Author: Lance Garrison
In February 2021, Oregon decriminalized possession of small amounts of all drugs, via a ballot initiative known as Measure 110. The idea was to treat addiction as a public health problem, based on overwhelming evidence that jailing people for having small amounts of drugs for personal use is both ineffective and counterproductive.Since then, decriminalization has been widely blamed for increased homelessness, soaring rates of public drug use and a 68 percent rise in the overdose death rate in its first two years. This spike was far greater than the 14 percent rise in the nation’s overall overdose deaths during the…
Just when you thought House Republicans couldn’t warp the impeachment process any more, here we are, watching them twist and stretch this weighty constitutional provision beyond all recognition — like some grimy wad of Silly Putty pulled from under Marjorie Taylor Greene’s sofa.Opening a half-baked, highly partisan investigation into President Biden was a cheap stunt. But I’d argue that as House Republicans move forward with a floor vote to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary, they are poised to drag the chamber down an even more tortured — and potentially damaging — path.Yes, the Biden impeachment folly is built…
Drifting in the channels of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, it’s easy to imagine that you are in some deeply isolated wilderness, far from the motors of man. Even when the city of Mobile, Ala., is visible in the distance.This teeming oasis of biodiversity — 300 square miles of rivers, bogs, forests, swamps, marshes and open water — is known in Alabama as “America’s Amazon.” It hums with birdsong and busy insects and gently lapping water. I was last out on this delta in 2018, and what I remember most is the peace of a world that feels untouched by human hands,…
Gail Collins: So, Bret — more than 350,000 new jobs in January without an inflation surge! Great news, huh? I guess that means the Biden plan is really working out, hehehehe.Bret Stephens: Just two problems. First, prices for groceries are still too damn high — up 25 percent in the last four years, according to The Washington Post. That practically amounts to a campaign ad for Donald Trump every time people are at checkout. Second, as our colleague Peter Coy observed, most of the new jobs are part-time gigs — not exactly a recipe for voters to feel confident about…
The response that the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, filed is almost laughable in its effort to bury the implications of the state’s position. “This narrow, fact-bound dispute” doesn’t merit the court’s attention, the attorney general wrote, observing that “the Fifth Circuit’s injunction implicates one four-mile stretch of the 1,951 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.” That’s like claiming that the case the Supreme Court will hear this coming week on whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment disqualifies Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy is unimportant because the dispute is over his eligibility for the Republican primary in only one of the…
Learning you have metastatic breast cancer (also called stage IV or advanced cancer) can be overwhelming. You’re having to process your diagnosis and figure out what’s next.That’s where nurse navigators and social workers come in. They can help with everything from managing treatment side effects to explaining your bill and finding financial aid. Their roles are distinct, but there’s some overlap. Here’s how they make your treatment journey a little easier.What does an oncology nurse navigator do?Oncology nurse navigators are registered nurses (RNs) with special training in cancer care. They can help you:Better understand metastatic breast cancer and your treatment…
I miss my friends. We lost one another somewhere along the way, through the pandemic and politics of the last few years, old boys who had known one another since Little League and caught boatloads of walleyes together on Storm Lake in Iowa.We gathered around a pool table a couple of times a week for many years to see where the fish were biting, to learn who is putting up that building on the edge of town and to exaggerate exploits of days gone by. Our political discussions were limited to Hawkeyes (University of Iowa) versus Cyclones (Iowa State) football…
By Susan Rahn, as told to Lauren Evoy DavisI was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in August 2013. It was exactly 9 months after a clear mammogram. I didn’t find a lump or even suspect that I had breast cancer. Back pain sent me to the doctor and eventually led to my shocking diagnosis. Thanks to my primary care physician not assuming I was OK when a urinary tract infection (UTI) was ruled out, she ordered more tests that uncovered the source of my pain. I had a significantly sized tumor in my thoracic spine as well as lesions in…
To the Editor:Re “Covid Vaccine Hesitancy Is Getting Worse,” by Danielle Ofri (Opinion guest essay, Jan. 31):Unfortunately, Dr. Ofri’s language here embodies the misguided approach that too many in the medical community have taken during and after the pandemic, severely eroding our patients’ trust in public health.Reasonable people can disagree about the utility of Covid vaccine boosters in otherwise healthy adults. Indeed the World Health Organization is not recommending updated Covid boosters for otherwise healthy adults or children.Thus, the almost 80 percent of American adults who chose not to get boosted this winter are not suffering from the “heebie-jeebies.” They…
By Bassel H. Mahmoud, MD, PhD, as told to Susan BernsteinVitiligo is mainly an autoimmune disease of the skin that targets pigment-producing cells called melanocytes. This results in patches of depigmentation in the form of chalky white areas on the skin that can range from very small to very large, even covering most of the skin surface.Vitiligo affects anywhere from 0.5% to 2% of the population, both adults and children, and affects people of all ethnic groups and all skin types. Vitiligo, although most of the time considered a cosmetic problem, can have a devastating psychological effect on patients and…