4A - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 4A - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom e iid ig*an Biy Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com ASHLEY GRIESSHAMMER JOSEPH LICHTERMAN and ANDREW WEINER JOSH HEALY EDITOR IN CHIEF EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS MANAGING EDITOR Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily's editorial board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. Imran Syed is the public editor. He can be reached at publiceditor@michigandaily.com. A bill for safet Medical amnesty bill should be signed into law bill in the state House of Representatives that will exempt minors from Minor in Possession of Alcohol charges if they're elping another inebriated person get medical treatment passed the House yesterday by an overwhelming majority - only four legislators voted against it. The legislation, House Bill 4393, will now proceed to the Senate where it will hopefully be passed and then signed into law. If passed, minors would be able to seek medical atten- tion due to overconsumption of alcohol for themselves and others without facing legal repercussions. This medical amnesty legislation would promote safer behavior around the state, and at the University. The state Senate and Republican Gov. Rick Snyder should follow the House's lead and enact the legislation as expediently as possible. Turning to treatment W hen a person has a problem with alcohol serious enough to land them in front of a judge, the legal system's first recourse is to treatment - rehab, coun- seling and sup- port groups. The reasons for this approach SETH are sensible. SODERBORG Giving alcohol- ics a second chance makes it more likely that they will overcome their addic- tion and become productive mem- bers of society. Alcohol abusers are imprisoned only when their sub- stance abuse problem has put oth- ers directly in harm's way. Because we recognize that alcohol abuse can afflict spouses and caregivers; we prefer responses that make it pos- sible for those family structures to continue, at least in the long term. Our approach to alcohol abuse emphasizes harm reduction. We see it as a public health problem, and recognize that some responses cre- ate as many problems as they solve. Sometimes, the legal system treats users of "hard" drugs the same way. But all too often, our first recourse in dealing with abuse of these controlled substances has been to imprison users. For 30 years, the national anti-drug poli- cy paradigm has been to imprison without regard to the broader con- sequences of that punishment. This prison-first approach is tremendously costly and has done significant harm to entire com- munities. We need to do better. And there is good reason to think that treating drug abuse more like alcohol abuse will reduce addiction while minimizing harm. The need for a new approach is readily apparent when one com- pares the United States to other countries around the world. Ameri- incarcerated than hold a bachelor's can prisons hold one-quarter of the degree. That's reprehensible, espe- world's incarcerated people. That's cially in light of federally funded an astonishing number, especially research that suggests white men when one considers that our coun- are more likely to have used drugs try is home to only 4.55 percent of than black men. the world's population. At 753 pris- The right way forward for poli- oners per 100,000 people, the rate of cymakers would be to focus on incarceration in the US is the high- minimizing the harm drugs do to est in the world - almost 1.5 times communities. That requires doing greater than Russia's, more than much more to help drug abusers quit, twice Iran's, three times greater refraining from imprisoning small- than Brazil's, six times China's, and time users and continuing to educate more than 10 times greater than the young people. It also means continu- rate in most Nordic countries. ing to combat drug trafficking. Non-violent drug offenders are a huge proportion of the US incarcer- ated population, Where most coun- tries remanddrugusers totreatment, Prison is not a American druglaws incorporate sen- . tencing guidelines that require jail publi 1health time for even innocuous drug offend- c ers. These laws culminated in a rule tamp ogn tool. that mandated life imprisonment after three federal drug convictions of any kind, and they began with the Reagan-era "war on drugs." Since Many countries treat drug the 1980s, both political parties have offenses very differently. Portu- embraced "tough-on-crime" poll- gal decriminalized all drug use cies that reflected irrational fear of in 2005, limiting enforcement to crime - and politicians' fear of being anti-trafficking campaigns while seen as "soft" - rather than rational expanding treatment resources. analysis of how best to reduce drug Drug use there has diminished. If use. Policymakers who attempted to a country takes an approach oppo- weigh the social costs of punishment site to our own and finds success, against the costs of drug use were 'we should re-evaluate our own ignored. policies, especially when our own It's extraordinary to see how approach does so much collateral these laws have changed the Amer- harm. So far, careful evaluation has ican prison population. The share rarely informed national drug poli- of people incarcerated in the United cy. It's time for that to change. States averaged around 100 people Alcohol abuse cases have already per 100,000 from the 1920s until the shown us how to deal with addic- late-1970s. In the 'early 1980s, the tion while minimizing social harm. rate of increase in the incarcerated We should apply those lessons population jumped precipitously, by making treatment the center reaching 200 per 100,000 around of national drug policy - prison 1983, 600 by the early-1990s, and should never be the primary tool of 750 by the mid-2000s. a