November 11, 2015

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OPINION Caring for our veterans

WEDNESDAY november 11, 2015 VOL. CX X XI, NO. 100 131st Year of Publication

MATT MANTICA President JILL CASTELLANO Editor-in-Chief SHAWN KELLEY Opinion Editor LUKE CHEN Director of Online Projects LAUREN FEINER City News Editor

guest column by mike felker

E

very day, more than 50 Americans take their lives with a bullet — of these, approximately 15 are veterans.

Twelve Marines from the same battalion committed suicide with guns after returning from serving in Afghanistan.

Because they know how to use firearms, female veterans are six times more successful at committing suicide than nonveteran women.

As a Navy hospital corpsman, I served as a combat medic with the United States Marines in the war in Vietnam, providing emergency medical treatment for our troops who

were the victims of guns and other weapons. This is what happened to one Marine who was shot in the chest while we were on a patrol in Vietnam: After the bullet perforated the layers of skin, muscle and bones, it traveled through his body, shearing, tearing and crushing the tissue and organs in its path. It produced a cavity that filled with blood from ruptured blood vessels. His heart continued to pump blood from the bullet hole in the heart wall, filling the chest cavity at a rate of about five quarts a minute.

But there was no pressure to carry blood through the aorta and arteries. I tried to save him

by putting a dressing over the wound and administering artificial resuscitation. But with

quet around the remains of the leg, wrap a battle dressing over the stump, start an intravenous

As a 20 year old returning from the war I was overwhelmed by memories; 45 years later I am still overwhelmed.” no blood, there was no oxygen — just death. Other casualties I cared for were Marines who stepped on landmines hidden in the ground. In most cases, the mine would destroy the foot and part of the limb. I’d tie a tourni-

solution of plasma and give the wounded man a morphine injection. While waiting for the medivac helicopter to arrive to take the wounded man to where he could get more extensive medical treatment, I’d try to be

as comforting as possible. Two other corpsmen and I performed a tracheotomy to try to save a Marine who had the top of his head blown off by a mine in a tree, but we failed and he died.

As a 20 year old returning from the war I was overwhelmed by memories; 45 years later, I am still overwhelmed. From my experiences I have some understanding how difficult it can be for younger veterans dealing with the despair and heartbreak of war. We must do all we can to provide the resources and outreach needed by Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans to cope with memories of combat and post-traumatic stress disorder.

We need to increase awareness that suicides can be prevented, increase understanding of the strong link between firearms and suicide.

We must do all we can to help our veterans.

We must do all we can to stop the epidemic of suicide.

MIKE FELKER was a U.S. Navy hospital corpsman from 8/68 - 8/72. He was a medic in the First Marine Division in Vietnam from 12/6912/70. He is currently the Graduate Coordinator, Dept. of Computer & Information Science. His email address is mfelker@cis.upenn.edu.

KRISTEN GRABARZ Campus News Editor

A letter to President Gutmann

CLAIRE COHEN Assignments Editor PAOLA RUANO Copy Editor RILEY STEELE Senior Sports Editor COLIN HENDERSON Sports Editor LANE HIGGINS Sports Editor HOLDEN MCGINNIS Sports Editor CARTER COUDRIET Creative Director KATE JEON Design Editor JOYCE VARMA Design Editor HENRY LIN Online Graphics Editor IRINA BIT-BABIK News Photo Editor ILANA WURMAN Sports Photo Editor TIFFANY PHAM Photo Manager AARON KELLEY Video Producer

MEGAN YAN Business Manager SAM RUDE Advertising Manager ALYSSA BERLIN Marketing Manager EMMA HARVEY Analytics Manager MAX KURUCAR Circulation Manager

THIS ISSUE EVAN CERNEA Associate Copy Editor KATARINA UNDERWOOD Associate Copy Editor LUCIEN WANG Associate Copy Editor KAILASH SUNDARAM Associate Copy Editor SUNNY CHEN Associate Copy Editor NICK BUCHTA Associate Sports Copy Editor

