-2012 data by researchers at the University of Cincinnati found no consistent evidence that troopers stopped drivers based on race, but that troopers were two to three times more likely to search Black or Hispanic drivers than white drivers. They also found that searches of white drivers were far more likely to yield illegal substances.
The agency has resumed data collection on its traffic stops. Gov. Tom Wolf should ensure that the data is used to ensure that state police react to conduct rather than appearances.
Uniontown Herald-Standard. April 8, 2022.
Editorial: Pa. Turnpike needs more transparency
It has been about eight months since an internal Pennsylvania Turnpike report disclosed that more than $104 million in tolls went uncollected in 2020 – information that Turnpike officials initially concealed from the public.
That reluctance by the Turnpike’s hierarchy was due to embarrassment that the switch to all-electronic tolling had not gone as planned and that losses seemed destined to continue piling up.
Transparency regarding the huge loss would only make the embarrassment more problematic, the hierarchy surmised, and those officials subsequently were proven correct.
The Associated Press finally broke through the Turnpike’s initial silence by way of a Right-To-Know Law request. However, the public – especially the traveling public – mostly has been kept out of the proverbial loop on “interesting” financial developments since then, and right-thinking individuals should regard that as unacceptable.
Even work by a House panel in Harrisburg has been lacking in terms of fully opening a window to what is happening at Turnpike Commission headquarters about the $104 million. There is no acceptable excuse for secrecy to prevail on such an important issue involving so much money, but an absence of relevant data persists nonetheless.
What to do? Here is a starter worth implementing immediately:
One good means by which to force Turnpike officials to do a better job in collecting the money owed from an estimated 11 million rides is requiring the Turnpike Commission to provide a report to the public quarterly on collection activity.
Quarterly reporting would provide insight into how seriously the Turnpike regards its obligation to collect as much of the outstanding money as possible – money that could be used for a significant variety of purposes benefiting the toll road.
Or, rather than making real progress in terms of collection, has the commission allowed the number of unpaid tolls to increase markedly instead?
Such a situation would be a slap in the face to all responsible Turnpike travelers who pay their tolls, never expecting a free ride, especially not one resulting from flimsy excuses.
Responsible toll-payers can reasonably ask how the Turnpike cannot feel embarrassed about seeking its annual toll increases when it allows toll scofflaws to prevail on such a large scale.
Does the Legislature have any new or updated collection-strategy suggestions that might provide an incentive for toll scofflaws to come forward with the overdue money, or was all of that talk and criticism of the toll road agency in the legislative chambers in recent months merely shallow dialogue?
The number of toll scofflaws could be indicative of widespread belief among motorists that Pennsylvania is a toothless victim regarding non-payment. The amount of money at the center of the issue is ample evidence also.
The Pennsylvania Turnpike is considered the “granddaddy of superhighways.”
Among “granddaddy-hood” is the capacity for wisdom and understanding.
Unfortunately, much of both has been missing in the embarrassing toll-collection debacle, and it is clear that a number of people are responsible for allowing that debacle to remain unresolved for so long.
Wilkes-Barre Citizens Voice. April 11, 2022.
Editorial: Try these amendments, legislators
It’s hard to say exactly when the Republican state legislative majorities abandoned the legislative process, since they didn’t do much with it even when Republican Gov. Tom Corbett was in office.
But the move from legislating to converting the state constitution into a legislative instrument is in full flower. According to the Spotlight PA amendment tracker, legislators have introduced an astounding 80 proposed constitutional amendments this session — more than in the previous five sessions combined.
This abuse is said to flow from Republican lawmakers’ frustration with Gov. Tom Wolf’s vetoes. But if they’re frustrated, just think how Pennsylvania taxpayers must feel about the lawmakers’ do-nothing obstructionism. To relieve that, here are a few amendments that the lawmakers should pass.
■ Allow adjustments of future pension benefits. Legislators contend that the state constitution precludes any change to the massive benefits that they have awarded themselves, and the merely major increases that they have bestowed upon other state employees and school employees.
In the real world, companies adjust pension benefits all the time, for future benefits not yet earned. But lawmakers, many of whom will be paid pension benefits higher than their current salaries, claim that the constitution precludes reducing even future, as-yet unearned benefits.
That’s most likely nonsense, but to make it clear, they should move an amendment plainly stating that the state can reduce future benefits to reduce the state’s $5 billion-plus annual pension bill.
■ Lawmakers should move an amendment to reduce by half the size of the nation’s largest allegedly “full-time” legislature from 203 representatives and 50 senators. Doing so would save scores of millions of dollars every year but, better yet, produce more competitive legislative races.
■ To prevent the careerism that drives the pension abuses noted earlier, introduce an amendment for legislative term limits. That, along with a smaller legislature, would produce legislators facing time limits to actually do something rather than pad their pensions.
■ Create a truly independent redistricting commission to end gerrymandering, increase electoral competition and ensure fair representation.
The amendment can work to the public good if it used to replace the people who abuse it.