public health campaign. Our harsh drug laws have helped create a society in which a black man who came of age in the late- - Seth Soderborg can be reached at '80s or early-'90s was almost twice sethns@umich.edu. Follow him on as likely, by 1999, to have been twitter at @thedailyseth. * 0 Medical amnesty would encourage stu- dents to seek medical attention without the concern of receiving an MIP. Similar laws have been enacted in other states, and they've proven to save lives. Despite increasing admissions to hospitals for alcohol-related injuries, there have been no signs of increased alcohol consumption. The bill will help stu- dents, and delaying its passage any longer puts more students at risk. In January, LSA junior Aditya Sathi, vice speaker of Central ,Student Government's Student Assembly, introduced a resolutioh in support of a medical amnesty policy at the University. Sathi's work paid off, and CSG was able to promote the bill in the state Leg- islature. Students must continue to push for complete legislation to create a safer com- munity. Drinking is a part of the University's culture that isn't going to go away any time soon. Instead of punishing individuals who seek help, medical amnesty will protect them. Scoring schools College Scorecard can keep universities honest President Barack Obama's speech at the University in Janu- ary focused on the main issue pertinent to college students: the costs and benefits of an education. He proposed the idea of a comprehensive college scorecard. Applying to colleges, decid- ing which school to attend and paying for an education is stressful enough without having to scour websites for accurate information to compare schools. The introduction of Obama's College-Scorecard would benefit prospective students and their families, but only if EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Aida Ali, Laura Argintar, KaanAvdanLAshley Griesshammer, Nirbhay Jain, Jesse Klein, Patrick Maillet, Erika Mayer, Harsha Nahata, Harsha Panduranga, Timothy Rabb, Adrienne Roberts, Vanessa Rychlinski, Sarah Skaluba, Seth Soderborg, Caroline Syms, Andrew Weiner Conservative conservationists the information is accurate. The College Scorecard is supposed to be an easy and effective way to compare the price, graduation rates, statistics on student loans, and the number of students attending in debt. Some even provide potential earnings statis- tics. Hours spent flipping through the pages of the Insider's Guide to Colleges or clicking through collegeprowler.com could be elimi- nated with the introduction of this scorecard. However, the recent influx of stories about colleges inflating their statistics in the hopes of raising their national rank makes this type of continued comparison a cause for concern. A senior official in the Claremont University Consortium revealed that he had been inaccurately reporting SAT scores by 10 points or encouraging students to retake the SAT after already being admitted. Even graduate schools such as Cooley Law School became caught up in the ranking frenzy and lied about statistics to earn a higher spot. The College Scorecard needs to contain true information and not just be another forum for college advertisement. With truthful information, the College Scorecard will help people all over the country choose an education that is affordable and of high quality. MICHAEL SPAETH I Generation of compromise Last week, Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine announced her intentions to leave the Senate due to her frustration with the ongoing political gridlock in Washington. She was a member of a dying breed: a moderate willingto side with the opposing political party in order to reach a compromise that would best serve the interests of the American people. Ultimately, she was unwilling to tolerate the lack of compromise any longer. In an opinion piece in the Washington Post following her announcement, she wrote, "our leaders must understand that there is not only strength in compromise, courage in concili- ation and honor in consensus-building - but also a political reward for following these tenets. That reward will be real only if the peo- ple demonstrate their desire for politicians to come together after the planks in their respec- tive party platforms do not prevail." It's wise for us to take this message to heart during the 2012 campaign and beyond. A CBS/New York Times poll conducted in January found that 85 percent of Americans wanted to see Democrats and Republicans get things done, even if that meant compromis- ing some of their positions. However, Snowe's parting words are likely to fall on deaf ears in Washington. Most politicians in Washington probably aren't going to end the gridlock soon. But eventually, the current members of Con- gress will leave, and those vacancies will be filled by members of our generation. We must be the generation that embraces consensus and compromise even if it comes with personal costs. The real battle for the soul of American political discourse will not be fought today, tomorrow or next year. It will be fought on our terms, and we will win. How will we win this battle? In his 2010 Yale Class Day speech, former President Bill Clinton gave us a hint when he said, "I force myself to listen to people who disagree with me." This is not an earth-shattering revelation, but hon- estly, how often do we actively search for per- spectives that contradict our own for purposes other than mocking or denouncing the other point of view?For most of us, it's not veryoften. All of us should be able to find at least one political position that opposes our own and be able to agree with it. These areas of agreement can be difficult to pinpoint while we're distract- ed by the rhetoric of pundits, politicians and protesters. We won't resolve the fundamental differences in our political ideologies in the near future, but in the meantime, if