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ear President Gutmann, We write to you on behalf of Abuse and Sexual Assault Prevention, a student organization on campus dedicated to fighting sexual assault, intimate partner violence and stalking in Penn’s community. We reference your email in which you addressed the A.A.U. Campus Climate Survey results. Unfortunately, to the students and staff who have been personally affected by this type of violence, as well as to those who consistently work to prevent it, these results did not come as a surprise. We have long understood that sexual violence is entrenched in our community, and that it is bolstered and perpetuated by the institutions of sexism, homophobia, transphobia, white supremacy and ableism.

We truly appreciate your efforts and those of Penn administration in administering the Campus Climate Survey and releasing the results. We hope that the data will be useful when creating new initiatives to end sexual violence, with focus directed towards the campus communities that are most affected. We fully support the creation of new campaigns to raise awareness about sexual violence, such as the national “It’s On Us” campaign and the “It’s On Us Penn” campaign. We thank you for the resources that are available to us, and we are glad that you are committed to redoubling efforts to effectively tackle this problem.

While we understand that you find the survey results deeply troubling, many stu-

CARSON KAHOE Associate Photo Editor

TOM NOWLAN Associate Sports Editor JACOB ADLER Associate Sports Editor CAROLINE SIMON Deputy News Editor

letters Have your own opinion? Send your guest column to Opinion Editor Shawn Kelley at kelley@thedp.com.

Unsigned editorials appearing on this page represent the opinion of The Daily Pennsylvanian as determined by the majority of the Editorial Board.

All other columns, letters and artword represent the opinion of their authors and are not necessarily representative of the DP’s position.

important campus issues, so we ask for your time to meet with ASAP specifically to discuss student concerns about sexual violence in our community.

Finally, we invite you to attend this year’s Take Back the Night and show your personal commitment to standing up for survivors. We appreciate your sending a letter to us every year on Take Back the Night, but this year in particular we

dents have expressed that the manner in which the results were addressed made them feel more like statistics than people. We want to remind you of the importance of honoring personal stories, and would have appreciated your personal mention of support for survivors. We also believe it is necessary to address the rape culture that fostered these extremely high rates of sexual assault. It is critical to first acknowledge the prevalence of rape culture, as well as the cultures of racially based violence, violence facing disabled students, violence against LGBTQ students and other systematic violence before we can positively change our campus climate.

As students, we are eager to hear what initiatives substantiate your promise to make every student safe from all forms of sexual harassment and assault on campus, so we ask: What will this look like?

Will there be increased staff both for supporting survivors and for educational outreach?

We encourage you to involve ASAP and other student organizations that are dedicated to this cause when answering these questions — we understand that culture change is the responsibility of both the administration and the students.

If we are to heal as a community, hold perpetrators accountable and deconstruct the stigma that surrounds being a survivor of sexual violence, we need more resources, consistent support and sustainable, ongoing dialogue with Penn’s administration. We understand that you often meet with student groups to address

The Daily Pennsylvanian would like to thank the veterans who have served to protect our freedoms

welcome you to join us in person to either address the opening rally, or to hear the stories shared by survivors, or both.

In solidarity, The Abuse and Sexual Assault Prevention Executive Board

IsaBELLA AUCHUS is a College junior from Jackson, Miss., studying Psychology.

Her email address is auchusi@sas.upenn.edu.

cartoon

Sean mcgeehan is a College senior from Philadelphia. His email is seanmcgeehan@verizon.net.

The real drug policy problem

GUYRANDY JEAN-GILLES Associate Photo Editor WILL AGATHIS Associate Sports Editor

guest column by isabella auchus

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n the wake of Ohio’s landmark vote against legalization, marijuana is clearly the sexiest topic in the drug policy debate. But what’s the most important?

