Our readers' views, June 30, 2009

"We really like the way downtown Vancouver has developed," is the quote from Chris Girard, president and chief executive officer of Plaid Pantry, which will be opening a new store at 6th and Washington in downtown Vancouver, as reported in the June 23 story "Plaid Pantry Coming to Downtown." Contrast that with the June 19 letter "Downtown: Plethora of emptiness" from Alfred P. Maurice, who sees only empty storefronts and "downtown emptiness."

As a downtown business owner, I totally agree with Girard. Anyone who walks along Main Street will see that most storefronts are filled with restaurants, bars, a new theater, art galleries, a new dance ballroom and other active businesses. Office buildings house banks, professional firms and private practices. Notice the busy parking spaces on weekends during the Farmers Market or weekend evenings when people head downtown for dinner, drinks and movies or the First Friday Art Walk.

And the Esther Short Park summer concerts and wine and jazz festival haven't even started yet.

To say that downtown Vancouver is "empty" is a disservice to downtown residents, business owners and the rest of the community. And it's just plain incorrect.

Katlin Smith

Vancouver

Regarding the June 20 story, "Clinic's addicted clients require help," I have a hard time understanding how 800 Payette Clinic patients can be branded as doctor-shopping pain-pill junkies without ever mentioning their initial physical diagnoses. Wouldn't each patient have to have a medical problem for a doctor to prescribe pain medications?

When the DEA reports that half the patients are addicted to narcotics, does it have access to each individual's medical records? How does that happen in this era of medical privacy laws?

If these patients were given a pain-management plan that involved narcotics, would their physical problems disappear if you took them off their medication? I can't imagine 800 people processing through the Payette Clinic and being prescribed these drugs without a physical diagnosis to justify them.

Have each of the 800 patients been offered alternative treatment, or have they all been branded as junkies? Are the alternatives comparable in cost and effectiveness? Are the alternatives covered under each individual's insurance? Are alternatives available to people without insurance?

Maybe if these people were treated as individuals with physical problems instead of being branded as the Payette Clinic's "addicted patients" we could move past this unfortunate witch hunt.

James Scheuffele

Washougal

A misinformed complaint by an Oklahoma senator — recently reported by media outlets — regarding a $148,000 federally-funded study at Washington State University Vancouver does a disservice to both the scientific community and to people suffering chronic pain. As vice president for research and dean of the graduate school at WSU, I believe it is misleading to characterize the research as a "marijuana study" when in fact it is a chronic pain treatment study. The objective is to examine interactions between "cannabinoids" and "opioids" in the brain. If preliminary data are correct, these interactions could provide ground-breaking treatments.

The principal scientist at WSU Vancouver, neuroscientist Michael Morgan, has conducted extensive research into how the brain deals with pain control, focusing largely on the role of morphine. One of Morgan's students found that morphine is much more effective when followed by treatment with compounds extracted from marijuana plants.

Breakthroughs in this area could impact not only medicine and the quality of human life, but could have major economic-development implications. Chronic pain affects millions and costs billions of dollars annually in lost productivity and medical costs. This grant has the potential to be an extremely cost-effective investment in health care and the economy if better treatments for pain can be developed as a result.

Howard Grimes

Pullman

There is strong concern about an existing natural gas pipeline that runs through the Columbia River Gorge. It was built in 1956. Williams Northwest pipeline has owned and operated this line since the 1980s, and in our area, it has not yet used the "smart pigging" device to detect corrosion. Williams has scheduled this to be done in 2012, but I don't feel that this is a responsible decision to wait on when ensuring our community's safety.

Many pipelines this old have leaks and corrosion, and, consequently, they do explode.

In addition, Williams proposes a second pipeline — the Blue Bridge Pipeline Project. Its route runs through the middle of rural residential communities. With Williams not taking the appropriate measures to ensure our safety with the current pipeline, this leaves our community feeling even more concerned about constructing another pipeline.

As stated by the Pipeline Hazardous Materials and Safety Administrations, significant events nationwide from 1988 to 2008 have included 6,042 incidents, 427 fatalities, 1,805 injuries, more than $3.8 billion in property damage, and more than 2.8 million barrels lost. Williams Northwest should be fully held accountable for ensuring the safety of communities through which it constructs pipelines.

Kristine Stein

White Salmon

Sometimes after reading letters to the editor, I have to wonder at the quality of education in our state. Phrases such as "fascist/socialist/communist narcissist" (June 18) are nonsensical and meaningless. Does Washington provide dictionaries to schools? How about teachers of English and civics? Who are the teachers of students who come out of school willing and able to use these terms? I wonder at the writer of that phrase. It says more about him than about the object of his letter.

Vivian E. van Dijk

Brush Prairie