we focus on finding solutions to the issues on which every- one can agree, we can make important prog- ress to improve the lives of many Americans. Of course, this isn't the only step that must be taken to end the gridlock in Washington. But we have to start somewhere, and the best way to solve an enormous problem is to fix small, manageable chunks of the problem. Most of us won't become politicians, but even as private citizens, we can realize Snowe's vision. Our generation can clearly demonstrate that we want politicians to come together if we get in the habit of finding areas of agreement while we're still young. We must have the courage to compro- mise even at the expense of our own personal interests, in order to best serve the interests of everyone. Compromise is manageable, it's part of our history and it's what the Founding Fathers intended. So let's get started. Michael Spaeth is an LSA freshman. Job-killer. Cemetery for jobs. The regulatory reign of ter- ror. Also known as the United States Environ- mental Protec- tion Agency? From the rhetoric of the Republican presidential KRISTEN candidates, one KILEK might assume that EPA name- calling is a prerequisite for the Republican presidential nomina- tion. That idea, however, couldn't be further from the truth. It was Rich- ard Nixon - a Republican himself - who established the EPA in 1970. The first EPA administrator - Wil- liam D. Ruckelshaus - formerly served as a Republican in the Indi- ana House of Representatives. The- odore Roosevelt, also a Republican, is often considered America's first conservation-minded president due to his campaigns for federal wild- life preservation. Conservatives and conservation have never been mutually exclusive. This year, though, every leading Republican nominee in the presi- dential race either supports a dras- tic overhaul of the EPA or a complete termination of its major functions. Come November, it seems that the Republican-Democrat divide on issues regarding environmental policy will be gargantuan. Presi- dential candidates on both sides are treating the EPA's role as a key vot- ing issue, with Republicans citing its over-spending and over-regula- tion, and Obama looking to expand its influence. An October 2011 national survey conducted by Public Policy Polling found that 78 percent of Americans believe that the EPA should hold corporate polluters accountable for the pollution they release. Though bashing the EPA may be what the Republican party - and its sources of funding - expects, statistics say the American public is not eager to support an anti-EPA GOP candidate. Even Republican voters are voicing their discontent over the extreme anti-EPA stances of their party's candidates. "Not only are these positions irresponsible, they're politically problematic," said David Jenkins of Republicans for Environmental Protection in an August 2011 The New York Times article. His organization aims to restore resource conservation and environmental protection as key elements of the Republican Party's mission. So which Republican candidates do Jenkins and the rest of America have to pick from when it comes to protecting our environment? Well, there's Mitt Romney who believes federal law doesn't give the EPA authority to regulate carbon emis- sions. There's Rick Santorum who has condemned the EPA's limits on mercury from coal-fired power plants. Next there is Newt Gin- grich who believes the ineffective EPA should be replaced with a new Environmental Solutions Agency. Which would, according to his website, "use incentives and work cooperatively with local govern- ment and industry to achieve bet- ter environmental outcomes." He maintains that, "contrary to popu- lar belief, America has more energy than any nation on earth." Finally, Ron Paul simply feels that the EPA is unconstitutional because it con- flicts with private property rights and therefore should be eliminat- ed. Obama, on the other hand, emphasizes the importance of spending federal funds for environ- mental protection. "We don't have to choose between dirty air and dirty water or a growing economy. We can make sure that we are doing right by our environment and, in fact, putting people back to work all across America," Obama said in a Jan. 10 speech to EPA employees. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has replied to Republican attacks with a similar stance, often refer- encing EPA job creation and the lives saved by EPA projects. In a January speech at the annual Ever- glades Coalition conference, Jack- son told the Associated Press that the Clean Air Act has saved hun- dreds of thousands of lives and in the long run, it has saved billions of U.S. dollars. Not every Republicans is against the EPA.* Though the Republican presi- dential candidates present EPA as a roadblock to business and Ameri- can jobs, eliminating the organi- zation is far from a single-handed solution to the nation's unemploy- ment problems. It may, however, halt environmental initiatives that our government has fought to improve over the past 40 years. I don't doubt that the EPA could run more efficiently. Under the Bush and Obama administrations, our national debt has continued to skyrocket, and it's time to watch our federal spending and cut cor- ners where possible. But eliminating the EPA is most definitely not possible. Replacing our financial debt with environmen- tal exploitation will only bring about a different kind of debt - one that future generations will have to pay for when searching for clean water, air and land in the years to come. - Kristen Kiluk can be reached at kkilukfumich.edu. CONTRIBUTE TO THE COVERSATION Readers are encouraged to submit letters to the editor and viewpoints. Letters should be fewer than 300 words while viewpoints should be 550-850 words. Both must include the writer's full name and University affiliation. Send submissions to tothedaily@michigandaily.com