The opioid epidemic — the recent and meteoric increase in heroin and prescription painkiller abuse — poses one of the most serious public health threats of our time. And yet, it receives a fraction of the press coverage debating the pros and cons of marijuana legalization. Did you know that this past month, President Obama unveiled a $133 million plan to address our nation’s opioid epidemic? Likely not.

It’s high time we start making the opioid epidemic a central part of our drug policy discussions.

The opioid epidemic started about 20 years ago in an unexpected place: doctor’s offices.

There was a notion among physicians that pain was vastly undertreated, as well as a belief that patients were more satisfied and less likely to switch providers if they received a prescription during their visit. Naturally, doctors began prescribing painkillers

the quixotic quaker | Hint: It’s not marijuana more liberally. How much more liberally?

Prescriptions of opioid painkillers jumped almost threefold

similar to heroin (a drug most people know is dangerous), and they share similar side effects in terms of high addiction potential

The problem with prescription painkillers is the dissonance between their actual and perceived risk.” from 1991 to 2011. In hindsight, it is unsurprising that this increase had major, detrimental public health implications.

The problem with prescription painkillers is the dissonance between their actual and perceived risk. Prescription painkillers are popularly viewed as a low-risk product, probably because they’re provided by a trusted source (i.e. a doctor). A 2008 study found that people perceived prescription painkillers as less dangerous than Viagra, the smallpox vaccine or even artificial sweeteners.

But in reality, prescription drugs are extremely dangerous. Painkillers are chemically

and overdose potency. In 2013 alone, over 16,000 people died from a prescription drug-related overdose — around five times the number of fatalities of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in a single year — and an estimated 2 million Americans misused prescription drugs.

Aside from the human toll, there is reason to believe that the opioid epidemic may have a particularly severe effect on economic productivity. Opioids — which, in the past, almost always referred to heroin — were typically used by low-income individuals. But it is now middleclass, college-educated adults who are falling prey to prescrip-

tion drug addiction. It is wreaking havoc on small towns across America. Vermont — a state better known for moose sightings than addiction — was so severely affected that its governor made the opioid epidemic the main focus of his 2014 State of the State address. One study estimates that, in 2007, the total economic cost of prescription drug abuse exceeded $50 billion.

Actions taken included fighting the problem at its source: by discouraging physicians from prescribing painkillers. Efforts to this effect included prescription drug monitoring systems to deter practices like doctor-shopping (where a patient visits several doctors to obtain prescriptions) and media campaigns encouraging physicians to think twice before prescribing painkillers.

While these efforts will likely curb prescription drug abuse and addiction rates in the future, it created an interesting problem for those already addicted. When doctors decreased the number of painkiller prescriptions issued, that left fewer prescription pills to be illegally resold, thereby

significantly raising the street price of drugs like Vicodin and Percocet. Many of those addicted were now unable to afford prescription pills. Some found heroin — a drug many of them never dreamed of using — to be a cheaper alternative that provided the same “fix” as a painkiller.

As a result, heroin use nearly doubled between 2005 and 2012, and overdose rates skyrocketed.

To this day, opioid abuse rates — both in the form of prescription painkillers and heroin — are at severely elevated levels, and the human and productivity toll has been gargantuan.

Many important problems are still unsolved in our country’s fight against opioid abuse. For example, research supports that Medication-Assisted Treatment, a combination of medication and behavioral therapy, is a costeffective treatment for opioid addiction. But a June 2015 study found that there is now a 1-million-person gap between supply and demand for MAT. These are the most urgent drug policy problems we can address today. And I hope that

theodore l. caputi these are the issues concerned citizens, media pundits and politicians will begin to broach.

Marijuana legalization is certainly deserving of voters’ and the media’s attention. But we should not let the marijuana debate overshadow our country’s greatest drug policy concern: the opioid epidemic.

Theodore L. Caputi is a College and Wharton junior from Washington Crossing, Pa., studying finance/statistics and mathematics. His email address is tcaputi@wharton. upenn.edu. “The Quixotic Quaker” appears every other Wednesday.